The birds and the bees...

Our barn swallows continue to build their nests around the porch. Two of the nests are condo-sized, as if the mama birds are expecting to hatch a dozen eggs instead of the usual three or four.  This afternoon, I rearranged some of the porch furniture so the chairs wouldn't be right under the busiest nests.... I'm already tired of washing bird-poop from the cushions and there are a lot more eggs that have yet to hatch.

The teapot-shaped bird house that was a gift from friend S.... a bluebird has already decided that a teapot bird house is just her cup of bird-tea, and a nest is being constructed inside the teapot. Totally adorable, from what I can see of it... just amazing how industrious those tiny birds can be.

The bees are already back, taking full advantage of all the blooming roses. I'm hoping there aren't too many bee nests buried in the blooms.... I cut a few roses the other day but I was careful to look before I cut, not wanting to surprise a family of bees or wasps that would sooner sting me than give up their resting spot. That old saying about stopping to smell the roses should come with a warning to be careful of bee stings.

I had such fun turning that old garden tub into a Fairy Garden..... so I've already started two more.  When I stopped at my booth at the antique shop today, I took out some cute little things that I knew I could use for the miniature gardens.  I've got one started in an old wood wine crate, and into that I put a very small wooden bench, with a button and fabric garden girl sitting pretty on the little bench.  Then I took a round tin bucket and filled it with mulch, and there's an iron chicken standing in that one, holding a sign that says "Flowers For Sale."  I'll keep looking for small thrift-store chickens for that one.

The possibilities are endless with a Fairy Garden. Plus, if you have any outdoor books by Mary Engelbreit, every page will give you decorating ideas, from large-scale to tiny mini-garden designs.  I'm just hoping that these miniature gardens don't encourage bees or wasps to take up residence.  Butterflies and ladybugs would be most welcome.... but I'll have to draw the line with the flying, stinging insects.

The Fairy Garden

There we all were last night, at J and J's house... enjoying dessert after a game of croquet. (Yes, croquet. We live in a country bubble out here, what can I tell you.)

The ladies were discussing gardens and gardening, and I announced that I had given up trying to make pretty flowers thrive and bloom in the flowerbeds for the first half of the summer, only to see them wither and die during the second (and hottest) half of the summer. I told them that the only thing blooming at the moment in my garden were the weeds that have grown in the vintage tub that is sitting out in the backyard, courtesy of the original owners of this house. (The wife was an expert gardener who had more garden sense in her little finger than I have in my entire body.)

I planted petunias in that garden tub last year... and spent weeks and weeks keeping them watered and healthy. Then the temperatures went over 100 and stayed there for weeks and weeks... and the petunias went to that big Flower Cloud up in the sky. So this year, no more flowers in that tub. Besides, the weeds had grown up in layers, they were all green, and they looked quite pretty. (Okay, maybe not pretty, but certainly tolerable.)

My friend JS said to me "Why don't you make a Fairy Garden in that tub?"  And what is a Fairy Garden?  Within six seconds, she had found a Fairy Garden site on her Smart-Phone and she passed the phone around the table for us all to see. Cute, cute, cute. You don't even need real flowers, just cute little things that would attract a garden fairy. Hence, a Fairy Garden.  Well, I can certainly do that. Am I not the Queen of Cute Little Things?  They are all over my house, in my booth at the antique shop, and already outside in the flowerbeds.

So there I was this morning, pulling up all those perfectly green and tolerable-looking weeds from the tub in the backyard.  Then I put down two layers of that fabric that's supposed to keep the weeds out. (It never works, but I figured it was already in the garage so why not use it.)  We also had a large bag of brown mulch left over from last year's attempt to beautify the flowerbeds, so I spread that mulch into the tub, on top of the old mulch that was still in there from last year. (You would think, with four layers of weed-stopping fabric and ten inches of mulch, weeds wouldn't be able to grow in that tub now. Time will tell.)

And so began the Fairy Garden decor....... two blue porcelain ducks from a yard sale years ago, a solar lantern in the middle with a sleeping gnome underneath it. Little porcelain ducks and chicks and pigs from a little shelf in the breakfast room (chipped little animals that I couldn't sell in the shop and just couldn't toss out because of one tiny chip). There's a wrought-iron bicycle next to the sleeping gnome, a chicken in the back corner of the tub, little heart-shaped garden stakes, and tiny pink plastic picks with pink flowers on the tops. There's also a red wood wagon which I filled with some mulch and more pink plastic flower-picks.

I'm sure there are more cute little things in my booth at the antique shop, and even upstairs in the guest rooms of the barn... there's room in that tub for more decorations that would entice a garden fairy to stop by and stay awhile before she flies off to the next Fairy Garden here in the hills.

Country bubble.... I'm living in a country bubble.  Which is okay...  if you take away the snakes that make me scream, the armadillo that makes holes in our lawn, the raccoon that poops on the front porch, the fox that eats the cat food on the back porch, and all the other creatures that go bump in the dark of a country night.

"...and wear a hat...."

Yesterday afternoon, our friends J and J up the road sent a text message to everyone on this side of our hill, which is about six people. The message said:  "Come to our house tonight at 6:00-- wear outdoor clothes and comfy shoes, and wear a hat."

Within seconds, two of the neighbors sent a text right back saying  "I'll be there."

Me, on the other hand, looked at that note asking us to wear outdoor clothes and a hat and my country-antenna went up. "Outdoor clothes" means old clothes that you would wear to do gardening.  Ditto for comfy shoes. As for the hat-- would we be walking through the woods and have to watch out for spiders? Would we all be trekking through the woods and have to worry about vultures and hawks pooping on our heads?

I called up J...... "Why do we have to wear outdoor clothes and a hat? Are you taking us on a tour of your back pasture?"   It's a surprise, she told me.   I said we'd be there, but I'd be wearing my highest heels and no hat.  My plan was if I had on very high heels, there would be no way I'd be able to walk in a pasture or in the woods. I would stay up on their porch, ready to call the sheriff if they all didn't come back out of the trees within a reasonable amount of time.

During the afternoon, my husband and I kept trying to guess what J's surprise was... did they get a new puppy and they wanted all the neighbors to come and meet the new baby?  Were their blueberry bushes bursting forth with fruit and they wanted us to pick as many berries as we could eat?  Did they want us to help them pull up weeds in their flowerbeds?  Had they planted new trees and wanted us to see the beginnings of a fledgling forest?

As we were getting ready to drive up the hill to J and J's yesterday, I changed my mind.  Wearing my highest heels would have me sinking into the gravel of their driveway before I even got to the front door. So I did wear comfy shoes, but not my outside gardening shoes.  And my idea of 'outdoor clothes' is a pair of white capris and a pretty shirt that has pearls sewn around the neck.  As for the hat.... I don't have outdoor gardening hats, but I do have a flowered, feathered and be-ribboned tea party hat, and that's what I wore.

At a few minutes to six o'clock, my husband and I were ready to leave. He looked at me in my flowered hat and said "Are you really wearing that up there?"  I told him that if my hat was good enough for a tea party, then it was good enough for J's surprise.  Had we not just been driving further up the hill here, my husband might have told me to take my own car so he wouldn't have to be seen driving with me and that hat.

And the surprise at J and J's....... they had set up a croquet set in their back yard, in the smooth part of their lawn just outside their back porch.  The comfy shoes and outdoor clothes made sense after all. As for the hats.... when we were all watching "Downton Abbey" a couple of months ago, they all wore hats when they were playing croquet on their manicured and perfect lawn.  (I looked around but didn't see Carson and Mrs. Hughes, so I was guessing we'd be on our own for dessert and iced tea.)

We all had a nice time..... a game of croquet on the lawn (not an ant hill in sight).... then cake and fruit salad afterwards on their porch.  I guess I'll have to look for another hat.... one with less flowers and less feathers and rhinestones..... the ribbons kept fluttering in the breeze and getting in my eyes.

I know that I will be telling this story to my cousin F up in New York.  And her reply will be something like this....... "All of you are living in a bubble down there... protected from reality and the six o'clock news."

Yes, we are.  And isn't it grand?

Spring things...

Spring has officially begun.... I've washed and put away the heavy pink sweater-shawl that I was permanently attached to all winter long. So much so that my friend J told me that I looked like a pink burrito. Ole!

True to Texas form, Spring will last a couple of weeks, then our temperatures will blast into the 90s and higher still into the low 100s....... and then everyone will be forgetting all the cruel winter cold snaps. (Not me.... I don't want to see that pink burrito-shawl for at least eight months, if not longer.)

We mowed the lawn yesterday..... me with the small mower and my husband on the riding mower. The lawn has now been cut into strange patterns..... we didn't pass the mowers over the patches of wildflowers. There are random ponds of bluebonnets, smaller puddles of  red paintbrushes, and yellow Texas stars are growing all around the property inside the fences which keep out the high grasses and wildflowers of the pastures.

And the pastures.... they are filled with wildflowers... mostly bluebonnets, which I hope will 'go to seed' and produce even more bluebonnets for next year. The grasses are growing as quickly as the wildflowers and within a couple of weeks the wildflowers will be engulfed by native grass that just doesn't know when to quit.

I'm keeping true to my word about not planting any new shrubs or flowering plants in the flowerbeds this year. As it is now, the plants that made it through the cold snaps have a few pink and white and red blooms, and while they don't look overly healthy, they'll do for the moment.  The antique bathtub that's in the backyard (which the previous owner put there as a lawn ornament/raised flowerbox) is filled with bright green weeds and it looks very Texas-native, as if it had been planned that way.  I filled that tub with petunias last Spring, then spent the rest of the summer months watering those flowers to keep them alive in the over 100-degree heat. Not again. Been there, planted that, don't want to do it again.

When we bought that riding mower last year, my husband said it would pay for itself in a year's time.... we cancelled the lawn service and we've been keeping up with the lawn maintenance ourselves.  There are days, however, that the $90 given to the lawn guys seems like a drop-in-the-bucket when you compare that cost to actually getting out there in old clothes and boots and side-stepping fire ant mounds while you're going up and down and up and down in a mindless pattern of grass-cutting.

Surprise of the day, of the week, of the month..... friend S dropped by this morning with a gift wrapped in bright blue paper and tied with a yellow ribbon. I had no idea what was inside that wrapping.... S had bought a birdhouse for our yard, in the shape of a teapot, of all things!  It's all made of bronze metal, a beautifully designed and dainty teapot sitting atop a bronze stem that's decorated with ivy..... four long 'feet' at the end of the stem go into the ground to secure the birdhouse into the flowerbed.  A teapot!  S said she saw it in a catalog and knew that I just had to have it.  Well, if that wasn't just the sweetest surprise of the day. (And the week, and the month, as I said.)   After walking around the yard with it, I decided the best place for the teapot birdhouse was right by the back steps, so I can see it from the kitchen windows.  I'm hoping that one of the barn swallows will visit that teapot and decide that it's the perfect place for a nest.

The Bunny Tea Party

Our dining room today was decorated for a Bunny Tea Party, given for the granddaughters of my friends up the road.  The four little girls had a very good time, but us 'big' girls enjoyed it just as much, if not more so.  I sent out invitations with bunnies on the cards, and the place cards had bunnies as well.  I bought pink and blue bunny Peeps and used those to decorate the cupcakes, plus I had my usual Easter parade of porcelain bunnies all over the dining room and living room.

The cupcakes for the tea party--- German Chocolate with chocolate pecan/creamcheese frosting, Hummingbird cupcakes with creamcheese frosting, and tiny brownie-bites with chocolate frosting. JS made delicious cucumber sandwiches, S carved out a watermelon in a perfectly beautiful basket shape and filled it with fresh fruits, and JD brought little cups of ice cream.  Hot tea for the ladies, warm chocolate milk for the girls.

We all wore 'fascinators' in our hair for today's party........ we've already done tiaras, and fancy hats, so JD thought that the British-style fascinator would be a good choice for today's special party accessory. Keeping with the British tradition, I had Victorian 'crackers' for each of us as the prizes for the Tea Bingo game, which the little girls just love to play. Each 'cracker' was filled with a paper crown, two riddles, and a colorful ring.

At each place setting, I had a cloisonne teapot charm attached to either a beaded necklace or bracelet, so now we all have our special tea-time jewelry for future tea parties.  The little girls also got gift bags filled with books and art supplies.  Before those girls left this afternoon, they started to wonder what we could do for the next tea party.

Such pressure.... we'll have to come up with a good idea for the next time the little girls are here visiting their grandparents.  Crazy dangling earrings?  Wear something with polka-dots?  Everyone bring a baby picture and we have to guess who's who?  Polish your fingernails in crazy designs or colors?

Years ago, both of my grandmothers enjoyed a cup tea in the afternoon, complete with special china cups and little cookies or desserts. Tea time was a ritual in both their homes..... I was always happy to have those little tea parties, even if only the two of us were there.  I started doing tea parties in our Clear Lake house when our special friend Miss C was a little girl, and when C visits us here we still enjoy a cup of tea together and talk about those tea parties when she was younger. Miss C remembers all the details and all the surprises, and she will talk about those tea parties now as if they happened just yesterday.

I'm hoping that Miss C will have tea parties of her own when she's married and has children.... and I also hope that the four little granddaughters from today's tea party will also want to have tea-time party traditions when they get older.

It is just so much fun to put together special cakes and teacups and plates and surprises for little girls. The kids love the fuss, the attention, the surprises. Those girls had such a good, good time today.... and hearing those girls laughing this afternoon brought back all those memories of Miss C when she was their age.

Senior moments....

Good grief.... we all used to joke about having 'senior moments' years ago.  Well, wake up... because they're here, right here.

This past weekend was the annual Bluebonnet Gathering of friends of ours. They eMailed invitations to all their friends and neighbors at the end of March. Plenty of notice, plenty of time to plan to attend.  And we did indeed plan to be there. The party was on the 12th. Somehow, for all of last week, I kept thinking that the 12th was on Sunday.

So there we were, my husband and I, in front of this friend's property at 2:00 in the afternoon on Sunday.... and their gate was closed and locked. What? How could that be?  Their property backs up to our property, but we can't walk there because of all the pastures, plus the ponds and the creek, plus heaven-only-knows what is in the woods between our two properties.  My husband and I sat there in front of A and J's gate just long enough for me to realize that I didn't have her phone number with me, so I couldn't call her right there in front of that closed gate.

We drove home.... I turned on my computer and looked at the invitation in my In Box.... and then I looked at the calendar right on my desk, for goodness sake.... and realized that the 12th was on Saturday. Well, no wonder why their gate was closed and locked..... we were a day late for the Bluebonnet Gathering.

Stupid, stupid, stupid..... that's how I felt.  And when I got over that stupid feeling, I called A on the phone and told her exactly what had happened.  We both had a good laugh, but still, I felt very badly for missing her party for such a ridiculous careless reason, especially since A and J come to all of our parties--- on the right day.

Spring things...

The barn swallows have been making nests on the back porch for weeks now... some of these birds have been with us for at least two years. They fly around that back porch as if they own it, and I have to wonder why they don't build their nests on the front porch.  Possibly there's less wind on the back porch?  The barn swallows start singing before the sun comes up.... they're very chatty birds, chattering back and forth among themselves all day long. That reminds me of a quote I read a long time ago--- "Birds do not sing because they have the answer..... they sing because they have a song."

The cows in the neighbor's pasture across the road have been having calves..... I can see two of them following their mamas around the field over there. When the babies get tired of walking or standing with the adults, they just plop themselves down into the lush grass and go to sleep.  When the mama is ready to move on to another part of the pasture, she will use her whole head to nudge the calf, sometimes forcing it into a standing position.  I'm hoping that the neighbor will keep the two new calves, and not send them to market.  If the calves are sent away, those mama cows are going to be walking around the pasture, searching for their babies and crying out for them... the sounds those mama cows make just breaks your heart.

Now that the weather has warmed up, the plants in the flowerbeds have started to sprout leaves.... except for the plants that froze during the frigid nights that we had in January and February. Those particular plants don't look so pretty at the moment. I've cut off the brown parts (they looked like petrified wood) and I'm hoping that the little garden fairies will breathe a bit of life back into them.  I am done, done, done, with trying to be a gardener.  The biggest heartbreak was the wisteria bush by the walkway..... had it lived, it would be bursting with purple blooms right now.  I don't know how old that wisteria was, but its branches were as thick as some of the plum trees out back by the barn. After I pulled away all the dead branches, there was just a teeny sprig of wisteria growing up from the ground, and I'm hoping that will eventually make a new plant.

If nothing else, at least hope still grows in the garden.

Hummingbird Cupcakes

Today seemed to be the perfect day to try the Hummingbird Cake recipe from "The Charleston Cake Lady" cookbook.  I'd found that little cookbook in the thrift store a few years ago and I bought it because I knew that at some point, we'd be traveling to Charleston.  And we did.... last summer.... it's a beautiful city, with vintage Victorian homes on all of the downtown streets.

I had everything in the house that I needed for the cake recipe, except I didn't use cake pans..... I baked cupcakes. Perfect little size for a delicious cake recipe, and you're not tempted to keep cutting slices and slices of a full-sized cake because you can freeze un-frosted cupcakes and when they've come to room temperature, they taste as if you'd just baked them. All you have to do then is add the frosting and put the kettle on for tea.

So into the oven went my Hummingbird Cupcakes.... I used less of the chopped banana than the recipe called for and substituted chopped strawberries. When friends J&J brought me a slice of their Hummingbird Cake a couple of weeks ago, the fruit in that cake recipe was bananas, strawberries and pineapple.... so delicious. The Internet is filled with recipes for this cake..... but the must-haves seem to be the bananas, pineapple, strawberries, and pecans..... and cream-cheese frosting.

I don't often make a cake from scratch..... I use Duncan Hines cake mixes and tweak them a bit... but with the Hummingbird Cake, all of the recipes I found were from-scratch recipes. Lots of stirring (couldn't use the Kitchen-Aid because the flour was flying out of the mixing bowl...... so be prepared to mix and mix and mix by hand...... but the end result is the most luscious cake. (Definitely use the Kitchen-Aid for the cream-cheese frosting, though... it comes out very fluffy and light.)

The recipe made a lot of cupcakes, so most of them are in the freezer now.... and I've got a bowl of the frosting in the fridge, ready to spread on the cupcakes as they're defrosted.  I kept telling my husband how good this cake was, and I don't think he believed me........ when I told him that the recipe called for chopped bananas, he said that it must taste like banana bread--- which it doesn't.  When I frosted the little cupcakes with that cream-cheese icing this afternoon, he realized that I wasn't exaggerating about that cake.

Still don't know why they call this Hummingbird Cake........ the colors of the cake are so pretty, with the strawberries, bananas, pineapple, and dots of pecan pieces throughout the cake, so that could be the reason. And it's a sweet-tasting, summer-y cake... I'm sure the hummingbirds would approve, but I don't intend to put a cupcake out by the bird feeder.

Steiff happens....

.... when you least expect it.

I have a new bear in my collection.... you just cannot have an old Victorian house without a few resident teddy bears. (It's in the Victorian Rule Book... page 23.)  Over the years, I've bought or rescued vintage looking bears...... the smallest one wears a red Christmas dress and she's one of my favorites because she was a gift.  The largest one was given to us from one of our friends here last Christmas.... that bear was added to the teddy bear parade that sits on our staircase.... one bear sitting on each step (a Christmas decorating hint happily borrowed from Mary Engelbreit).

The bears get packed away with the Christmas decorations, except for a precious few that sit quietly in Victorian chairs and just make you smile when you look at them.  The bear I found yesterday, however.... bought at first glance for my space in the antique shop..... but then when I got it home, I just couldn't bring myself to put a price tag on him.

This particular bear....... found in a local thrift store..... sitting there in a glass showcase and looking very lonely. I saw him from across the room and my first thought was "It couldn't be...."     When I got up closer to the showcase, it indeed was..... a Steiff bear..... made in Austria, complete with its original price tag and label (printed in German).  The little Stieff button in the bear's ear gives its number, and when I looked up that number on the Internet, the prices for this little bear went everywhere from $59 to $289, depending on condition.  When my husband and I went to Germany years ago, I was tempted to buy a Steiff bear, but the prices (in Euros) were over-the-top.

My little Steiff bear from the thrift store is in excellent, pristine condition..... and it's a 'growler,' which means that it makes a bear-like sound when you turn him over.  Well, not exactly a bear-sound, but more like a bear-cub sound.  I'm guessing that someone went traveling, brought this bear back as a gift for a child, and the child's mother (or the child) wasn't thrilled about the non-fluffy-ness of this little bear (Steiff bears tend to be stiff, not soft).... and into the donation box it went, along with possibly half a dozen other worn-to-a-frazzle stuffed animals that had been much loved over the years.

I paid just a few dollars for this bear.......... and my guess is that if this Steiff bear didn't have its original tag on him, he would have been tossed into the store's play-pen that's always filled with stuffed animals that cost fifty cents each.  (Surely an embarrassment for a Steiff bear.)

No question in my mind.... I'm not selling this bear, no matter what my profit margin would be.  However, there is that little rule of mine: "One thing in, one thing out."  I could not possibly part with any of the bears that I've collected over the years.... less than 20 of them, but they're all special in their own way, and they do love making an appearance at Christmas time.

The Steiff bear is sitting on my desk at the moment.  I can see him as I'm typing this, and he looks perfectly content to be right where he is. One thing in.... one thing out.

Okay, okay..... let me think....

I have a candle-glass in the green bathroom..... decorated with lace and pearls.... perfectly cute, very Victorian-looking, but I don't use it.... when you're out in the middle of these hills, you don't tend to put a match to candles.  Into the donation box goes that candle-glass.

One thing in, one thing out.  The bear stays.

Spring. Definitely Spring.

The bluebonnets are bursting out all over the pastures...... the field behind our barn is an ocean of blue and it looks beautiful. The field in front of our house is blue and red and yellow, with the bluebonnets taking center stage around the pond.

The barn swallows have once again taken over our back porch..... they're using some of last year's nests, and have been building new ones.  The freshly-painted porch columns (just finished less than 6 months ago) are now spattered with bird poop. Some of these birds are on their third season with us.... we know which ones they are because they're familiar with us and don't fly off when we walk back and forth on the porch. The newcomers fly away as soon as we open the back door, but by mid-summer, they'll come to trust us.

Our outside cat Gatsby wouldn't come into the house last night..... with the warmer nights now, he's wanting to sleep out on the porch.  And not the hard wood of the porch, mind you.... he has chairs out there, and cat-pillows, and even a covered cat-bed on top of the picnic table.

The weeds are coming up in the flower beds.... giant weeds with deep roots that take more strength than I can manage to pull them up. I pulled up a few of them this afternoon, and almost landed on my backside as I forced them out of the ground.

Ant hills are everywhere.... in between the stones of the courtyard, in the teeniest crack on the driveway, and all over the lawns......... walking from one grassy spot to another without looking down is a fool's folly.

The cold winter days of December, January, and February are now a distant memory. Spring is here.... and will be for about three more days before the temperatures go up near 90, then go blasting past 100..... and I'm promising myself to not complain about hot days because it's easier to keep cool than it is to keep warm.