You can fool the fans - but not the players.... John Cage

Lampshade Make-over

From Boring Southwest to Shabby Western

JC found this lamp at a yard sale some time ago and we just love it. Someone revamped it at some point and it must have had a bulb up top and some sort of glass shades (I'm guessing) - but we put a harp on it and then started looking for a lampshade that would cover the bulbs below but not be so huge as to overwhelm the whole lamp.

We had this very ugly and too short lampshade perched on it all winter - and every time I looked at it I cringed. The bulbs showed from the bottom of the shade and the southwest design stenciled on the shade was so not us.

It was time for a change.

I knew I wanted it to be western but not over the top western - if anything I was going to embellish it with crystals and rusty things; maybe some barb wire. To start with I spray painted the whole thing ivory the other day, which as it turned out just provided me with a blank canvas.

At the hardware store I spied this:

Now we were starting to get somewhere. I had already assembled this:

which consisted of three yards of microfiber fringe in a cream color and two yards of a braided trim in brown. My adhesive of choice for many projects is Aleene's tacky glue. I also bought some rusty stars for embellishment purposes (just in case).

Two coats of suede paint over the ivory yielded this - lookin' pretty good. Luckily I liked the color since they only had this and a blue color at the hardware store. Pretty plain, though and still too short.

First layer of fringe. Too skimpy. See that bulb showing there? But look at the beautiful cast iron base this lamp. I just love the combination of rusty iron and the glass on the base of this lamp.

Two layers of fringe is much better-but it looks a little unfinished to me.

Glued the trim on over the outer layer of fringe and:

Ta DA! A vast improvement. I wish I had a photo of the old shade... it would make this look even better. Hang on; let me go look.

Nope.. not a one. It is because I never liked it in the first place. So just imagine. White with quasi-southwest designs stenciled around the bottom. Too short. Bulbs hanging out. Believe me, this is better!

Ok, I'm fired up for projects now.... yesterday I also affixed small embroidered butterflies over holes in my lightweight wool wrap and used stitch witchery to hem the new yoga pants I haven't been able to wear yet because they were obviously made for a woman with legs up to her ears.

What makeovers will today bring?

Hunewill Guest Ranch

I just returned from a couple of lovely days in the Bridgeport Valley and had to share a couple of photos from the Hunewill Guest Ranch. We were fortunate enough to have our board meeting out at the ranch and I could have happily stayed for days.

The ranch is a special blend of old and new - old buildings, new technology (wireless access in the reading room), cows and horses, big sky, big grassy meadows, big mountains.

Four Hunewill families live and run the ranch; providing hearty food, twice daily rides, cookouts and talent shows, cattle drives, and no shortage of hospitality. We enjoyed homemade peach and raspberry cobbler, meaty cheesy lasagne, fresh baby greens (no iceberg!) salad, homemade garlic bread and iced tea outside under the aspens during our lunch break. And... there were peonies in bloom!

Blooming a good two months after my one single peony bloomed.

Sorry, this one is a little blown out but I took it with my phone... yes, my photos have taken a turn for the worse (but only temporarily).

Hunewill Ranch has been a working cattle ranch since 1880 (or so - I might be off a year or two), and a guest ranch since 1931. If you are looking for a good western vacation you couldn't ask for a better place to spend a week. I don't work for the Hunewills but you can tell them I sent you! I'd like to go back!

Now, mosey on.... I'm finished with this post....

San Diego County Fair

I did the crazy weekend trip to San Diego this past weekend - family was gathering and I really try to be present when the family gets together. So I drove down on Saturday and back up on Monday... a little too much driving but we did get some good family visiting in.

And, we went to the County Fair in Del Mar.

It was crowded, it was noisy, it took all day but it was FUN! Fried everything everywhere you turned. Trinkets and sunglasses and t-shirts and carnies hawking stuffed animals all along the walkways. Animals of all sorts chillin' in their pens. Dirt and dust and carnival rides. So much fun for a few hours.

Mom and I love the flower exhibits and this year the theme was music.

The exhibitors really go to town with the plants and it is a peaceful oasis within the fairgrounds.

One can almost hear the chanting.

But around the corner there was this wild ragtime ensemble.

I loved the piano.

I can't imagine donating a piano to the elements but for awhile it might make a beautiful garden piece.

This cheerful trio played all night without a break. We had a blast. Watched a hypnotist make ordinary people do foolish things on stage, ate all kinds of junk food we would not touch in real life (I ate an entire LARGE cream puff by myself!), purchased all kinds of things that seemed like a good deal at the time, laughed, got grungy, tired and stuffed..... and bonded like only family can.

Yeah, baby!

PS - Sorry for the photos - no photoshop right now and they are poorly edited. Sad, very sad.

Travel

Last week was a traveling week - all in the Sierra but many hours along US 395. And not without the obligatory car break-down.... it has to happen every once in awhile. Luckily many good things aligned:

• It wasn't snowing
• I had cell phone coverage
• We have AAA with 100 miles towing
• It was daylight
• A chivalrous CHP stopped, doubled checked AAA and then sat in his car behind me until the tow truck arrived 45 minutes later.
• I was only 55 miles from home
• It was on the way home and not the way there
• and so on....

I'd driven to Truckee to meet with co-workers at Sierra Business Council, stayed with my good friend GD, and then was on my way back to Bishop planning to attend a cocktail party for all the departing teachers of ICOE. Driving along with all systems GO - suddenly all systems were not GOing anywhere. Turns out the fuel pump went out. Without a whimper or a warning. Sheez!

Got home finally and then turned around the next day to drive back north to Reno with JC - his knee surgery was scheduled for Friday am. We got a room on hotwire - the best room we've had in Reno so far - at Harrahs for $44. Nice room. Overlooking the pool. Only it was raining in Reno, just like it had been raining in Bishop. The wettest June I can ever remember in the eastern Sierra. Our yard is so lush right now; it will never look this green again.

I have a special fondness for Reno and I took this the morning I was on my own as JC underwent the knife. It was a beautiful morning in the Truckee Meadows and I took Chance for a lovely walk along the Truckee river before hunkering down in the room and getting some work done.

Our drive home was uneventful - thankfully, since JC was all whacked out from the anesthesia and we were already in our "other" vehicle. Not too much travel this week - just lots of database building, setting up appointments and getting out there to meet people.

I'm switching over computers and can't buy my macbook pro until the end of the month - so posting might be sporatic the next couple of weeks. It is making me crazy to think of saving all these bookmarks and files - I've really settled into this computer. Change is good, right?

Hollyhocks

I'm so fortunate to have moved into a house with an established garden - there is so much to work with. And in this house we have some old-fashioned flowers like lilacs, wisteria and, one of my favorites, hollyhocks. I know they can be like weeds - reseeding themselves and popping up everywhere - but they are so pretty. I'm going to do my best to restrain them and create sort of a cutting garden in the big garden by the kitchen window.

It has been a roller coaster ride the last couple of months - starting the new job before the old job was even close to be over. But I'm at the end of the school year - tomorrow is graduation. And of course I am starting to feel nostalgic and nervous. Will I miss the interaction with the teachers and the students at the school or will my travel and meeting with people take up that part of my life? Will I do well? Will I be successful?

It rained this afternoon and I came home, laid on the sofa and fell asleep for two hours. The cat slept on my legs and it was so comfortable. I could have probably slept through the night. But I got up in order to fully appreciate the rain, the cool weather, and to clean house a little bit. All I really did was vacuum. And paint pages of my journal - which has been also neglected along with this blog.

I've also been reading camera reviews since I'm going to have to buy one of my own now that my school camera will no longer be available. I think I'm going to stick with Olympus since I have had such a good experience with this one - and I'm going with a digital SLR. I'm looking at the E-510 right now. I've loved carrying a camera everywhere with me and snapping off photos at the spur of the moment - it's just been so much fun.

This post will close with a couple of photos of the "lick" buckets I am converting into container gardens - last night I drilled holes in the bottom and used up almost all of my leftover spray paint covering the black plastic in hopes that they won't get too hot in the Owens Valley summer sun. JC is picking up more potting soil and maybe some veggie plants - we can finish what garden we are going to have this weekend perhaps.

Viva la veggies!

Kinda late for a Wednesday nite

But I have to keep posting! The race is on to the end of school and as much as I am eager to begin my new job full time I know I will feel like the end of teaching came too quickly. I'm leaving on a high note, though, and feel like I accomplished some good things at Big Pine High School. And I'm leaving with a good graduating class - the same class I started with four years ago.

We've had more flowers bloom and fade; and more are on their way. We had a brief fling with irises - so brief that I think some thinning might be in order in the fall. I'll separate and spread them out around the yard.

It is nice to see what is here and what is needed and what has to be done. We had tiny bulbs around the bases of the trees, and little grape hyacinth in the garden beds... of course they are all gone now.

And did I post about the wisteria already?

Well, there are hollyhocks just starting to bloom, and daylilies... and the roses are going nuts. More photos to come.

Chance keeps digging up the plants I put in the shade beds in the back yard... he's about to drive me crazy. I spent good money buying hosta, bleeding hearts and coral bells from the local nursery and he's dug them all up at least once. I carefully replant them and now every bed is barricaded with some concoction of old bed frames or milk crates or some such thing. Not exactly the look I was going for.

Travel is in my future - Reno next weekend, Lone Pine the following, and then Truckee... this is to be my new job. I'll have a camera and a computer and I'll post from the road. Last weekend was company and Mule Days - very much fun and I have more photos to download soon.

Peony (singular)

I can't believe it has been this long since the last post. I have been on such a treadmill of work and activities - making the transition over to Sierra Business Council from teaching. So this will be brief - but purty.

I have two potted peonies and one of them decided to bloom this year. One plant, one bloom. So I watched it and brushed the ants off and fussed over it and waited to see my precious little peony.

I'm surprised it didn't just fall off the stem with all the checking I did - but peonies are actually hardy plants. They like their heads in the sun and their feet in the shade! These little pots will have to migrate somewhere cooler once it really becomes summer here - this side of the house gets the most sun and heat. Eventually we will have a container veggie garden where these plants are spending the spring.

And there she is. Not one of those big overblown peonies (which I dearly love) but a peony nevertheless. And now.... she's gone. Til next year.

I'm back again.

Rhea's one year anniversary

Rhea and the other fillies have been with us just about a year now and I marvel at the horse she is beginning to be. I find her so beautiful. But I know that it is time to start exposing her to more and more - ponying her around on rides, driving her, putting a saddle on her, getting her ready for Luis to take her in August and put the first 30 days on her. She's still the smallest of the three fillies but she has grown more than I thought she would and she is quick and fast.

Here's one of the first photos I saw of her, sent by Carolyn Duferrena.

Little, scared, just barely a year old.

Who could not fall for this little face?

Irv and I drove like hell for two days up and back from northern Nevada to get these girls. We had the pleasure of meeting the Duferrenas and seeing some (for me) new country up north. I could live in Nevada, no problem.

The girls were not sure of things.

"We're not in Kansas anymore"

Once here she wasn't sure she wanted anything to do with us.

Smokin' thought having them was a bad idea and made that perfectly clear.

Then I broke my hip and they got the summer off in the mountains. Rhea relaxed and grew accustomed to me crutching around her.

She got a lot friendlier. Maybe cause we only did nice things with her, like grooming and feeding and graining. We put Rhea on senior feed cause she was so scrawny for so long... she really blossomed after that.

Back in the valley she made new friends over the winter,

and became ever more inquisitive and much less fearful.

She romped with the other girls in the arena and has stayed the least dominant of the three although she is definitely not meek.

No, she's not meek at all.

hummingbirds

I put the hummingbird feeders out earlier this week and it wasn't but overnight until the little beauties found them. They must have an incredible sense of smell for sugar or something. Or else they are just covering ground checking out every possibility. Whatever - they found the feeders. I opted not to tint the sugar water and with the red feeders it doesn't matter but I've notice that the little green feeder I have interests them not one bit. Was it an experimental color?

These little birds are not the least bit afraid of me either. I sat at the table with my camera aimed at the feeder and they zoomed in and out undisturbed. There were three this day that seemed to be vying  with each other for access to the feeders - or the territory. It was fascinating. I could sit there for an hour or more watching them.

Now I have to read up on them and identify them - I'm thinking of getting the iphone app that has the bird calls and photos - a bird book in a phone. Another perk with my new job is the ability to take a hummingbird-watching break (my version of the cigarette break) whenever I need it.

This one must be a female, don't you think? She's a little drab. And she is voracious so maybe she's got some eggs cookin' somewhere. Where do hummingbirds build their nests? I'm sure this isn't the last photo of hummingbirds at the feeder I'll post on here - I remember somewhere... someone had a feeder and it was mobbed with hummingbirds. Maybe mine will become the hummingbird truck-stop of Wilkerson and I won't be able to get any work done for all the monitoring I'm going to have to do.

Wisteria

The wisteria is in bloom and it is a sight to behold. And this one isn't even in all its glory having suffered a couple of years of neglect... we'll try to bring it back to full splendor.

Big loud bumblebees love to visit this plant and makes it a little nerve-wracking to be out on the front porch - but I figure the flowers won't last forever and it sure smells divine when you walk out there at night. We really pruned this plant back in February or so and it still needs additional pruning - I guess one would have to work pretty hard to actually kill this plant. It's old, though, you can tell by its thick twisting trunk. And really a treat to have come with the house.

Spring is when Bishop really shows off - before it gets stifling hot here in the valley. Go, wisteria, go!