beginnings of a patch

Here are the pumpkins that I was working on last week.  I think I have the beginnings of a patch.  It definitely put a dent in my orange selection of beads.  Especially since I have like three more color combos set up for more pumpkins!  I really want to point out where my first inspiration/idea to make pumpkins.  When we were at the Ren fair this year I saw this woman demonstrating how to blow glass.  She was selling what she made and she had these blown glass pumpkins that were soooooo cool.  It is the one thing I regret about the ren fair this year, not buying one of her pumpkins.
I really thought her purple pumpkins were awesome.  I don’t know why I thought they worked so well.  I tried a little purple in one of mine, and it worked ok.  I think sometime I will make another one completely purple!  The reddish pumpkin is actually an orange, it just photographed red.

Then yesterday I finally dug out some greens!  Pumpkin vines have very big broad leaves in a bright orange.  They are also shaped like other vine plants or at least similarly to a grape vine.  I did some experimenting on my version of a vine leaf and this is what I came up with.  I think it’s close, and it needs to be laced.  I’m working on a whole pumpkin vine.  I want to plant it in a pot an have flowers etc.  But we’ll see how it goes.

reflections

Orion discovered his reflection last night for the first time, his reaction….he ran and hid.  This morning he became a little braver.  You know the pictures of cats around halloween with their backs all curved up?  Well he would get in that pose and then walk sideways at the reflection, and once close enough pounced at it.  Except it would startle him again when the reflection pounced at him too.  I guess we should have named him after an entertainer b/c he sure keeps us laughing.
The Dude is coming this weekend, I bribed him with good food and cold pills (he’s sick too) so that he would come hang out with us, and maybe look at my internet set up.  We continue to have off and on internet at home which is getting annoying.  No one’s really sure what the problem is, but hopefully we’ll find out.
I now have most of the leaves laced for Rusty Rose.  I’m going to do some experimenting with fake water that people use with silk flowers.  I want something that will make the piece permanent and not use glue.  Clay hasn’t worked real well, so hopefully this is the answer.  I also have enough orange parts done for two more pumpkins.  I started stinging up a different orange for some more.  I have some different pumpkin ideas I want to play with.

whatta week!

What a week it’s been so far and I haven’t even finished blogging about the weekend. On Monday both Chris and I caught colds, so I’ve been trying to find the energy after work to do a million things and nothing is getting done except playing with our new kitten. Yep, the last thing I’ve been meaning to write about is bringing home our little bugger of a kitten on Saturday. Chris and I have discussed getting a cat/dog/both for a while. We decided now’s not the right time for a dog, but it’s great timing for a kitten. We went up to the pet store and they had a adoption agency there, and this little grey guy went crazy over this little toy we gave him. We got him home and he spent the entire weekend under the couch. He wouldn’t even come out to eat, the pic is from Sunday so its taken under the couch. He is slowly getting braver and has now explored the stairs and is just starting to go in the kitchen and dining room. Last night was the first time he discovered Willow. She did pretty good scaring him off, I guess he needs to work on stealth. Tonight we take him to the Vet, for a check up. Monday night we came up with the name Orion, we like it a lot. He’s definitely our little hunter. It doesn’t really roll off the tongue at all, so we started calling him Ori for short. Ori is the abbreviation for Orion. He doesn’t really seem to respond to any of our ideas. So until he lets me know what his name really is, we’ll call him Orion.
Not much has been happening bead wise lately. They are Orion’s favorite thing, even more so than the bird. I haven’t been able to focus on lacing, colds and lacing don’t go well together. So I’ve been stinging orange beads to make some more pumpkins.

winery

Sunday we drove up to the Mackinaw winery for their Art, Wine, and Music at the Vineyard.  I was under the impression that this would actually be an art show or fair.  They did have a little bit of art there but mostly it was to advertise for the art fair on the river front in a couple weeks.  Thats alright because it was a beautiful day and it was beautiful at the vineyard.  It was pretty cool b/c your driving down a two lane road corn fields on either side.  And then on the top of a hill theres a break in the corn fields and instead of corn there are grape vines.  It’s not a very big vineyard, but its very pretty there.  The atmosphere was very cozy and full of nature.  Lots of flowers and fountains, there was a pretty pond with a gazebo set up for parties right next to it.  I want to rent it out and have a wine party!
After looking at the bit of art, we went inside and tasted a few wines.  I’d never done a tasting before, and I don’t think this was a formal tasting.  They had a menu and we picked out what we wanted to try.  Then we each got a glass and walked out to the grape vines.  They were really pretty to walk through.  I even found a vine with grapes still on it.  After walking around and enjoying the live band they had, we bought a couple bottles of wine.  Both were red, they had some of the best red wines I’ve had.  Very smooth, and lots of flavor. 
When we got home we watched the Bears fight it out for their first game of the season.  Unfortunately, they didn’t wine, but according to Chris they put up a decent battle.  While the game was on I did some inside gardening.  I worked on lacing Rusty Rose, then made the petals for another pumpkin, and the petals for another two flowers that will be apart of a bouquet.

gardening

This was a very eventful weekend, so much that I’m dividing it up by subject into different posts.  Saturday morning we woke up kinda early.  Instead of going for a jog I decided to work in the yard.  I’d been talking about doing a million things in the yard and so I got started.  First I cut down the bigger-than-I-thought it was honeysuckle that was growing next to our deck.  It was very very very ugly and had some horrible aphids that made it look uglier.  It didn’t take long to saw the thing down, the big project was digging up the stump.  I needed a saw to saw through some of the roots.  I decided to only rip out one of the honeysuckles that day, there is one more on the list.  Then I started transplanting some hosta around the yard.  We have tons of hosta that came with the house, and in a couple varieties.  All of it is in desperate need of dividing or in horrible locations.  So I started moving some around.  I put several clumps under two of the pine trees in our front yard.  And I intend on transplanting some more under the stairs of out deck.  I also planted some daffodil bulbs mom had given me in the spring that I had forgotten about.  Ok, now that I write it all out it doesn’t look like I did all the much work.  But this was almost 3hours of work, and I’m sore today from it.

The pictures I posted are of sedum we have in our front yard.  Its really not that pretty but the bees and any other pollen loving bug are covering it right now.  There are at least 5 bees per plant, a butterfly, and then smaller bee like bugs on these flowers at all times when the sun in up.  Pictured up top is the preying mantis that is in high heaven.  He has found the perfect little spot to hang out and and feast on bees and flies….  I don’t think he’s left that spot for a week now.  Every time I see him he’s chowing down on a bee, but the bees don’t seem to mind him.  I don’t think he really appreciated my photographing him.  It’s little head followed me as I walked around the plant for a good shot.