Sunday, 28 March 2010

New painting and no cooker

I painted this in acrylic on canvas after getting annoyed at the no show of my new cooker . I have to wait another 6 weeks ! for it , someone forgot to order it . they gave me the delivery date too , i moved kitchen cupboards , nearly took the old cooker out but didnt , luckily . sigh . at least it should be worth all the fuss . so for now , still no photos of my garden , but i did do this
VULTURE !!
title Chaos Range Master

Friday, 19 March 2010

courgette

 Im in love with these seedings ! they are so fat and strong and big ! 
Tomatoes seem so weedy next to them .
My Squash Honeybear didnt germinate so im trying again this weekend in the airing cupboard with new seeds , i think they needed more heat . im wondering what size those seeds wil be . In fact , im wondering what size the plants will be ! im hoping for something monster and exciting .  Im also fighting off the urge to buy a really brilliant temporary greenhouse with staging that ive seen . its plastic like my existing small ones so i could out it on the decking . hmmmmm .
BUDS on my miniture fruit tree . well , on all of them really . i still dont know what they are or what colour the flowers will be !
My sweet peas and nasturtians were sent to live outside and they are still alive ! i have a bolt of fleece handy if frost is likely or i can bring it in overnight .

Tuesday, 16 March 2010

spring !

spring is finally here , i have buds on my fruit trees i cant wait untill the leaves come out  . i have daffodills indoors picked frpm the garden and i even saw some strawberry flowers on the strawberry plants ! i potted a lot of them up in the last few days they had escaped into the border by stealth .  strangely they had all managed to get entwined with a stinging nettle baby plant and my fingers tingled all day . my courgette seedlings are huge ! i love them totally . my squash honeybear has not worked , nothing . i think i need to seed again in a pot and out it somewhere hotter to get them to germinate .  i need to check the peas , potatoes and garlic i have under fleece too . maybe tomorrow afternoon  i will have time , im painting in the morning , got a lynx on canvas still to finish off . im not happy about the background  on it . no photos again because i still cant find my camera charger ! some soon promise .

Thursday, 11 March 2010

Not quite there yet

Im still having severe pain problems which sapps my will to do anything else so im struggling again but things are growing which is exciting too . The Courgettes sprouted , big fat seed leaves  , i love them . Sweet peas are climbing , indoors , tomatos peppers , spring onions , lettuce  all doing well and garlic potatoes and peas went outside . The chives look like a grass mat and everything is getting on with it ;-)) photos soon i hope .   we are still having night frosts and will be untill the start of may so ive a long wait before all my seedlings can be sent outside to manage alone  which gives me a great excuse for leaving them inside the house to potter with .  The only thing that hasnt sprouted yet is the Squash Honeybear , ill give it another week and then sow some more seeds and try again , i know some seeds can be really slow to get the idea of growing right .
Right now eating healthy is on my mind because not only is my underwear feeling the strain but i had luch in an all you can eat chinese today . Absolutely delicious , very cheap and fattening ! yes i did have the sweet and sour sauce on fried chicken . sigh .
I also went to the art shop and bought some canvas panels and a new paintbrush . This morning i sketched out a new small canvas    , im going to be painting a Northern Lynx , ive never done one before . This particular one i watched on a snowy day and it was really enjoying the cold  , relaxed and happy animal it was a pleasure to watch .  My reference photo shows it at full streatch with all the delicious belly fur for me to paint , i love that bit :-) it has H U G E feet too .

Tuesday, 2 March 2010

WRONG PILLS

Ok , i havnt been writing because I was given pills for my pain which ended up sending me into severe depression for days . Bad bad bad . Stopped the pills , the pain is better then that . Getting well is hard . everytime i try to sort one thing it affects all the rest . AAGH .
 Im back though .   A trip to the wildlife park soon made me feel better , the weather is wonderful , the animals were great and i got plenty of new reference . perfect . That was yesterday . Today ive been in the garden planting up the new fruit trees and sorting out the borders and the weather is STILL great , maybe we have spring at last ?? some daffodils would be nice :-)
This is a Pallas cat from Mongolia :-) one of the photos from the wildlife park trip .

Saturday, 20 February 2010

Mini orchard , sweet peas and honey bears

These are my mystery fruit trees . I bought them at a really great price today because the tags have faded and beyond knowing they are dwarf fruit trees the garden centre could only do a best guess . So i got four different ones and ill wait and see ! I have a rough idea ut since i really dont mind what i got its ok :-))) My chives are growing , funny how they come through bent in half and they straighten up from being all kinky . I love fresh chives in home made potato salad and i want to try the edible flowers in salads as well as freezing them in ice cubes for some fun .


 I planted garlic and some courgettes to give them an early start before planting out , i sowed some salad lettuce seeds and spring onion ,


This wigwam has a honey bear squash seed in the middle , well , two , i will keep the strongest , and nasturtians and sweet peas round the outseide , the sweet peas are highly scented and im going to eat the nasturtian flowers . ive no idea how big this is gonna get....


Table fun :-) come on spring .Has anyone seen a Crocus this year ??

Sunday, 14 February 2010

Warm bread rolls

yum....
I tought my daughter to bake , she loves the smell of it , she loves getting sticky and she loves making her own food , so we baked fresh white bread rolls so we can eat them for breakfast .
We ate one hot from the oven  with real butter and it was delicious , better than fresh from the swiss bakers she said .

She made this bead heart for me . This is the new bread bin it was bought in a sale and when you take the lid out and turn it over its a bread board , cool eh !

I sowed four types of pepper , two sweet , two hot to see what performs best . Im lookign foreward most to one of the sweet ones its supposed to be really long , sounds good ! The potatoes arnt doing much in the way of sending out shoots but its early days yet .

Nasturtian seedlings popped out today :-)

Sweet peas are shooting up ! look at this fella

Ive been painting too

 slowly but surely getting there

My studio heating . Not kidding :-) Snow on the ground again this morning .