Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Monday Sharing

The past several days we have had heavy rain and high wind at times.  Everything is green and in bloom, much of what is blooming is a month ahead of schedule. I wonder if our cranberry harvest will start in August instead of the end of September this year, because the cranberries also bloomed early. I haven't had time for art lately, but today I am sharing a little of this and that.
While out walking in the yard this morning I noticed my blue hydrangea were starting to flower. The nearby bird house that you can see in the first photo now has a wren family in the house. The parent birds are busy bringing food to the young inside. This bird house already had a brood of tufted titmice hatch that  fledged and then the wrens took up residence. I love sitting under the apple tree watching the industrious, little birds fly in and out, scolding me for being near their nest box.
Hydrangea in bloom 6.2012 Hydrangea in bloom closeup6.2012
wren getting ready to go in house2 wren getting ready to go in house
The picture below was taken from my deck this morning.  I spotted a ruby throated hummingbird flitting around my bee balm that are in bloom. I was quite a distance away, but if you click on the photo you will see the hummingbird in front of the flowers. Zoom lens on digital cameras are a wonderful thing.
hummingbird hoverin near bee balm 6.2012
In the garden onions that survived the winter from last year are blooming, and the flowers are beautiful.
onion in bloom1 onion in bloom2
Over the weekend, I took a quick ride to Michael's in Wareham, and the store was having free Mod Podge make n takes. The products were all from Mod Podge, including the papers. I had a choice of an acrylic key, heart, scalloped flower, tag and I can't remember what else. I chose the tag shape. I cut out the papers I chose and applied Mod Podge to the paper and then attached the paper to the acrylic tag. For my background I used newsprint, and the bird on a fern. I cut out the b/w flower and crown, and the word discover, and the dotted strip at the top of the tag. I don't know what I will do with this tag at the moment, but I am sure at some point it will be added to a project.
acrylic bird tag done at Michaels
I decided to make Portuguese Kale soup for tonight's supper because I haven't made any in ages, and I had kale in the refrigerator that needed to be used before it went bad. My dad loves kale soup so I  will be bringing some to my parents house. Kale soup has carrots, potatoes, chopped fresh kale, onion, chicken or beef stock, canned kidney beans, salt, pepper and linguica or chorizo(Portuguese sausage). http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-linguica.htm                                                                                                             
Do a web search, and you can find many variations for Kale soup. I always cut the rib from the center of the kale leaves and discard.
kale soup bowl
ready to eat with a nice slice of hearty bread
Elaine

2 comments:

PeggyR said...

The hydrangea are lovely. My bee balm is blooming now also. Wish we would get some rain though!

Joanne Huffman said...

I've had minimal luck getting photos of hummingbirds (i.e., one fair shot out of many, many tries). The tag looks like a fun project. The soup looks delicious (my mom had kale in her Victory Garden during WWII and got so sick of it, I never had any when I was growing up). The garden and birdhouse pics are very nice.