Sunday Round Up

It’s been another busy week with nothing really artsy to show you. I did mix up some dyes and dyed some fabric which I’m really excited about, but can’t show you quite yet. (Yes, my muse returned!)

Mixing up dyes
Mixing up dyes

Otherwise I made ketchup. Here is the recipe.

homemade ketchup
homemade ketchup

I also made this tuna casserole from scratch (no canned soup) and grilled tuna steaks. Yummy! I’ll post the recipe when I work out the kinks. It was a bit too dry for us, but besides that pretty tasty.

Tuna Noodle Casserole
Tuna Noodle Casserole

I have spent time debudding the lavender I harvested earlier. It’s taken a long time for it to dry this year. I’m not sure if that’s the humidity or what, but I’ve never had to wait this long. I still have Hidcote Giant to debud and bag. I’m sure it’s dry by now, but just haven’t had the time or energy to get it put away. That’s on my list for this week.

Lavender harvest
Lavender harvest

And I can’t forget about all of the calendula that I’ve harvested, dried and put away. There is still more coming on so I think I’ll either need a bigger bag or put it in a jar. This is our first year for a really good harvest of this flower. But then it’s been a great harvest year for everything.

Dried Calendula
Dried Calendula

Yesterday I spent most of the day moving around shelving and weeding through stuff in my studio/woman cave. My primary goal was to create a space for one of our recliners and to hang some of my artwork. It was so nice to work with the window open. That’s unheard of in August here. After my mission was accomplished, I sat down in the recliner with my iced tea, turned on the TV, Puddin jumped up in my lap and the two of us napped. It was wonderful. I can see more of that “TV watching” in my future. This morning after reading the paper on the porch I found Puddin waiting for our TV time.

Puddin in recliner
Puddin in recliner

Last Sunday we had the anniversary of our sweet Ace coming to live with us. You can see the baby boy here as he looked when he arrived all 5 pounds of him. Now he’s 15 pounds and on a diet! He’s an armful now!

Dave and Ace a year later
Dave and Ace a year later

My friend Amy Abbott has written a great new book, A Piece of Her Mind. You can buy it through Amazon as a paperback or Kindle. If you need a good laugh, you will love it! I bought a “real” book so I could hold it in my hands. I’ll be reviewing it on Amazon soon.

A piece of her mind

That’s all from Happy Acres right now. Have a wonderful Sunday and hopefully you’ll see some art here soon.