Meanwhile....

While I've been writing about Austin, here in Orlando it has been raining, and raining, and raining. One day 3 inches, another day 2, and so it goes this time of year. If a girl wants to take photographs she just has to get a little wet like this squirrel. It's been a long time since I posted a squirrel photo and believe me, it will be a long time again, however, since I've managed to outwit them as regards to my bird feeders, I don't hate them they way I used to.

Somewhat appropriate that I've included the rain gauge; we've turned into weather nuts around here, checking it frequently although the pool tells most of the story. Early this morning I drained yet another few inches to keep it from overflowing. Either you love crows, or you don't. I'm not much of a fan mostly because they scare the other birds away.

What else have I been doing aside from taking photos of birds in the rain?

One day I made bread which is always fun and tasty.

It is so weird how when you are my age, things from your past come to you when you least expect it. After a little hand kneading, I decided to put the dough in my big green "fix and mix" Tupperware bowl, one that's seen probably thirty years of service. I hope my children will have fond memories of it as our big popcorn bowl. Anyway, covering the dough with my lovely French hand towel, I remembered a trick I learned a gazillion years ago--place it on the oven rack with the door closed, leaving the light on for a bit of warmth.

This method worked beautifully, just as I'd remembered. These days bread making instructions would have you roll out your dough, then roll it back up, tucking in the ends to form a loaf. I did not follow those instructions on the white bread; the cinnamon loaf I had no choice. Can you figure out which one of these loaves was formed the proper way?

The ugliest one! From now on I'm going to go with the method that works best for me. So, you see that bowl on the right? It's one I bought in Burnett, Texas, population 1,400. The stamp on the bottom reads, Watertown Lifetime Ware, a brand I was unfamiliar with. Here's a better look:

I paid $5.00 for it which, after consulting eBay, seems about right. I love the color, don't you? Doing a little research I found out this line is one of the first to use Melmac, commonly known as Melamine. 1946 was the year, just after World War II. It must have seemed so modern at the time! The piece is as good as new, despite the age, which I don't think will be the case with most of what we buy today. Seems like everything I buy has a very limited shelf life due to poor construction. Make them stop!

Oops! Another birdie! The feeders were empty so I had to fill them even if it was raining. I had just a tad left so I put it on the front walk, attracting scads of blue jays. This one, I think, is a baby because of the size.

A lot of the week I was waiting, and waiting, for my order to be done. The first Friday of the month arrived and with it FAVO night. My room is the one on the bottom with the lamp in the window.

Most of the day it rained, and then it stopped in time for our showing. This was early on, however, there were not nearly as many folks as we always hope for. I will tell you that every person who comes for the first time freaks out at how cool it is, saying, more people should know about this! I did not pick up my order until 8 in the morning, so I had much work to do to get ready. All's well that ends well--I sold some things. Not nearly what I hoped for, but enough to not go home too disappointed!

Winter Garden on Saturday morning was nice as always. The peaches are starting to come in:

Sometime in the last few months a new vendor began selling French macarons, which looks as if it is spelled incorrectly but it is not. According to him, these take a WEEK to make!

No wonder they are a little pricey!

Personally, I hit a new low at Winter Garden--oh my! Folks were there, just not interested in me. The one good thing is that the weather was mostly tolerable, with the rain holding off until 4PM when I was safely ensconced on my throne in the living room, watching a little golf. I told Bruce I was not looking forward to being in the tent on Sunday during another hour long deluge. God must have been listening because, although we got a few sprinkles a little after 3, prompting the market to close early, somehow, what looked like another mega storm, passed us by. Not a great sales day, but not terrible. Hey, it's summertime and the selling is not easy!

Woo hoo--my gerbera daisy bloomed again!

All this rain is making the plants look like they are on steroids. The grass is growing like nobodies business, as are the weeds in my flower beds. The nerve of them!

While on vacation, I did not take a library book along; no need to chance another lost one. So it was that I had to wait nearly a week to finish, "The Perfume Collector," which turned out to be very engaging so it was hard to wait to finish it. A real page turner! It was good, but the one I started after finishing it, is superb. Jennifer Haigh's writing in "News from Heaven" knocked my socks off. Oh wait, it's summer and I wouldn't wear socks if you paid me. You get my drift. Here's a glowing review from the New York Times which I knew nothing about before randomly picking up the book at the library. I am thrilled to have found another outstanding author whose work has been previously unknown to me!

So, that's what has been happening in Orlando. Not terribly exciting but it's what I do.

Out & About With Gail

During our conversation last evening Bruce asked me what I did all day. A good question for sure. Thinking that I'd tackled the stack of prints to be signed, he was all ready to congratulate me on getting them done when I had to admit that they are still on my work table. Soon, very soon. Instead I had some adventures, well to me at least. Nothing like this little note from Matthew:

Hey Mom
I started today taking photos on the beach, took a yoga class, then we had some late breakfast.
We then went to see some elephants, and I rode on one. After that we went and swam in the sea.
So all in all a pretty good day :)
M x

After reading that, my adventures seriously pale, nonetheless they are mine, and if you keep reading I'll take you along, or at least vicariously!

Yeah--my lunch yesterday afternoon! Bread baking on Tuesday afternoon with my new mixer. Do you think this is what they mean when the recipe calls for beating until the dough clings to the hook?

This time I added a bit more flour AND followed directions on how to form the loaf. Still, the mound wasn't perfect, but I just might be improving.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself. After writing yesterday morning, I had some breakfast in the sunroom, although at that time of the day, the sun was nowhere to be found. As I was eating, a poor little birdie flew into one of the windows!!

I'm pretty sure this is the female red-winged blackbird who still has a seed in her mouth! Before you get all upset, I'll tell you immediately that after about five minutes or so, she took off again. Whew!

Off on my bike ride next to check for eagles. No dice, but I did see a pretty huge Osprey in the bare tree.

Yesterday morning's red sky never produced any rain, however, it did signal a gray day. While walking towards the fence, actually trespassing, the woman who lives in the house with the dead pine came to visit with me. Her name is Becky and she was a fountain of information regarding the eagles!

Although she was on her way to work, she took the time to tell me about the eagles habits, claiming that they would be nowhere in sight or the osprey would not be in the tree. Apparently, osprey and eagles do not get along. :) Furthermore, she explained that once an eagle nests in a tree, it dies, so rather than take the dead one down, they leave it to preserve their other trees. All very interesting. Next time she told me to get right up to the fence if you like, and knowing me, you already know I'll do just that!

Do you remember how early last year the impatiens were taken off the market because of a fungus? Well, it must have been about November when they resurfaced at Lowes. Buying a tray of them, in the bargain area, I planted them under the Nuttery.

That would be on the right bed in this photograph during yesterday's sunrise. Well, for a time they were great, adding lovely color to the bed. And then they died. Just like that. It was as if they melted or something. Anyway, I took a trip to Lowes for something new. While there I saw this lovely basket of pansies.

The color combination was so beautiful! I did not buy pictured basket, but I did buy a few other things. Sadly, the bargain area was mostly bare. I can't remember the last time I paid full price, but a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do!

While talking to Becky she mentioned I have a good camera, and I do, but the zoom is nowhere near as long as needed for bird shots way up in a tree! Recently a friend mentioned pawn shops were a good place to get camera equipment, so asking Siri for a pawn shop, "she" replied, "There are 12 pawn shops fairly close to you." Good grief! Tells you what this part of town is like! I'd been told that Cash America was the place to go. Just down 436, I went into a pawn shop for maybe the second time in my life.

It was clean, neat, and overpriced. Next door was "La Familia" which was filled with loud Latin music and also overpriced. Across the street was "Cash Pawn", or something like that, which after looking at it from the car, I decided to forgo visiting. What I was hoping to find was a super zoom camera, one that goes crazy long for a reasonable price. Not to be found, or at least not on this outing.

After a lunch of the above pictured sandwich, I got to work in the garden. The thing about our yard is it is like three separate yards--the large front, side, and small backyard. There are times I would be happier without a corner lot! Planting, rearranging and the like went on until after 5 pm. Guess what this is:

Aside from the blooming snapdragons I should say. Those are the roots to my paper whites which are all pretty much done with their blooming now. Isn't that super cool? I also am conducting a little experiment with my petunias. Although it pains me to do so, I cut them back, hoping to achieve better shaped plants.

This is the before, and in about two weeks, we'll revisit and see what happens. I hate cutting off blooms don't you?

I learned yesterday that despite my nasty letter to the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce for not accepting me at last years Fall Art Festival, they aren't mad at me. An email came looking for submissions for the poster art for this year's festival in October. I know I'll never win, but it never hurts to submit something. What to submit is an entirely different matter.

As well, I heard from Audrey at Sun Dance and a company from Atlanta wants to license one of my images for a tote bag. How about that? The thing is they still haven't sent me the jpeg so I can't tell you what image it is! I'm pretty much dying to know. :)

Out & About is going to do just that right now. My bike awaits.

Back to the Here and Now

All righty then, let's get on with 2013,  shall we? I'm bursting at the seams with both photos and happenings to share....

Have a look at this bug will you? I feel like a real dumby because I can't for the life of me figure out what to call it--a cricket perhaps? Anyway, I was fooling around a bit in the gloomy weather, looking around the yard for things to photograph with the macro lens attached to my Nikon. Taking photographs of the red berrie clusters on our Nandina plants, what should I see but this!

That little business hanging from his body kept moving back and forth--very interesting. As you can see, I've not yet mastered the lens but it's fun to use it every now and again. Angela's yard got the treatment as well.

What a great neighbor she is too. Have you seen those commercials for Gazelle? I'd paid no attention until she told me that my old computer was commanding a whopping $106 from them and they would send the box and pay postage as well. The check came in yesterday's mail and although I insisted we split it, she gave me the full sum. How nice is that?

I don't do this often enough but it is a good idea nonetheless. I had to run out to Costco for a few things and while there I had them make 85, yes you read that right, 4x6 prints which set me back all of $11.00. What for you ask? Instead of seeing the image only on my computer it's really helpful to have a bunch of things, scatter them on a table and see what seems striking. Instead of buying a big canvas to sell without actually holding the image in my hand I need to commit to doing this every time I'm wanting something new. As I have a big show in just a couple of weeks, I need to get cracking on my order. Both Angela and Bruce picked their favorites from the lot. Actually, once I had the prints I quickly eliminated a good half of them for being junk.

They both chose a few of the same ones--me, I like them all for one reason or another, but Lord knows I don't need this many!

I bet Matt about fainted when I wrote about my huge tea buy a few weeks ago--440 bags to be exact. Which reminds me, I kept forgetting to pay Jonathan. Bad girl. Anyway, one of my gifts from Matt and Tom was this neat tea tin from London. There is always room for more tea in this house!

Apparently, Rosy Lee is a Cockney slang for a cup of tea. Closer to home I've been using my new mixer every chance I get.

I've made the pie crust, a banana cake, some pizza dough and now I've made some bread and rolls.

Starting with the white bread recipe that came with the mixer, I'll get more adventurous with time. Because I have only one loaf pan you see what I did with the rest of the dough! My large loaf looked pretty good after coming out of the oven except for a slight dip in the top. Practice, practice, practice.

Pretty soon I'll quit writing about the Matt gifts, but expect to see this again when it really gets going:

Yup, it's a little egg with seeds inside, which has just begun to hatch, if you will. It came fully an egg which I didn't have the nerve to break, but Matt did. Isn't it adorable. Plus, it's a daisy....

It's already the First Friday of the month which means it is FAVO night in about an hour. Last evening Bruce helped me hang the walls. On our way home we drove through downtown and I was delighted to see the star was still hanging as I'd not seen it this year.

Earlier today I returned to FAVO (good thing it is close by), to finish things off. Here's one side:

And, here's part of the other one:

The weather is gloomy and drizzly which probably means very few folks will come out. Who can blame them? Not I. Truthfully, I'd rather get into my favorite polka dot pajamas and cuddle up with Bruce on the couch to watch some of the many DVDs from Jonathan and Alissa. I've now got Mad Men and Homeland to watch. Plus, we've never even finished Friday Night Lights what with our DVD player problems. But, as we discussed yesterday I'll dress for success when I finish this and hope for the best.

Apparently this icky weather is meant to hang around all weekend which means I don't know what just yet. I hope wherever you live the sun shines both Saturday and Sunday! It's that time of the year again. What time Gail? Tabebuia tree blooming time, that's what! Before this afternoon I'd only seen a handful of trees just beginning to show their pretty little yellow blooms, however, maybe the pink trees bloom sooner?

Now, there's a little something pretty to leave you with...

p.s. no editing today as I'm meant to leave within a half hour! Yikes!