A Move

In the process of cleaning up a few things, I ended up moving these posts over to a new space. I’ll be updating things over at cottagerevolution.wordpress.com from now on.

See you there.

Manly Men

Sometimes I go to Goodwill with hopes of finding some fabulous fabric. Sometimes I throw down $0.99 when I’ve found the perfect one.

Let’s check out a close up.

Lot’s of mountain men enjoying nature as one should — half naked and wearing coy expressions. It’s in pillowcase form currently (a single pillowcase made of this fabric … I’m so curious for this fabric’s backstory). I have no idea what form it might take next, but for now Jack is simply enjoying a new piece of fabric with which to cuddle.

Waging the Battle

I used to have daydreams about which town would claim me. As a twelve-year-old who hoped to someday see her name in lights, I envisioned signs welcoming visitors to Delphi, IN and Moose Lake, MN with:

WELCOME TO _______________
Population 5,000
Home of Claire Brosman

My upbringing was split between these two towns as we followed Dad to new camping opportunities. Sometimes I would grapple with the decision about which town I most wanted to claim me. It always ended up being Moose Lake, even though over the years Indiana has become my true home. Somehow I developed relationships with the lakes, trees, and wildlife of Minnesota that far outweighed the relationships I developed with actual people during my formative years in Indiana. 

Our small wood cabin in Minnesota surrounded by pines and quaking aspens, butting up to Sturgeon Lake, was what some would call a rodent-infested dwelling, but my memories are more like tales from a children’s fairy tale. The squirrels helped tuck me in at night as they peered down at me from their home in the fluorescent lights in my bedroom. The flying squirrel that swung from window valance to window valance in the living room was more carnival than cause for alarm. After endless nights of sleeping on a top bunk listening to the tiny scraping of squirrel and chipmunk toenails on the drop-panel ceiling above my head, I came to accept them as part of the territory — just another one of life’s details.

So, how is it now that I see squirrels as my foes? Currently I’m trying to balance my fairy tale-like memories with the turf battle going on in our garden. Each time I go out to the bed to check the fruits of our efforts, I find butternut squash with tiny teeth marks of flesh carved out. At first, I blamed it on our dog’s toenails from the times he lurched madly through the back patch on the scent of a tennis ball. But now I can’t fool myself anymore. The grooves continue to grow and Jack has long since stopped running through the squash for fear of the jungle it has become.

So tonight I staked out sides.

Trimmings of Jack’s hair from his summer cut are sprinkled on and around the growing squash. I’m dreaming of a chicken wire cage to contain our garden that occupies over 300 cubic feet, which is likely completely illogical and inefficient. What I really want to do is grow a patch for the squirrels and let them fill their cheeks adorably full while standing on their haunches. I want to make this work — cohabitate with them as well as we can — but I’m realizing it might not be the storybook situation I hope for.

Any suggestions?

Blue Dress

In my last post I mentioned that I was back in the groove with sewing. There were a few things that had taken me out of the groove… errrr, or that caused me to never actually be IN the groove… namely my inability to use my machines.

I’m embarrassed to admit that both machines had very simple fixes. So simple. Like threading the bobbin properly for my sewing machine and putting my presser foot DOWN on my serger. Yes, my head has been full lately. Yes, that is not actually an excuse.

However, I tackled the problems-that-shouldn’t-have-been-problems-in-the-first-place and whipped up a simple little dress this weekend. I’d cut it ages ago and simply serged it Sunday, hemmed it and added the collar on Monday, and wore it to work on Tuesday. It was my first dress, but I’m pretty happy with it. I actually got some nice comments on it today (and I wasn’t wearing a sign that said, “I made this. Please indulge my decision to wear something homemade by commenting favorably on it.).

Anyway, here are some huge pictures so you can see the details. The pattern is a frankenstein of multiple patterns found in the Sew U Home Stretch: The Built by Wendy Guide for Sewing Knit Fabrics. I highly recommend it. It makes sense out of sewing, which is something I always longed for but never had. Thanks, Wendy.

Front view of the dress in action. Can’t take a picture without entertaining the dog. He thought I had a treat. He was greatly disappointed.

Dear Summer,

Thank you for sharing your sunshine. It’s so generous of you.

This past week and weekend proved again that summer produces extraordinary fun. It might actually just be ordinary fun, but the warmth and the sun and the life that it brings makes it extra special.

This week summer fun came in the form of a grilled pizza buffet with friends, group viewing of Troll 2 (seriously, the best WORST movie ever. Ever.), resuming Book Club after a long hiatus and in the reincarnated form of Movie Club, cupcake-eating with a friend I see too infrequently, and watching fireflies and drinking mojitos in a friend’s backyard.

I also got a little sewing in– made a simple little camera case for my new camera. Not the highest quality piece so not worth sharing, but I had a wonderful helper.

I’ve also been spending lots of time in the garden trying to combat the insects that are taking over — hand-plucking cabbage worms from our brussels sprouts and sprinkling flour and salt on our leaves. Something should work eventually, but in the meantime our garden is producing something at least … well, kind of. Even though I was only able to gather three pea pods, they were so satisfyingly delicious. And they were beautiful.

Also, one of my dearest friends received a horribly overdue birthday gift in the mail so I can post pictures of that little project. This reversible apron was just the thing to get me sewing again. It’s made from a thrifted pillowcase and was created on the fly with no pattern. Of course, there are obvious signs it was made without a pattern, like the way it doesn’t extend much past the hips so it’s not great for wiping hands — a critical component of any apron. Sorry, Maryann!

Regan indulged me by taking the pictures below. He’s pretty much the best when it comes to making things look nice. He’s a good man, that one.

It’s a Jungle Out There

Heat in the 90s. Humidity at 80%. Rain and storms nearly every day. It’s kind of rough on us (well, rough on the dog), but our yard and garden are loving it.

We’ve got some serious green going on in our backyard.

Plenty of room for fetch AND a lovely garden.

Peas and tomatoes fighting for space.

Insane squash. In the span of a week it has jumped out of the raised bed, threatened to take over the strawberry pots, and begun to take on a life of its own. Even though Jack runs laps in that corner of the yard, the squash is resilient. I’m amazed.

A tree transplanted from Regan’s parent’s yard thrives.  And the rosemary, oregano, and cilantro growing in pots on the side of the garage are each starting to take off. 

After figuring out how to keep the squirrels at bay, our lettuce has started to come back. 

We have a ways to go with our landscaping along the back of the house, but what we have is a pretty good start. All the plants are courtesy of Regan’s parent’s yard. The rain barrel is courtesy of a workshop at Keep Indianapolis Beautiful. Of course, with all the rain we’ve had lately we haven’t had to tap into our supply, but I just like that it’s there.

Now I’m just daydreaming about razing the abandoned house next door and establishing a community garden there — taking our little jungle of a garden to the next level. How cool would that be?

First Harvest

Sometimes you just have an overabundance of basil. And sometimes you just have to make pesto.

The first creation of the season made from fresh picked garden goodies made me eager for more. I can’t wait to see how our garden continues to grow.

Birthday Weekend in Pictures

I love weekends that make me not think about real life. This was one of them, thanks to Regan and all my friends (and my parents who got me a camera… as you can tell from the documentation).

Here’s how it all played out:

1. Baked bread, made muffins, cleaned house, generally took back my life on Friday night.

2. Saturday morning woke up, played with Jack, headed to Talbot Street Art Fair and the Harrison Center Arts + Craft Exchange. Good stuff.

3. Ate Sushi

4. Went to the Flying Cupcake, which is awesome.

See.

So sweet.

… and delicious, which made me kind of crazy. Proof here.

5. Headed to Avon for a massage for both of us. No light and fluffy massage. A serious, heavy duty, deep tissue, therapeutic massage. I think I might just be healed. It was wonderful.

6. Home, played with Jack, nap.

7. Out for pizza at Jackamo’s with Erin and Andrew, then out for drinks with more people + some friends in town from D.C.

8. Sunday morning breakfast and CBS Sunday Morning at Andrew and Erin’s with out of town guests.

9. Errands, laying in the sun (me), yard work (Regan), housework, listmaking for the coming week.

10. Admired our lovely Cosmo that we grew from a seedling!

11. Ritter’s for ice cream to cap off a spectacular weekend.

12. Now we are enjoying Season 4 of Weeds and ramping up for the coming week.

Outstanding.

Here’s hoping your weekend was just as good.

Oh, Deer

Last weekend Regan and I headed 90 miles north for a quick visit with my parents. As soon as we arrived my dad led us over to the creek and showed us a fawn who had been in the same place for two days straight. It was so well behaved, staying in one place, waiting for orders from its mom to move. It would glance over at us, skeptical of the crowd that was forming. It stood, ate leaves, rested, slept, and then started the cycle again. My parent’s house is complete zen.

Hunkered down and staying safe

Look at all his spots!

Regan watching our Bambi.

 

Our Corner of the World

Tonight Regan, Jack and I rested in the grass in the backyard and decided that if all we do over our three day Memorial Day weekend is just that it will be just fine. Approaching our third summer in this house our yard is finally starting to come along. What used to be a muddy wasteland surrounded by rusty chain link fencing where grass refused to grow is now nearly fully covered in grass and surrounded by a lovely privacy fence. We’ve still got a ways to go with the grass because our ultimate goal is to have a yard as lush as Alec Baldwin’s head of hair, but we’re taking it a step at a time. At least our dog doesn’t look like this after playing in the yard anymore. 

Thanks to Regan’s parents the decorative garden bed that borders the back of our house is rich with hostas and ground cover. Somehow we were able to dig up, travel over two hours with, and transplant over 20 varieties of plants from their yard in Champaign without losing more than one plant. We saved hundreds of dollars by being plant bandits and our yard got a huge facelift.

Last weekend we officially got our summer garden started. If all goes as planned we’ll have tomatoes, green peppers, peas, butternut squash, brussell sprouts, strawberries, lavender and basil. Our goal was to make a dent in our summer grocery bill and to also make enough tomato sauce and pesto to freeze and eat regularly this winter. I think this weekend our goal is to make a portable lettuce table so we have a place for lettuce to thrive and hopefully be able to grow it well into the fall. We’re also finishing up our rain barrel. Regan made it a while ago, but we’ve yet to build the base for it and adjust the gutter to accommodate it. We’ll see how it all goes. Working towards some idea of sustainability little by little.