Sunday, May 16, 2010

Time Rodents and the Delicate Warriors


Time, blowing away from us gently in the wind and seeding the future... or snarky little rodent scurrying away from me like a sneaky little fur pouch jacked up on Ding Dongs and Ho Hos. As a matter of fact right this very minute his ill tempered cousin, Wastingmy Time is chewing on the remaining juicy bits of my patience pie. It seems he has recently taken a job with the Blogger people in the upload photo department where he is growing fat as a house on my patience and forgiveness. The program keeps jamming up and stalling. I have spent--wasted, an hour trying to load these photos and the sad part of it is...other than the fact that my life is so dull I can actually waste an hour with a time sucking rodent uploading photos... is that these aren't even the photos I really wanted to share. Well some of them are. Some of them took a bit of nerve because I'm not entirely sure I like them.


I'm sending this guy here, the one with the fur coat, out on the hunt for the Time cousins and put this thievery to an end once and for all. Ah, the sweet smell of fantasy. We all know that I'm going to keep wasting and losing my time just like the rest of you and whining about it like a kid past his nap time with peanut butter in his hair and gram cracker crumbs stuck to his face. In the meantime spring came in with a rousing bang and exploded in tulips all over the garden. Then it was slapped back into submission with annoyingly persistent rain and hail for a few endless weeks. That took care of those obnoxious tulips and reminded all those early sprouters not to get to cocky about this whole "summer's on its way" deal.

Of course Spring and Summer being the fickle souls that they are they quickly forgot everything the hail said and just put up new tulips. Some of you more tender hearted folks might think that Spring and Summer were full of pure gentle forgiveness.

It's full on war out there and those guys are vicious fighters. they aren't going down easy. And so it was. New tulips were put up, the forget-me-nots would not be forgotten and just for good measure the poppies got in on some action as well. Words were exchanged and the battle lines were drawn. If you're quiet, in the mornings you can hear an evil laughter out there. It's kind of chilling.

So here are a few of the things that I have been up to lately. We finally got a turtle for the pond. I have wanted one ever since we got the fish. Why? Well because a pond should just have a turtle, that's why. I honestly don't have an answer beyond that. I just wanted a flipping turtle in me pond. Be sure to say that in your head with Rex Harrison's voice as Captain Grey in Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Except he wanted a Monkey Puzzle tree in his garden which is truly a puzzle to me why anyone would want one of those in their garden. Sigh. To each his own I guess. Anyway Rex Harrison, hunk extraordinaire...I mean the turtle...
We seem to be calling her/him Sea Bisquet for now. We went with Sea Bisquet because Pond Bisquet just doesn't have the same ring to it. Though I'm thinking Nessy the Lochness turtle might be a better fit. So far I'm just sneaking around the pond with camera in hand hoping to catch a glimpse of the mythical beast.

Now this is the other little lingering project that I have been up to. I decided that I wanted to finally do that whole country farm garden shabby chic bedroom thing. I also decided that I couldn't possibly hate my bedroom more and something, anything had to be better. I started with painting the ceiling and I've been working my way down. I went to a salvage yard with my son "The Actor" and my future Best Friend In Law his girlfriend and the Saint. Saint and I picked out a mangy looking old door and The Actor and BFIL picked out a very cute pantry door with depression era glass insets. The Actor and BFIL carefully placed their antique treasure into their car and the Saint and I jammed our skanky door into the trunk and proceeded to drive around town with the trunk hood slamming a hole into it.
So, once the freshly mangled old mangy door was home, I took the electric sander out and began tearing away 50 years of paint. I decided to wear a mask for this little endeavor as I'm pretty darn sure that the lead paint was a flying. Of course one could argue that the damage had already been done as evidenced by the fact that I actually paid good money for this thing in the first place but I think I look fantastic in a face mask so this was my time to shine. I also had a couple of old nightstands that I sanded down to the wood just so I could stain them a nice cherry espresso color and then puke latex paint all over them. I made sure to follow that up with slathering white paint on followed by vigorous and random sanding. I did everything but kick 'em and light 'em on fire.

This is how they turned out. In person you can see all of those wild colors peeking through and looking all agey and stuff. Of course because I lack any sense of pride or foresight I do not have a photo of the stands with their silver and cut glass knobs or of the antique door knob hardware on the headboard. Just imagine them Spec-tacka-lure and say it with a big swishy hand motion to get the full effect. (by the way, the headboard actually is the same as the stands, it just looks blue in the photo.)
I also re-did my office desk. It was one of those big old wood finish things with the upper hutch portion. I removed the top hutch portion as well as the desk top, painted it white and replaced the desk top with a glass top, then added stone and glass tile accents. I also put bird feeders outside my new office window and it's all working out rather nicely now.

Then to leave you on more of a garden note I will tell you that I have been blindsided by this early spring/summer. Everything is pumped and ready to flower. The poppies are bursting and every morning when I go out there are new blossoms to greet me. The honeysuckle is full of sweet smelling potential and the frogs are still singing their hearts out at night. I know all your gardens are blooming and bringing peace and delight to everyone who sees them.
...I will also tell you that I was going to post a very pretty picture, no beautiful, stunningly beautiful picture of fiery red poppies but NOooo! That Blogger Rodent bum won't let me. I letting the dogs out buddy so you better get your Ho Hos and pack it in for the night you furry time sucking beast.
Maybe I should get checked for the lead after all.

11 comments:

  1. My gosh girl, I've been thinking about you the past few days, and here you are. You have been busy! Your decorating projects sound and look great. I'd love to see pictures in place with your lovely bits and pieces around them.

    Your gardens are lovely as always, even a wild canine, and a wonderful turtle.

    Love and hugs to you ~ FlowerLady

    ReplyDelete
  2. ha ha LeSan, I love your posts - they make me howl with laughter .....so much so that Himself tends to appear to find out what's causing so much hilarity!!!(not bad considering he's 20miles away in Rotherham!)

    You have been a busy bunny my friend! Mind you, whilst you were getting high on lead paint, I was busy attacking our hideous 1970's 'stone' fireplace with a lump hammer and bolster chisel ....it really did come off in my hand! the room looks better already - even with a board covering the hole I made. I think my artistic attempts at drawing a wood burning stove and wooden mantle piece really made the difference! :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi LeSan! I love the image of you and yours driving around with the hood bouncing up and down on a mish mash of antiques! Do I understand correctly that you have varmints eating your flowers!! I hope that lovely wild dog ... coyote? can help you out in that case. Maybe your turtle could be trained to by your bouncer! Fun furniture! Glad you wore the mask. ;>)

    ReplyDelete
  4. So, you have been pretty busy lately. My Blastoise would certainly like to meet your Sea Bisquet. Yours is male or female? I don't know the sex of mine but I always think mine is a he!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'd love to hear more about your turtle. Will it stay there in the winter? My kids have been begging for one but I wasn't sure what would happen to it once it got cold.
    It sure looks beautiful there. The weather we were having did seem to slow things down for a bit, but seems like the garden has decided to ignore the weather and pretend it was warmer than it was.
    Sounds like you've been keeping yourself busy as usual!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I just found your blog and it is heaven.
    Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  7. FLOWERLADY~ It is always so nice to hear from you. I have been thinking of you also. I have been a bit busy. Headless chickens are always very busy. The question I’m having with the furniture finishes is that it may too closely match the finish on the walls. I did a layering (read artsy) technique on the walls with several shades of green and layers of hand plastering. The end result is that it looks like forest lichen. Since it is predominately in the lighter shades I’m worried that the furniture now blends in too much. I’ll probably just look at it for awhile until I get bored and then just leave it alone. LOL
    Much love and hugs to you my dear friend!

    NUTTY~ Laughing at me are you? HA! I thought I heard snickering from across the Pond. I’m glad you get a kick out of my posts. That makes me happy. It is no surprise that you my sister in insanity would also be busy doing the insane. LOL I once spent way too much time chipping eighty layers of white paint off a red brick fireplace. That’s precious time from my life I’ll never get back. I can only imagine you hammering away at that fireplace…and I laugh my a** off. Next time save yourself the trouble and just move.

    CAROL~ Hi Carol! I do love your new photo ID here. Pretty lady. Yeah, the bouncing hood was a sad affair to be sure. We really didn’t plan for that shopping trip for beans. LOL I do not actually have varmints eating my flowers, just my time. I was complaining about Blogger not uploading my photos and eating away so much of my time. So yeah, I called them names. Very big of me huh? Hehe The cats and domestic dogs do a pretty good job of keeping the area clear of the wild animals. I was very surprised to see the coyote passing through because of it. I hear them howling at night but you can tell they are on the outskirts of my dogs’ territory. This one was probably just a bit lost. I am hoping the turtle does his little bouncer job of keeping the over breeding fish and frog population down. If that works then I think I may finally have a solidly working eco system going on here. That’s pretty exciting to me.


    AUTUMN BELLE~ I am sure that Sea Biscuit would also love to meet Blastoise. Oh, and yes, I did misspell Biscuit…repeatedly. Oops! I don’t know if our little Biscuit is male or female. The girl at the store tried to pull the tail out to take a peek but the turtle would have none of it. That made me think it must be a girl. A male would have been all about that. LOL

    CATHERINE~ Hi Catherine, I haven’t decided if the turtle will winter outside or not. This is a Red Eared Slider and while they are not native to the NW they do seem to have acclimated themselves in the wild. I was looking for a turtle that would live outside and this was the one that fit the bill. When the temps get below 50 they go into a type hibernation state. They burrow into the mud or pond muck and sleep it off. I’m still anxious about it this first year. She/he should be ok though with the whole summer and fall to adjust. I may also decide to put out a warming shelter with a warming lamp for her come winter. What I’m not so sure about is if it is going to be a nasty cold one like the one we had the other year I want to bring her inside. Of course the trick will be catching her before it’s too late and she disappears into hiding. Over all my research tells me she should be just fine but I worry about my babies. *cue eye rolling.

    KISKADEE~ Thank you so much! I saw your comment this morning as I headed out with my coffee and it really made my day. What a sweet, sweet comment, thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  8. I envy you having a pond, and a turtle to boot! I think they're just the cutest things. I'm determined to have a pond one day, and I never thought of putting a turtle in one. I always love coming to your blog to see the pics :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Your poppies are blooming already? I am jealous!

    ReplyDelete
  10. you have been busy!!! I love it!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hi LeSan,

    Are you okay? It seems like forever since I've read one of your posts. I miss them. This one is great. Love the furniture.

    xoxoxoxoBarbara

    ReplyDelete