Gardens, Mail, Mushrooms

Another day trip to Blue Moon Gardens.  Texas highways are in better shape than ours and the wildflowers are gorgeous, lots of Indian Paintbrush and Queen Ann's Lace and Black-eyed Susans and others cover the median and the sides of the highway.  No bluebonnets that we saw, but I'd love to take one of the driving trips to see the wildflowers in Rusk County: 

Wildflower Trails/Self-Driving Tours April 15-May 31

Peak season is coming up!

We got another Japanese Maple, milkweed plants, a firecracker plant, daylilies, prostrate rosmary, some sedum, more basil, orange mint, lantana.  Some were chosen for their attraction to butterflies and hummingbirds--others, just because I like them.

Our new Orangeola Laceleaf Maple!

Where will it end up.

Right now it is in the middle of our path, 

and I'm having to side-step around it.

 I love Fountain Grass, but "Fireworks" is a new favorite.

I planted this one in a big pot, but now, I'm rethinking that and may move it today.

Having to reconfigure the garden now that the birches (with their wonderful shade) are gone.  Lots more thinking needed and more backaches in the future.

Outgoing Mail

I found the perfect stamp in my stash to go with the excerpt from the poem I used on this envelope.  Mila likes Sylvia Plath, and so do I, but the best known of Plath's poems are pretty dark.  April Aubade has such lovely imagery--I wish Plath had had more of these lighter moments.

 I used this from the stamp sheet on the back

I wanted to use the dinosaur stamps and found a poem about dinosaurs that I thought Max might appreciate--especially the second verse on the back.  When I read the last two lines, I laughed out loud!

back

And an excerpt from a cat poem for Bryce Eleanor and Prim Paws.

"Arabelle is a calico kitten . . .
helping Grandmother tend to her knittin'.
Over and over, 'round and around,
in skeins of bright yarn Arabelle's wound."

Mushroom

Rain predicted for the weekend, so time to get back to the garden!

Monday...

Well, the birch trees came down on Saturday, and I miss them.  I know they had to go, but it hurts to see the loss of shade and interest.  

Besides being National Card and Letter Writing Month, April is also National Poetry Month.  For the last two years I've included lines or entire poems when sending mail.  The plan is to do some of the same this year.   

Incoming

from Connie

Outgoing

Another Mushroom

More Ideas for DIY envelopes:

*Use old calendars to make envelopes.  Homespun Seasonal Living has a great tutorial.

Homespun Seasonal Living

*Use an old map.  Although I have used paper maps,

 I made this one last year from fabric with a pretty map, 

heavily starched it, and sewed up the sides.

Don't want to make your own postcards?  

Amazon has packs of postcards that are so much fun!  

Travel?  Vintage?  Fairies?  Circus?  Quotes?

These vintage Cosmopolitan covers are so cool!

Spring

The Japanese Maple in the back; leaves catching the late afternoon sun.

I bought 3 Kangaroo Paws which I like because they are so unusual.

 And columbines

I can't plant them yet because we are going to have some too-tall birch trees taken down first.   Every time the tree guys are scheduled, it rains...so things are moving slowly.  It is frustrating, but there is plenty of other stuff to do in the meantime.  

The problem is that right now that in this time of wonderful temperatures, there is also so much pollen.  I weed for a while, do several outdoor chores, clean the patio is short segments because of sneezing and itchy eyes.  My eyelids swell, and I get sleepy.  Allergies become a bigger problem each year.  Yesterday, I came in and tried to read, but ended up taking a nap!

This morning it is raining.  Washing some of that pollen away!

Mail

postcard to Mila

 to Max

Books/Reading

Two ARCs from NetGalley that I've enjoyed recently and need to review on my book blog.

Mushrooms/Embroidery

National Letter Writing Month and Fairy Rings

April is National Card and Letter Writing Month 

I like to send and receive personal mail and have participated in several challenges in the past, but now my goal is simply to send as much mail as I feel like--no more, no less.  The "feel like" varies from week to week and month to month.  :)   April may see more mail making its journey, although I won't participate in a challenge.

If you don't usually send personal mail and want to get involved with snail mail in April, 

here are a few things you can do to prepare:

*Create a stash of new stationery, cards, postcards to make things easier.  So much beautiful stationery is available in stores or online, so many funny cards.  You can buy or DIY.  Over the years, I have collected many cards and postcards I couldn't resist.  Sometimes, I couldn't commit to sending them because I liked them so much. 

*Check out pretty stamps and purchase enough to send a few letters or a lot of letters.

*Make a list of who you might write--with their addresses.  Parents, children, siblings, friends.  A niece or nephew or friend's kid.  Someone who has a birthday, graduation, or new baby.  Teacher, co-worker.  Senator, Congressman.  And you can always write me!

*Letters don't have to be long; a note that lets someone know you are thinking about them will be appreciated.  Include a cartoon or a joke, a quote, a funny list if you like.  Suggest a recent movie or book you enjoyed.  Sometimes all I do on a postcard is include a quote or a stamped image on the address side and a "Hi!"

One of my favorite sources of mail art inspiration, Jacki Long, sends "thank you" postcards with a collage on the back to folks who take her classes, which eliminates having to think of anything to say!  I've done this several times with postcards to the grands.  (A picture, a stamped image, or a cartoon or a joke work as well.)

I owe some mail to folks and have been working on some postcards, just to let them know I haven't forgotten them and to have some extras for later.

I like DIY.  I have a kindergarten mentality.  

Here are some postcard backs I played with yesterday.  I cut cardstock to postcard size or use index cards and then tear up junk mail, those catalogs that keep arriving each month before making their way into the trash, and other bits and bobs of pretty paper, maps, etc.  I apply some stamps and leave room for the address.

DIY postcard backs

 

I'd like to say this is quick and easy.  And it is, if you don't count the time cleaning sticky fingers!  How so much of my glue stick ends up on me is a curious thing.

And look what I found in the garden this morning:  a fairy ring!

Sunday

I do not like DST.  Especially when I lose an hour in the spring.  Just sayin'.


Have to get on the mat quickly or this happens...

Something cool arrived in the mail from PB!

Thank you, Penny!

Just because I love it...

More Mushrooms and the Medieval Attitude Toward Cats

More mushrooms in progress.  Which means that I've been watching more Netflix.

I've altered patterns multiple times, experimenting with various sizes and shapes.

Many don't work very well, and some are quite fiddly because they are so mall. Nevertheless, I've enjoyed the process and have several more ideas to try. :)

 I recently finished a novel by Minette Walters called The Last Hours.  Although Walters is best known for her dark, psychological crime novels, The Last Hours is a historical novel set in 1348 during the first onset of the plague.  Like many others, I've always been fascinated by the Black Death, and Walters explores an avenue that intrigues me.  

An interesting side-note:  The plague has devastated the countryside, entire villages dead or fled.  The Dorset countryside is largely bereft of the living when a character investigates an abandoned building that, unaccountably, has no evidence of rats.  He is initially terrified when a strange creature jumps out at him. A demon with strange eyes?  The young man had heard of cats, but never seen one because the Church considered them familiars of witches. 

When I read the section about the Church associating cats with evil, I was surprised.  I'd never heard that before--which is when I did a little research and found plenty of authentication.   The Church at the time preached against cats, which were associated with witches and the devil and were often killed.  In some areas, cats were essentially unknown.  Some authorities believe that the prejudice against cats was one of the reasons the plague was so devastating in certain areas--the rat population had no predators.

Our cats, however, eat and sleep, confident that their needs will be taken care of by their humans.    

"Nature alone is antique, and the oldest art a mushroom" Thomas Carlyle

During last week's rainy days, I needed something to keep my hands busy as I binge watched Netflix.  In December, when I was trying to make round heads for the snowmen, some of the patterns I made did not work--too pointy, too fat, just wrong.  I stuffed two of them, and they didn't work at all--one way too big, the other too squatty.  (They will make satisfactory pumpkins in the fall.)  

One pattern that I pieced, however, I didn't even bother to stuff.  I pulled it out and turned it into something else entirely.

Folding it it inside itself and adding a bit of stuffing made a neat mushroom cap.  Now I was set to get back to Netflix with floss and needle ready!  The neon green floss did not give the bioluminescent look hoped for, so I switched to other colors.  A rectangle made a simple stem, and I now have the first mushroom for my imaginary forest floor.  

Pinterest has so many beautiful fabric mushrooms and so many ideas!  I have some tiny 'shrooms in progress and will probably continue making them and experimenting until I get tired of it.  Real mushrooms are amazingly diverse in appearance, but fabric mushrooms on Pinterest are varied, too.  :)

The sudden appearance of mushrooms after a summer rain 

is one of the more impressive spectacles of the plant world.  --John Tyler Bonner

The sun is out today, but the rains return tomorrow.

Clearly, the light is bothering Edgrrr.