the Garden of Leah

Monday, June 8, 2009

And the Winner Is...

Oh my goodness - this is one heavy bucket of glass scrap - beautiful!

Thanks for guessing! This was fun!

It weighs 51 lbs.

Judy is the big winner here - congratulations!
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Sunday, June 7, 2009

My Weekend at the Market

The Rose Festival Parade was this weekend - I took pictures of some of the floats in the morning and the kid rides while they were empty before the park opened.

The view from my booth has been these kid rides for a few weeks now.

This weekend was the last couple days of "Fleet Week" so there were Navy and Coast Guard ships pulled up to the Burnside bridge.

Thousands of people come down to tour the ships and check it all out. I walked along the esplanade and took some pictures. There was a time (decades ago) when dozens of big military ships would pull into Portland for Fleet Week and line the river from downtown to all up around Sauvie Island. Girls from farms towns around Washington and Oregon would drive into town to meet the sailors, many women met their husbands during fleet week. Seems different now, only a few ships pull up, mostly right between the Morrison and Steel Bridges. So at the Portland Saturday Market we were right in the middle of the ships. The coast guard did a big theatrical drill on Saturday and put a big helicopter down above the water to show what a rescue mission looked like and create a big cloud of kicked up river water to wow the crowds.

Friday, June 5, 2009

Boxes

I picked up some boxes today. Oleo the cat inspected the pile before they got put away and ready for shipping. I think I could have fit another 10 in the car... but I thought this would be as many as possible for one run.

I have blogged about these recycled boxes before, but I gotta say it again - I love them!! Whats not to love about recycling my shipping boxes! I believe these boxes once shipped computer chip boards, something like that... they are lined with pink foam

I didn't know if Carton Services would have any more for me - and I was so happy to find that they did! Yeah for cheap sturdy boxes lined with pink foam!!

My mobiles love getting shipped to their new homes in these recycled boxes.

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Thursday, June 4, 2009

U-Pick Strawberries

Strawberry parfait in mason jars. Um yummy. They are sitting in the fridge right now cooling and waiting for us to eat them for dessert. I made key lime yogurt by combining Nancy's plain yogurt, sweetened condensed milk and key lime juice.... and I cut up a pint of berries that I picked this afternoon, sprinkled a little sugar on them... I layered with a few graham crackers - bam - key lime pie strawberry parfait. Oh yeah.

This afternoon I had a wonderful time out on Sauvie Island at Kruger farm. Strawberry U-Picking time is in full swing, there were still loads of green berries, but plenty of red ripe ones for eatting and taking home.

I am sorta a slow picker, there were just one or two good berries in each bush... and some were too perfect to take home. Woop - gotta eat them right on the spot :). But I took plenty home to eat over the weekend.

We filled the car with berries, okay so we could have gotten a few more pints in there, but it was hot and sticky and 90% humidity with random full sun (it was a few hours before a crazy wind/hail/thunder storm hit portland and took the city down). And I won't eat all of those, there were 4 of us picking and we brought home a flat for a friend to make jam with. I just picked 5 pints, cost me $7. (we were "silver pickers" just 3lbs shy of the "gold pickers" discount and too sweaty to go back for more)

Update: the key lime pie strawberry parfait was so so very tastey, we gobbled them up! You could hear our spoons rattling around in the jars scraping out every last lick of goodness... the graham crackers turned into cake-like layers from soaking up juices and expanding and the sweet/sour combo is just oh so tastey!

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Glass Give-Away: Guess How Much the Bucket Weighs and Win a Mini Mobile!

One bucket of scraps of colored glass. In the future these bits will be miniature mobiles. For now It's one full bucket of dirty scraps (although it sorta looks like a bucket of candy to me).

Guess how much the bucket weighs?

Whoever guesses closest will win a free mini mobile! Free from me. Guess in pounds (no need to break it down to grams or ounces, just pounds will do) - leave a comment with your guess - one per person :)

I will announce the winner on June 15th, 2009.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

a Mr. Rogers thank you

I know its summer when I have to break out an extra pair of comfy shoes to have at the shop. You see, in the summer I gotta let my feet breath, so I wear leather flip flop kinda things, but at the shop there is a rule that artists have to wear closed toe shoes (makes sense, you could go dropping sharp glass on a bare foot and then you'd have to go to the hospital, shoes slow the glass down considerably, no feet cuts for me). So in the summer I leave a pair of shoes and extra socks at the shop.

I call it my Mr. Rogers moment - when I walk in the shop and change shoes, sometimes I sorta get to singing about neighbors and whatnot :)

So today after I changed shoes (and took a picture as to blog about my daily Mr. Rogers moment) I happened to later knock over a cottage cheese container that was full of random sharp pieces of glass, right at my feet (which I happened to be standing right where I had left my sandals) and I had to take another picture, cuz you see what could have happened had I not had my shoes on!

By the way - shout out to little baby Orson - thanks for the nail polish :) see I painted my toes!

Monday, June 1, 2009

Upside-down Tomato Time

Its that time again! This will be the third year for me planting tomatoes upside-down. I love it! Its due time I got started (its been a late spring here) so I picked up a starter at the nursery...

Here are all the materials and supplies I used... both cats came out to help me :) (not pictured is a bucket) I use a hanging plastic planter that I've drilled a large hole in the bottom and a piece of flat foam that I've cut a slit and a small hole in the center.

I put the foam around the base of the tomato plant, cut so it was bigger than the hole in the planter. This is not necessary, but it prevents any dirt loss and just makes life easier for the tomato plant.

I prefer to use Sungold Orange cherry tomatoes. They are the bestest ever yummiest tomato ever... I swear. :)

I stood the tomato plant up on the bucket (the bucket was turned over) and brought the planter down over the starter... slowly started getting the delicate plant thru the hole. This year I only lost one little leaf. In past years I've surrounded the plant in a tube of paper and/or put a bag over the plant to protect it from going thru the hole... but honestly its easiest to just be careful and slowly get the plant thru the hole with no special tricks

Once the whole plant was thru I was able to just rest the pot on the foam circle...

Then I flipped the bucket over and stood the planter up in the bucket with the plant resting unharmed inside the bucket

my starter was not so tall which made this was possible, in past years I've needed a helper to hold the planter while I fill it with dirt before I hang it...