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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.

I am using the old dictionaries to find images to add to the fragments.

So many nice images. I am not so sure that newer dictionaries have all these illustrations. Anyway I have framed all but one of the Fragments pieces. Here are some of the other ones.

So now I have used up five frames that I had glass cut for last year. I do not really have a shop to send these to so they will just hang in the studio til someone comes along.

Last week Lee helped me chop herbs to make a seasoning to package up for Christmas gifts. It takes a very long time to chop by hand and then it has to dry for days before it can be put in jars. This one is rosemary, thyme, oregano, garlic and sea salt.

We will make more next week after a private student returns home. She is spending a couple of days to learn how to make a personal field journal/box. Much like this one.

And I am filling in the third hand of Responsibility. Lee has trouble using the vacuum, sorting the recycling bottles, pulling weeds, and locating which drawer his underwear is in when he goes to take his shower in the morning. I now lay those out for him. I also have to load that pesky weeder eater cord onto the spool for him. But lately he has lost interest in cutting the grasses and weeds down. I can’t say as I blame him. And they are far enough away from the house so what does it matter?

While I am showing a friend how to make her field journal I think I will create a box for all the gifts and thank you books/cards from my Australian students. It will be fun to make compartments for each of them. Such treasures deserve a good place to be.

That’s it til later when I post the results of working in the studio this week.

Final wrapping of the dioramas and the last of some old personal history. Three panels with my hand prints and the things pertinent to my grandmother, Mom Mae. Even has some of her recipes copied from old recipe cards of hers.

Her recipe for “Squaw Corn”. Remember it was the fifties…

What struck me when I found these in storage was that I only showed them once in undergraduate school and got the “too nostalgic” look for those bits of cloth and sentiments. Now I look at what I am doing now and it is back to small bits of cloth and stitch and papers…..SAME THING!

So here are the works all put together in their order of going down in the hole.

My personal.

The patriarchs.

War.

Expedition to Elsewhere and more details of them.

The bits and pieces that get buried along with all the soils collected over the years.

And lastly the art group notebooks.

All carrying some rosemary with them.

I am relieved that all this work is finished and here is where they will end up ….. out there where the sun is shining.

Til next time. I might do more writing and less pictures.