Heather's Garden

Almost Time!

I love Christmas, watching my friends and family open gifts is one of my favorite things.  That I get to open gifts too is just a bonus.  I've been busy with cookies and gift-wrapping.  We've run out of room under the tree for gifts and even the top of the bookcase is full:

 

I had one cookie swap early in the month and all 6 dozen cookies I brought home are long gone.  I've given away 12 dozen cookies as gifts.  And here are the 11 dozen ginger-molasses cookies bagged in groups of 3 for tomorrow's swap:

  

I made hazelnut-anise cookie dough yesterday and this afternoon baked up a few dozen just for a change of pace.  But this evening I had to make another few dozen of the ginger-molasses cookies for a plate of samples at the swap.  The last of the approximately 500 pre-Christmas cookies I baked this year:

 

I have a post in my head about my indoor gardening endeavors, but haven't found the time to actually take the photos I need for it or type it up.  But on the bright side I've been done shopping and wrapping for ages (or one week which feels like ages when you're staring at all the wrapped packages under the tree).  Merry Christmas all!

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day - December 2010

Carol's been hosting GBBD for years over at May Dreams Garden, and now I'm a monthly participant after years of observing.  Well in theory I'm a monthly participant, though in reality I haven't done a GBBD post since September.  And I have exactly one thing blooming right now, paper-whites in my bathroom and on my desk at work.  They've been fun to watch.  I love when the bud becomes almost translucent and you can see the blooms inside:

 

I got a little arty with it:

 

And then they're in full bloom:

 

There will be more forced bulbs -- hopefully a blooming amaryllis sometime in the next few weeks (though there's no sign of flower stalk yet).  Until then, the prints of photos I took this year in frames on the living room wall are all I have (pardon the terrible photo and the crooked frame on the bottom, it has been nudged back in line now):

 

How do you get through the long winter and lack of blooms in your garden?

The Calendar (For Those Still Seeking Christmas Gifts)

I think I've already mentioned that another benefit of staying home for Thanksgiving this year is that I got the calendars done really early.  It was a great year in the garden and we think this year’s calendar reflects that.  I tried to feature photos in the month they were taken, but couldn’t quite do it.  All photos were taken in 2010 and with the exception of March and July, all in our garden, or at least on our street.  Stick around to the end and there will be information on purchasing a calendar of your very own! 

The cover:

 

January -- It was a rather snowy January and this snow-covered hydrangea almost looks like a snow-covered mountain.  I learned a lot about how to photograph snow in 2010:

 

February -- Another snow shot and for a February morning in CT an unusually blue sky.  My mom and the judge of a photo contest (hon. mention) thought it looked like spring blossoms at 1^st glance:

 

March -- Another sunset viewed from the beach on Marco Island, this one in March during our last trip down in 2010.  I wonder if this will become a yearly entry to the calendar:

  

April -- Does anything say spring quite like forsythia in bloom?  This photos was taken on April 10^th, everything was about 2 weeks early in 2010:

May -- Managing to keep featuring photos in the month they were taken by giving you this shot of osteospermums.  Impulsively buying a $10 pot gave me one of my favorite photos of the year:

June -- This dragonfly came to visit on July 1^st, so close to June!  Early July brought a lot of dragonflies, but this was the best shot by far, though a pretty blue one was pretty unique:

  

July -- We heart Buffalo and our July visit to the Japanese Garden at Delaware Park was the highlight of our trip.  Is the road in the background a distraction or a reminder that you’re in an oasis:

  

August -- 2010 was the year of the tomato.  The weather was perfect and August brought a harvest like this one on a daily basis.  We literally had more than we could eat:

  

September -- Taken in early October when this praying mantis suddenly showed up in the garden – our first!  I wish I hadn’t cut off the tail in this shot, but it’s pretty darn good even without it:

  

October  -- An August spider featured for October, but it wouldn’t be a Heather’s garden calendar without a close-up of a spider to freak you out for Halloween:

  

November -- I should have a really great fall color shot for November, but instead you get this astilbe leaf from April.  I love the sun streaming from above and the stained-glass look of the leaf:

 

December -- Even though we added two butterfly bushes to the garden this year and saw swallowtails for the first time, this Monarch on one of the bushes was the best butterfly shot captured this year:

 

Now the pitch -- each year people tell me I should sell the calendars, so I figured, what the hell, why not actually put some products in the CafePress store I created years ago.  So if you'd like to purchase calendars (or note cards) head over to my store and buy away.  I can tell you from personal experience that the calendars make excellent Christmas presents!

Uh Yeah, That Didn't Work

I did a lot of things right on Friday.  I made a lunchtime trip to Christmas Tree Shops and Ikea and managed to come home without a single item I regretted purchasing (not a frequent occurrence).  I replaced the tiny blue ornaments on the tree with the larger red and silver ones I bought.  See, much nicer:

  

I even pulled out the rest of the Christmas decorations, and set out a few.  But I allowed myself to get side-tracked by a bad idea.  I printed out a bunch of the portrait-oriented photos and put them in the inexpensive Ikea frames, but then had the not-so-bright idea of hanging them in a group in the living room.  So totally didn't work:

 

The just looked wrong.  (And why do the spackled portions of the wall show up in the flash photos, but not in real life?)  When I tried grouping the frames closer together they were dwarfed by the space.  So the large frames went back up with new prints in them, now carefully spaced and straight -- a little better I think:

 

I don't know yet what I will do with the 8 framed photos, I don't think they're going to work over the bed either since the 5 that are currently there are larger and already look small.  But at least the living room looks good.  Tomorrow it will be cookie making day!  The big cookie swap is on Wednesday and I need some for gifts to give out.  I really love this time of year.  What is your favorite part of the holidays?

Holiday Leftovers

It will come as no surprise to regular readers that I compile a calendar each year using photos I took in the previous year.  I'm holding off sharing this year's calendar until the recipients have had a chance to open their packages -- in the mail now folks, hold on!  But I did want to share two things.  First, Garden Rant has kindly compiled a list of garden-related crafts available for purchase (like calendars and note-cards) here.  When they asked for submissions a short while ago I decided that it was time to actually stock the CafePress shop I created years ago.  Be forewarned that if you click overto the CafePress shop you will see this year's calendar and ruin the surprise, mom and dad!  But there are some nice note-cards for sale there that would make good holiday cards.

The other thing I wanted to share with you is my current decorating project.  I still have to clean my bedroom and get all my clothes organized.  The only surefire way to get me back there is to start a project in the room so I'm in there during the day instead of late at night (when Lee really doesn't like me bombing around, he has this strange need for sleep).  Which brings me (slowly) to the titular leftovers.  We've been emptying the fridge bit by bit of leftovers.  The pork-loin yielded two meals, one of which was pork-fried rice -- yum!  But these leftovers are the portrait-oriented photos from the past few years that I love, but couldn't work into the landscape-oriented calendars.

Once I was able to crop and get a decent photo for inclusion:

But that's the only time that worked.  So I had a bunch of photos in a folder on my desktop awaiting inspiration.  It finally struck this evening as I browsed Ikea's website for new food canisters and came across these really inexpensive simple frames:

 

At $.99 for 4 frames I could go nuts!  They're 4x6, but I initially thought they were 5x6 and cropped 12 photos to fit.  I'll have to recrop to 4x6, but here's the old version in an arrangement I might like:

 

I haven't quite decided if I will hang all 12 or not.  I'll probably wait to see how they print on my new wireless printer (switch if you haven't already -- I feel so liberated!) before deciding if all will go up.  And they will be over the bed in place of a row of framed Dali postcards.  I love the postcards because I bought them, the frames, and the black construction paper they're mounted on with my sister years and years ago.  I remember that great day of shopping and crafting when I look at them, but I think it's time for a change.  I might find another spot for one or two of them, but I will definitely be keeping them all.  I will share more as this project progresses, including how I am going to manage hanging all those little frames in straight rows!

UPDATE: Now that I realize that the frames are 4x6 (and have a bunch of them), I went back and re-cropped the photos properly.  Some that I hadn't used because 5x6 didn't work, do now.  Still won't hang them all, but here's what I'm considereding now:

 

I think I see a few I'll eliminate right away!