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This is our third year going to the Whitesbog Blueberry Festival and it's one of our favorite June events!! This year was much cooler and cloudy than previous years. It was really nice to do some exploring, eating and observing when it wasn't a million degrees.
We also saw this amazing dog!! How cute and tough is he?
I love to visit and revisit the places we love around NJ. It's so great to see an area in all different weather. Where are your favorite places to visit in your state?
A little late but here are my plant observations for June!
Lots of flowers!! Veggie garden is started! Replated roses! Farmers markets! What do June plants look like where you live?
These little light green plants popped up in our blueberry bushes all in a clump? What are they?
This weird fungus also appeared! Can anyone help us identify it?
It was a great month for plants! Love living this plant life!
May went by in a blur. I took an unexpected hiatus from the blog, saw so many friends and family, made new friends, found watchercats, worked on the house, took long walks, explored places new and old, worked hard, but had tome to rest, too. June started off in a new place and with a celebration. What will happen next?
Who else has a morning walk routine? I hope you all enjoy seeing one of my beach walks. If so, please subscribe to my channel. comment, or give a thumbs up!
Where is your favorite place to walk?
It might be an unofficial goal for 2018 (and every year) but I would love to get more tattoos this year. Actually, I think about my next tattoos constantly. Does everyone feel like this?
In honor of my future tattoos, I thought I would take a look back at my current tattoos. I hope I can remember in what order I got them!
Getting your first tattoo is so odd bc you have no idea what to expect!! It did not go as I was thinking but one thing was for sure, I loved it! This tattoo was not at all how I expected it to come out. I had had ideas of what it would look like, but it working with another person on art is always a surprise! My artist was Ryoko and she was working at Brooklyn Tattoo at the time.
I always get asked if I intend to put color on my tattoos, but I do not! I love my thin black and grey line work. I hope that all my tattoos are semmetrical, so this tattoo is on my left forearm, and I have another one of the opposite arm.
What is the story behind your tattoos?
What, you don't have a shelf full of droids?
April was all about flowering trees, the weather getting warmer, the anticipation of Spring and Summer. But let's face it, April was all about cats.
I got to meet a magical space lady, 'Lil Bub!
We saw so many #watchercats!
We hung out at home with all our cats, which is always a priority for us.
Work out of the house was busy this month and not too much sewing got done. I'm far behind in many projects, but it felt like a very productive month.
So many plans were completed in April! May is shaping up to be a whirl wind, so let's get going!
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Finally!! Flowers in my plant update!! This update is all about flowers, in fact. From the beginning of the month, with snow covered buds, to the end of the month when many trees and flowers are in full bloom, here are some pretty plant observations.
Can anyone tell me what these flowers are?
This crocus was hanging on for dear life.
Finally the magnolias are blooming.
Same tree...
...different day.
This apartment/tree set up always reminds me of Nola.
Yessssss.
What's blooming in your neck of the woods?
When I was younger thrifting was one of my favorite activities. I never stopped thrifting but I did slow down quite a bit. But recently, I've caught the bug again.
Now that I only buy second hand clothes, I find myself stopping by the local thrift shops quite often. I also keep an eye out for rummage sales, yard sales, etc... I still try not to buy too much, but sometimes I find treasures I can't resist.
I try to have a mental list of what items I'm looking for; I love to get shoes, clothing with great fabrics, lovely homewares, vintage toys, and more. But I try to only buy what I need and will use. What do you look for when thrifting?
In 2017 I started my zero waste journey. Zero Waste is the goal, mindful practice is the action. When I use the term Zero Waste, that is my ultimate goal, but Less Waste and Low Impact would be a more accurate description of my evolving lifestyle.
You may remember that when we moved to NJ we got a fire pit. It's one of the first household things we really wanted! I can't say it's our most used house hold item but when we do use it, we love it!
One reason that we werren't using it too often was bc I hated buying firewood at the store. We mostly found it at big box stores, wrapped in plastic (!!) and who knows where it came from! We had seen many places where wood was for sale on the side of the road, but the idea of having to walk up and knock on a stranger's door always stopped us from getting it that way. Buying it locally online would mean buying a cord, which is way too much for our little fire pit.
Right now we just have piles of firewood in various places in the yard, as it gets to be fire season, we will chop and organize our stash.
Then one day we started picking up sticks, and logs and fallen branches. And as our stick pile grew and grew and as we started oooohing and ahhing when we saw a pile of discarded tree limbs on the side of the road, we realized that this was a viable way to gather wood for our fire. Now where ever we go we usually come home with a large stick or two. That person walking around the neighborhood dragging a large dead tree branch? That's me. We stick wood in our car, in our bags, carry it on our shoulders. Now that we have a large stick collection, we are just waiting for the weather to be nice enough to have a fire!
We realized that we like the mindful act of seeking out something useful when we are out, without buying anything. There have been some big wind storms lately, many trees lost limbs. It was a field day for us, and we liked the idea that instead of going to the local dump (and then who knows where? We don't have a compost or mulch pick program in our town), this debris would be used for something. We are happy to put to use something that most consider solely waste.
Right now, we are only collecting fire wood casually but it got us thinking that this might be an affordable, zero waste, way to cut down on the none renewable resources we consume. If we were to install a wood stove to offset gas-heat usage, could we gather enough sticks to help heat our house?
We're still in the research phase of this possible new plan but we are kind of excited to see where it might lead. Does anyone out there have any advice on wood stoves, firewood or foraging? Do you forage for anything in your neighborhood?
Oh boy, ya'll. I may not be getting the hang of this youtube stuff, I may have posted this video a week later than I intended, but I think I have the BUG. And now I have a partner in crime, audionightlight!! Check out this sweet song he made me:
Subscribe to my channel if you like these videos so far and let's see where this crazy train takes us.
If your new to youtube, or been doing it for a while, please post your channel in the comments!
Last week we found this weird sweet chipmunk quilt in a local thrift shop. I passed it over at first, thinking it might be too expensive. But I ended up going back and it was $20 with 75% off!! Score! This quilt is weird and wonky and obviously homemade, and I love it!
I'm not sure how this quilt was made, but there are some darker colors showing through, so I think an old blanket was used as batting. It was machine pieced, quilted and bound. The maker used a fancy stitch for the quilting!
Has anyone found any cool quilt or textile treasures lately?
Cool stamps and friends who get it.
March was another rollercoaster for plants and weather!! We were able to observe some local plants, some new areas, and even give a tour of some of the plants in our very own home.
Croci have been popping up, then getting trampled all over the neighbor hood!
Before the big storms of March, my front garden was off to a good start!
Early morning snow.
More of my favorite pine trees.
I'm still working on learning YouTube. What better way than to give a tour of some of our house plants!
Was March weather and plants as wild where you live as is was for us? What were some of your March plant observations?
Last week we had some time to explore NJ and headed to the Morris Museum in Morristown, NJ. I had never been to Morristown before and it was not at all what I expected. The area has a lot of beautiful landmarks, including churches and Fort Nonsense (a revolutionary war historic site). But mostly the town has a lot of financial businesses, a million banks, and a lot of big name brand stores.
The Morris Museum is located outside the main part of town and boasts a large collection of working automata. This was the main reason we went and worth the price of admission. They have daily shows at 2pm, which we unfortunately did not know before going and missed.
The Morris Museum is also well known for it's large collection of gems, many of which were found in NJ.
I always really love to see a big collection of gems together and this was a really great gallery.
I was really glad to visit this museum, and I would definitely recommend it! We will be back soon to see an exhibit on kinetic art. Ans of course to revisit the gem room!
What are your favorite galleries to visit in museums?
It's always amazing that February is the shortest month but feels so long. This one was a particularly rough month for our family. But life goes on.
1) Catsbury Park watcher. 2) A serious neighbor on 4th ave. 3) Curious, but cautious on Pine Street. 4) Keeping doors safe on Asbury Ave.
1) Breakfast mates in Allenwood NJ. 2) My favorite pine tree, Asbury Park NJ. 3) Sky dragon, Philadelphia PA. 4) Mocking bird waiting for the morning train, Allenhurst, NJ.
1) Plant light. 2) Bee haven. 3) All the lime zest. 4) New growth.
1) Night view. 2) Beach murals. 3) Morning walk. 3) Clock tower.
February always has ups and downs. What direction will March take?
February has been pretty up and down. With snow, 70˚ weather, rain, sun, etc... it's been an interesting month for plant observations.
Crow crowns one of my favorite pines.
Heavy snow and white pine.
New flowers from work.
This weird geranium (??) was given to me by a friend. It was doing really well until Irving knocked it down off it's perch.
Starting to see signs of spring.
What has February been like where you live?
January creeped by with cold weather and snow storms, warm days and catfights, little time for relaxing and less time for creative work. The first 12th of the year may have been tough, but we were thankful for the lessons it brought.
Despite bitter cold, we saw some #watchercats around the neighborhood. Some walks were had, and we even made it to a freezing beach once or twice.
We were able to visit friends and family, stay warm with our favorite meals and cozy cocktails, spend time with sleeping cats and snake like cats, tried to eat healthy and nourish ourselves and those around us.
Here are some things I learned, or relearened in January
- I have seasonal depression and it effects everything I do in cold months.
- I need to not be so hard on myself about that fact.
- Kittens are a lot of work and street kittens even more so!
I wouldn't say January went fast, but boy did it go! What do you have in store, February?
January was not a good month for plant observations. By far the worst month since I started this column. I wasn't out and about too much, I didn't take too many pics, it was cold, iy was snowy, it was wet. One can only hope February will be better.
Hard to tell that this was a torrential downpour.
A snowy windblown scrub pine.
Walking to work over a frozen lake.
Who of my readers enjoyed a plant filled January?