The Mysterious Zucchini, and other tales of adventure

I walked out a few mornings ago to feed the chickens, and there was a zucchini of unusual size and unknown origin outside my door. I love summer.

I'm pretty sure now that some neighbors down the road left it there, since they have a big bucket of them out for free at the end of their driveway. I'm taking it camping, where we will attempt to grill it over the fire. Maybe with a little tamari and sesame oil.

I'm packing up this morning for another Adirondack adventure, so this entry will be short and sweet. Every summer for the last several years I've met up with my best college friends for some extensive camping and vacation time. We go to Forked Lake (see entry from last month), this year we have one of the big island sites. So off I go with the canoe on the car and gourmet camping menu in hand. Plus citronella spray, rain gear, watercolor sketchbook, two novels, pirate flag, bikini, hiking skirt, travel-sized Scrabble, hip flask, and possibly my stuffed plushie marmot. Not to mention the giant zucchini.

See you all next weekend.

Give me an art grant

I took this photo when I lived in Santa Cruz during grad school. I miss that town sometimes.

Distracted and lazy

Summer summer summer!

Here are my first sungold tomatoes, sweet and warm in the sunshine. My garden is looking good, especially the tomato plants are making up for last year's blight-induced lost time. Bumper crop of weeds too, been trying to keep them under control but not trying hard enough apparently. I could just eat the dandelion greens, I suppose, and then they wouldn't be weeds anymore. The mother of all thyme plants is popping up baby thyme plants everywhere...yikes! Fencing out the chickens has been a good idea.

I'm behind on blogging, it's been hot and I've been distracted and lazy. I have a few weeks off from crazy freelance deadlines, and am trying to keep up with everything else that needs attending to. That's going to include picking and freezing blueberries, making pesto, getting a handle on the neglected housecleaning, purging the closet, organizing my wedding invitation business, and reading in the sunshine by the creek.

Good morning, sunshine!

Here's the scene around my yard this morning: Harold the cocky rooster lording it over his flock from the top of the coop. Here he is in mid-crow. It must be such a burden to carry around the need to be so macho all the time.

Some mornings I can hear the chickens in their coop before I let them out, going off in a loud chorus of squawking and clucking that will go on for easily 10-15 minutes, and it makes me laugh.

Another Monday morning, looking at a fairly easy week, hurrah! I have two logos to work on, and also tweaking a t-shirt design for my brother's pub. I never got around to printing those etchings last week that I was talking about, since the heat sapped my energy, so maybe that's on the agenda. Hopefully I can spend a little time this week also enjoying summer, a rare and beautiful season in upstate NY, which specializes in darkness and cold.

Yup, it's hot this week

(Nebraska's thermoregulating technique)

Like a horde o' Hottentots!

Hmm, this is probably gonna be too small to read...but trust me, it's hilarious. I love Bloom County, and every now and then pull out the ol' books to leaf through and laugh. This is a classic.

Going in the creek

I kind of love these few weeks of rare true heat we get here in upstate NY. Sure, a week of days in the humid 90's makes me sleepy and miserable, but it evens out those cold dark winter days which make me even more sleepy and a worse kind of miserable. I really don't like being cold.

One of my secrets for keeping cool is to jump in the nearest creek. Ithaca is blessed with tons of streams and lakes and creeks, and the rocks around here tend to weather and break in such a way to make perfect swimming holes. Here's a photo of my favorite such refuge...which is on private property (I have permission) and wild horses will not drag the location out of me (but if you visit me, I might take you there). Five minutes in this cold running water sets me up for the rest of the day.

I can also stay cool by working in my basement, specifically in my etching studio. That's where I'll be this afternoon, because I am waaaay behind on keeping my bin o' prints stocked for the market and also because it's probably a chilly 68 degrees down there.

Preview of the show

Hurrah, my show is on the wall at the Kitschen Sink! Here part of it last night, right after hanging. Many thanks to Ben (foreman of the hanging mob), Ryan, and Zooey for sweeping in and dealing with the placement and heavy lifting.

So this is a just a teaser, everyone reading who is in or near Ithaca should stop in tomorrow afternoon (Saturday) between 4 and 6 PM for my little opening soiree. For everyone else, more photos and descriptions will be showing up here on my blog.

What the cool kids are wearing this July

It's the first of July, and in my universe that means it's time to distribute CSA shares. If you were a member of my CSA (Community Supported Art), you'd be getting one of these super cool t-shirts for your July share. I used discharge paste to make the background, and a silkscreen for the design.

CSA? What, like the hip and trendy locavore vegetable thing? Well, kinda...but it's about art instead of agriculture, although I borrow from that model. You can read up on my CSA here.

Also in my universe it's almost time to put up my Kitschen Sink show...we start hanging at 5:00 tonight, check back for photos. Speaking of shows, Gary is the featured artist at Belle Melange, and his opening is tomorrow evening, Friday the 2nd.