I planned on having loads of sunflowers this year. Filled two beds with seeds but as soon as they showed their leaves the deer helped themselves. Now I have two beds full of cropped sunflower stems with weak looking leaves sprouting and a whole lot of weeds. Sunflowers are my favorite flower. They take over a professional bouquet just by being in the bunch. I can sometimes find them three to a bunch and three bunches for $10 at the grocery store. If they are not too sagging I will buy them all. Then I like to fill in the jug with whatever greenery from around the yard that the deer have not eaten.
The other day I decided to make cookies and went back to the “second best malted cookies I ever ate” recipe. This time I put a bit too much golden syrup in because you know how it is when the bottle has just a bit more and not worth saving til later, so you keep upending it and adding it to the mixture. Anyway a bit more flour and I could handle the dough enough to get it into the balls to roll into sugar before baking.
But this time I remembered what the baker of the best malted cookie I ever ate told me. “Keep it in the oven on low to make them crispy.” So after they were baked the amounted time and including the slamming to make cracks. After cooling I turned them all over and put them back on the parchment and into an oven that had been turned off. They stayed there for about another half hour, then came out and cooled completely to become “very close to the best malted cookie I ever ate”. They are so, so crispy!
And in the last two days I had time to revisit white line wood block printing. Australia has been on my mind as everyone there is waiting for the programs to come out….and I won’t be on offer for next year. So I finished my chest that holds all the thank yous from students over the years and then made this print again of Halls Gap.
And the block and print.
Not sure what to work on next. I think I will make a drawing for another white line print, but have it be something from around here in my own yard. Perhaps the Japanese stone lantern out front with a drooping branch of a Japanese maple and some hostas that the deer haven’t eaten.
I can do the drawings upstairs while sitting with Lee and then come down to the studio to do the carving and printing. The tools and paints and papers are calling me. And they are just getting louder now that I have cleaned the studio out and got myself a bit organized down there.
I am still waiting for the grave digger. It has been rainy all week and to be honest he is not the most dependable digger I know. So we will see what next week brings. A hole or the yellow pages to find another man with a machine.
Next week I should have the long panel back from the framers.
Til later.
