A bit of watercolor play, it must be summer

Ages since I got out the watercolors, but that blank book find just came in time to remind me I sometimes like to play a bit with them in summer light.

So I assembled the doings, noted a handy model

Just stuff lying about on the table.

And it started without me 

When the yellow jumped out of the tube and onto the book. I'd squeezed it a bit hard, since the others were dry, and I expected this one to be, too.

I never waste expensive dried up tube colors, just cut open the tube and continue using them like solid pans. If they're good quality, this works. A tip from one of my frugal instructors.

Anyway a few minutes' delicious fun.

Watercolor is pointless if you labor and struggle over it. It's spontaneous or it's nothing. My not very humble opinion. Paint like a kid.

I left out the materials handy so I can do more when the spirit moves. There's nothing like making something to raise your spirits. The product doesn't matter for this purpose, it's the doing that matters.

And I have this whole handy book to use, fun ahead. There might be drawings, rubbings, transfers, who knows. 

Meanwhile, despite numerous plant related visitations  from next door, and a hand dipped chocolate cookie gift, now shared around with neighbors

the blueberry baked goods happened and some went next door

This morning I had one for breakfast, warmed it in the microwave, and when I bit in, juice exploded all over my white tee.  

After I wondered about stain removal I decided no, go with it, and when I get up, I'm writing this in bed, I'll simmer the tee with the rest of the berries, and take advantage of the staining function instead of fighting it.

Tatters is doing some nice things here -- Kantha, an Indian stitching style. I'm familiar with it, living in an Indian population. I love the simplicity of the stitching, adding up to complex art.

And since be summer seems to be here, time to practice

Happy day everyone. We can be happy while helping people who are suffering. We can do two things at once.

Soup, muffins and dumpster finds

 I've been wanting to make carrot cashew soup for a while, and had some misfits carrots already prepped and in the freezer for that purpose.  Then I found that the can of cashews was not as full as I thought, so I added in a handful of yellow split peas, so as to keep the golden color.  

Cooking down the onions here, and a rind of Parmesan cheese, always a terrific flavor addition to soup.  If it doesn't dissolve, you can fish it out, rinse and reuse later.  I keep them in the freezer.  This one ended up dissolving.  And there was a little container of chicken flavored liquid in the freezer, which I added.

 Beautiful color, and here with Thai basil as a garnish, also a flavoring, this is all it takes to flavor soup with it.  And since the split peas thickened the soup a lot, it can be thinned with milk if I feel like doing it. Half a dozen helpings in this pot of soup.

Then, last evening I realized, shock, horror, all the banana bread, and the cornbread, was gone.  The bakery larder was bare!  so I made a batch of misfits blueberry hot biscuits. 

A slight hitch when I realized that until my misfits olive oil, a lovely Greek choice this time, arrives tomorrow, I didn't have enough for the recipe. It takes five tablespoons, the way I do it.  Sooooo, I used the one remaining Tb and used melted butter and a spoonful of plain wholemilk yogurt for the rest of the liquid.  

I needed to bake it a couple of minutes beyond the usual 10 minutes at 425f, and it was really great.  Very light, but holds together enough to pick it up and eat it.  I may do this again. Usually you're careful about subbing in baking, chemistry more delicate than in cooking, but here it worked just fine. They look a little eerie, because of the blue color showing through, but they taste just fiiiiine.

Then, at the dumpster yesterday, a find.  First in ages, since dumpsters around here don't yield much in recent years.  Different population, don't shed things as lightly as previous residents.

And here it is, seen from outside, weighs a ton, some blond wood, very nice looking, pretty new, and I thought it would get a couple of plants up off the floor, always a good thing.  Makes the area look more finished, too.

So that was a Good Dumpster Dive. I know since the winnowing I vowed not to add things in, but in my own defense, I have been moving things out all along, so there's that.

And then, you know how I've been doing that long long arduous project on the spun, plied, knitted, woven vest?  Took months.  And the Robe likewise.  Here's another long arduous project, mainly one about procrastination.  This is one of my favorite thriftie buys, a linen vest, lovely greyish and white stripes, fits a treat.  And that middle button came off several months ago.

This morning, after taking care not to lose the button all this time, it's a special one I can't replace, spending more energy not losing it than dealing with it, I finally got it stitched on.  See, it's the second one down in the picture.

Really, it took literally less than two minutes, including finding needle, thread, and scissors.  So this deserves some sort of Procrastinators' Award.  I repaired two pairs of knitted slippers this week, too, wearing one pair right now. So I guess that was the dress rehearsal for Stitching On The Button.

Hold the applause, please, oh, you are holding it already? Oh well, then.

How a dead battery caused chocolate bark

 When my neighbor moved my car for the snowplow, he commented when he brought back the keys that it was a hard start.  I thought probably because I hadn't driven it in a couple of days, and the very cold nights didn't help.  However, having had 20 years of driving a Honda Civic which literally never failed to start, ever, I had no experience in this issue. Then this morning I thought I'd just pop out and run the car for a few minutes to keep the battery working, too icy to drive about.  And found it was dead as a doornail. Oh.  

Appealed to the neighbors, since the other option was a two or more hour wait for AAA. And neighbor J. said, no, no, don't bother, I'll fix it.  Just lift the lid, I mean the hood.  Which I did, having found out how to do that, never did it before up to now.  Managed that, and she came out with a gadget I'd never heard of but now need, a portable battery jumper.  No need to use a second vehicle, I've been living in the dark ages.  She attached it, started the car in about two seconds, and said you don't drive this enough.  You need to do that.  Quite right.  I let it run for a few minutes, then did a little trip around the development before bringing it back.

Other neighbor says he agrees with me I need to have one of these clever things, and he will get hold of one for me, since he knows all about them, and I'm baffled by the hundreds of models and sizes and specs.  

So, since I'd hauled them out on a freezing Saturday when they'd probably just as soon not, and they were very obliging, as always, I thought, this is a destination for that bark I still haven't made.  So I added it to the agenda for the afternoon.

 

Two layers, dark then white, and I swirled it about with the spatula to make interesting shapes. You'll notice this is rather a small amount of bark, compared to the acres I made last time.  They seem to be putting fewer chocolate chips in those bags, or something. At least they seem to decrease as they sit in the fridge.  It's a mystery.

 And, after I'd had a good time hitting the bark to break it up, it joined the baked goods, which I decided would be blueberry hot biscuits.

Speaking of food happening, I put the feeder I used to have on the patio, which was now in the way of the forthcoming fence, out front.  I moved it once because birds didn't come, and I thought it was too near the window.  Birds didn't come.  I put a lot more plants on the kitchen windowsill, so as to give them a sense of not being overlooked. Birds didn't come.  Last night because it was very cold, I closed the kitchen curtains.

 A Carolina wren scouted the joint, didn't eat, but evidently went to put out the word, because today a little bunch of juncoes, then a couple of finches, showed up and have evidently accepted that this top of the line suet block is in fact food.  It's exactly the same food they've been getting here for years.  Then later the wren showed up back on the patio, and was evidently searching for the food in the "right" place.