The dog days of summer ended, and I missed it

Apparently, the Dog Days of Summer ended on August 11th. I looked it up. The term refers to the hottest days of Summer, which lasted until a little over a week ago around here. The change was quite dramatic in our garden. We went from close to 30C to 20C daytime highs. We were getting sun from around 10 a.m. as it appeared over the buildings to hit the back fence, then as it moved, the rest of the garden would get time in direct sun until close to 8 p.m. in the evening. This last week it is now starting to hit the back fence around 1:30 p.m. and a strip of around four feet of ground along the fence until 4:30 p.m. Everything stuck in all-day shade in the rest of the garden has reverted to Autumn shutdown stage.

I did a bit of clean-up by removing summer squash plants that haven’t been productive and are stuck in 100% shade now. Even though they were blooming, all the flowers were male so no fruit. The last of the zucchini has several small fruits on it but they’ve been the same size for around three weeks! Not sure what’s up with that. Also pulled out done flowers and other vegetables, pruned the plum tree (apparently they need to be done late summer, not while dormant,) and have started cleaning up planters.

The cucumbers are in a perfect spot up high on the wall and are still getting all the sun – and being productive. And I move my peppers around to follow the sun as they are in pots.

Mini cucumber

Hot peppers

4 mini cucumber plants in planter

I’ve finally been able to make pickles!! Refrigerator pickles as I’ve no inclination to do actual canning – an issue of space for storage really. They’ll get eaten fast enough.

I was not able to find PROPER sour dill pickles here in the UK. So I made my own and they are fabulous! Salty and sour with garlic like I was used to getting in Canada. Everything here in the UK is sweet… EVERYTHING. It is crazy.

homemade refrigerator pickles

homemade refrigerator pickles

I had six pint jars which worked out well for the amount of room I had available in the fridge. I’ve already consumed most of the cucumber dills from my first jar. I made four jars of pickles so far, with a fifth jar that is just brine, ready to add the next batch of cucumbers to. And if my hot peppers ripen I’ll pickle them too!

One jar is just cucumbers from the garden; one is “recycling” a jar of gherkins that weren’t sour enough for me with added red pepper and some mushrooms; one is recycling supposedly “New York Deli Style” pickles that in no way resembled deli style dill pickles (I couldn’t bear to throw out perfectly good food product!) with green and red peppers; and one is asparagus. I’m quite happy now. No one else in the house likes pickles so they are all mine!

I’ve been on a baking kick this week making cookies. I’ve been trying new “keto/low carb” recipes I’ve found online. They all need tweaking to suit me better, but are tasty nonetheless! I made a Tahini Chocolate Nib cookie and a Almond/Peanut Butter Brownie cookie. I substituted things based on what I had – using chocolate nibs instead of chips, using some peanut butter as I only had half the required almond butter, etc.

Almond & Peanut Butter Brownie Cookies

Tahini Chocolate Nib Cookies

The Tahini cookies need more tahini (recipe was half butter, half tahini,) needed to be flattened, less time and lower temp. The Brownie cookies need more moisture (I will probably add cream cheese next time) and need to be a bit flatter. But they did turn out and are not crumbling in my hand.

I am painting my bedroom. Last Sunday I did the front wall… almost died. I was up most of the night with vicious cramps in my upper thighs which I think were from balancing on the step ladder. Not fun – took almost four days for the tightness to ease. BUT, am happy with this wall. Anne is going to paint the opposite wall for me – says she’ll be MUCH faster and can cut in better than me. I won’t argue!

I managed to match the paint colour with my curtains without taking the fabric along to match – I’ve a very good eye/memory for colours. I had an ink & watercolour I did a couple years ago that is a perfect piece to go on the green wall so I got a frame for it.

Before

Matched the colours

Not bad on cutting in

Finished with curtains back up

Ink and watercolour work

Framed art up now

This wall painting project is making me frame up a lot of the art I kept and get it on display. The new paint is making the other walls look bad, but I’m not up to painting THAT much. I’ll just cover them with lots of art.

Oh yeah… today is my one year anniversary of arriving in England! I can’t believe that much time has passed already. And we still are dealing with the bloody pandemic. At some point I hope I’ll be able to start travelling around Europe on short trips like I had been planning for the last seven years! I am not comfortable with the travel situation (virus, delays, unrest, etc.) so will keep occupied locally.

August 27, 2021 – Arrived at Heathrow (the mask stayed on until the car park!)

And that’s July done.

This morning I remembered today would have been my mom’s 84th birthday. She’s been gone just over seven years and I think about her every day. I’m the age she was when we moved to Northern Alberta in 2000… hard to get my mind around how fast time has flown by.

The garden is doing great! The calendula are done and dead, and I’ve pulled them all now – this morning yanked out the last couple of plant that were still providing support for other things. They were so dead they needed to go. Can’t have the garden looking that neglected. Lettuces are almost done now, just a few plants of each left. I spent this morning transplanting all the small pots or pansies into the beds to fill in empty spots.

Surprisingly the primroses and bleeding hearts are STILL blooming! That’s really impressive. Unfortunately all the plums are being eaten by something – every one of them that I’ve picked has something imbedded in it and is grossly sticky. Oh well. Apparently other years they’ve wrapped the tree but no one mentioned doing it this year to stop the pests.

The zucchini (aka courgettes) are doing pretty well, we’ve eaten 4 so far. Apparently I was underwatering them, so we had a bit of a hiccup but they are now starting to set again. Same with the cucumbers – have had 12 nice ones, and they are starting to set again now.

The herbs are hit and miss. I got a lot of cilantro (coriander) off and they are now going to seed. The dill barely got 3 inches high before bolting – it is now in full bloom. I’ve planted more as I need it to make pickles. All the other herbs – parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme are great and still going. The chives aren’t really doing well so I will be moving them into a pot and hope for a better result. The garlic is growing but not sure what I’m going to get. I may leave it for next year to harvest.

The fennel is looking good BUT is nor putting on any size – they’ve been the same small size for over a month. I really hope they’ll start to bulk up soon. The hot pepper is blooming and bushing up, but the sweet pepper shed almost all the leaves – it is now starting to sprout new ones at the top so I hope it will actually flower before Autumn gets here.

The rose was stunning! It is done now though. Long stemmed red roses, just gorgeous. It is now the support for the sun flowers. The largest sunflower (there are three of them) is the height of the brick wall now and is setting the flower. According to the seed package they are 10 feet tall but I really hope they don’t get much more that 6 feet or the wind will break them.

I managed to get some photos of the fish in the pond! They were blowing bubbles that morning – quite loudly! And took a photo from my bedroom window looking down on the garden so you can see the layout.

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At the studio I’ve started making Christmas ornaments as we were running low… yes, already! We put up a display a couple of months back of all our leftover stock. All the wreaths were sold, and lots of the small trees. The less expensive ones are very popular with the kids – £2 ornaments are perfect for them. Simple and quick to make little trees. The wreaths are £12 as they are more material and time to create and people love them.

The Christmas display at Serendipity Glass Design.

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I really like the dot tree and will be making more ornaments using them. I just have to make thousands more green dots! The bottom two photos of the red/green frit ornaments and the big red tree with white dots are in the kiln now, so the photos are before firing. The red/green frit ornaments will be £3-4 and are small hanging ornaments. The red tree will be a tealight stand.

Hope the summer is going well for you too!

June’s projects

I’ve been productive this month.

Spent a lot of time sorting out approximately 15 kg of scrap glass we acquired from another glass artist. Most of it was in containers by colours (i.e. “blue”) but not all of them by specifics (i.e. “transparent turquoise” etc.) I like my bits of glass to be sorted out so when I want something specific I can find it without digging through a large bin. It was a treasure trove! So many shades of blue that we didn’t have. I love both Turquoise Transparent & White Streaky AND Aqua Transparent & White Streaky – they are absolutely gorgeous and perfect “sky” glass for landscapes/seascapes. Watch this space to see what I do with all of it!

I made several lanterns in the last several weeks. All different – size, themes, etc. I’ll soon be making more as we’ve acquired a large selection of new lanterns of various styles. Some of these pictured are still available in the shop at Serendipity Glass Design.

Multicoloured dots

A mosiac perennial border

A rainbow/Pride theme

A campfire

1/2 Plymouth Hoe with Seaton’s Tower

2/2 Eddystone Lighthouse

I made another big bowl last week. I had one large circle of transparent sitting on my shelf so on the spur of the moment I decided to create a fruit bowl. I sketched it out on the “back” of the glass and then used tiny bits of scrap to create the mosaic. Working with scrap can be a challenge, in that sometimes you aren’t 100% positive if what you think the colour is, is actually what it is. Makes life interesting.

Before and after being fired in the kiln – the white was a reactive glass that changed colour. Oh well…

After the fusing – still a flat circle

After slumping, still in the mould

Despite the watermelon rind interior ending up pink, I love it. Next one I’ll take the white from a labeled piece of glass! This bowl is now in the shop, Serendipity Glass Design, for sale at £75.

And here are a few photos from the garden, which is doing phenomenally well! I’ve been eating salad daily as I over planted the lettuce (should have succession planted, not all at once – I do know better, just didn’t.) I’ve got masses of baby cucumbers starting and the zucchini are setting as well. Not to mention all the herbs flourishing. Also, finally, the garlic has started. I was worried about it as it took so long, but it is looking good – but won’t be ready until late Fall.

As it is officially Summer I’m hoping the weather will settle into a calmer pattern. Although, I will not hold my breath – this is England after all. The winds really smack around the plants in the garden and the heavy rain beats them up! Not to mention walking the dog in the wind and rain isn’t fun.

Hope you’re having a good start to Summer wherever you are.

April has been busy

I love Spring. All the shades of green start appearing, flowers start blooming, babies start arriving out on the moors… and the gardening at home gets underway.

This year I helped with a massive back garden overhaul and reconstruction which has been extremely satisfying. It is your typical terraced house walled and fenced back garden… approximately 20 x 22 feet so not all that huge, but we’ve got a lot of things in and are really thrilled with what we’ve accomplished.

We took 4 or 5 loads of stuff to the tip, put a lot in the regular household waste, and got rid of other things. Some things are being repurposed. We also scrounged up some paving bricks and stepping stones for free. And spent quite a lot too, on paving slabs, lumber, plants, seeds, etc. with some more spending coming in the next month when I have to pot up the summer plants.

Neither of us thought to take before photos, which is annoying as we were planning this serious project involving removing soil and sod, pavers, laying new pavers and moving others, adding concrete and generally building new things and doing repairs. But there you go. I am the worst about remembering to take photos of things.

I pulled out a large dead cedar shrub, yanked out other large shrubs and plants, and pruned a couple of boxwoods within a inch of their lives and a lot of other plants were seriously hacked back as well. We hauled out old plastic mini-shed, old planters, wood edging from around all the beds, metal, broken swing, etc. Anne tore up the old sod and dug out where it had been in order to lay new pavers – we filled up dozens of rubble bags with that. She also repaired the shelter roof which had been torn off in the winds storms back in Feb/March.

I had to dig out two manhole covers – storm drains apparently. I cleared away the dirt and other debris that had built up on top of them as access is supposed to be available. Well… Anne stepped on the top of one and the lid flipped up and down she went! One leg, down the hole. She was spectacularly bruised, but no other injury, thank goodness. They are now each covered with a large, heavy, paving slabs with a water fountain sitting on the back one. We filled the area with gravel to level up the slabs. Hopefully Anne won’t end up in the drain again.

We bought lumber to create new edging for the flower beds – I directed and Anne cut and screwed it all together. I moved pavers that I uncovered buried in various parts of the garden, cleaned them up and paved other areas with them.

I bought a large raised planter, more pots and lots of seeds and plants. We’ve spent close to four weeks all told and I’m calling Phase One complete now. The rest of what is planned is summer planting – so we have to wait for the warmer weather at the end of May.

The photos start looking out of the kitchen door, then work around to the dining room door, then towards the back fence.

My herbs and vegetables will all be in planters, including the large wooden trough against the wall – that’s my salad garden. The fish pond has been cleaned out, new filters in, new pond weed and the fish seem happy.

Anne bought a heated propagator . the heat was NOT required, but we didn’t realize that until the giant cucumbers and squash started pushing the lids off 4 days later! We’ve named them Audrey Three through Fourteen. We now have them in larger pots and recycled coffee cups… we won’t have room for everything that needs potting up! We can’t put the rest out until the end of May at least.

I’ve been productive out at the glass studio too this month, making more sunflower items – bowls, clocks, etc. We’ve been very pleased with the response to our Ukraine Appeal fundraiser – 50% of the sale price of all sunflower themed items is donated to the DEC Appeal/Red Cross.

Large Bowl (sold)

Small bowls in progress – second batch

Small bowls – two still available

Clock faces – hands and mechanisms will be added this week

Tealights, hangers and parts of a mobile

Mobile, laid out… awaiting the chain to link it all together

Spring has also been productive out on Dartmoor! All the babies bounding about, blocking the roads -but really, who minds waiting when you can watch a lamb or foal nursing?

The bluebells are out now too… but I haven’t managed any flower photos… yet.

Hope you’re having a good Spring.

Another Summer winding down

Today was my last day at my summer job at the college. I was asked to stay on so will now be a “Work/Study Student” which is a work program for full-time students at the college. Your work schedule is flexible to fit your course timetable, up to 12 hours per week and is only during regular business hours so no evenings or weekends. I am really happy to have been asked to stay on, and for being approved to do so.

Fall orientation is on Tuesday and classes start on Wednesday. I am so excited to be getting back to class! I’ve always loved school.

This semester I will be taking classes in Drawing, 2D Design, Painting, Photography, and a couple of others that cover resources for art and design in different ways.

I’m going to be spending a bit of time over the weekend seeking out my supplies from where I stashed them at the end of last semester! There are things all over my suite in different places. One of the professors posted projects online so I can see the supply and equipment list for her class so I know what I have to find for that course at least. Hopefully more will be posted before the first classes happen.

I was expecting the weather here in the southern Ontario to be super unpleasant for me – I used to hate heat and humidity. However, ahem, post-menopause I am always cold. Freezing cold. While everyone was complaining about the heat and humidity all summer, I was wearing long-underwear, a heavy sweater and then going outside at lunch to try to warm up before going back to my desk. It never worked.

After work I get into my car – with its all black leather interior – and just sit there with the engine off and the windows up. Waiting for my fingers and toes to thaw out. It feels wonderful to sit on a nice hot seat and feel the warmth start to seep into me.

The house has air conditioning and I had to shut and cover all the vents into my suite. I swear it is sub-zero down here. I have a duvet and a fleece blanket on my bed – I did have three fleece blankets at one point. I’m hoping once the heat is on for winter I’ll be more comfortable.

The plants in the yard are doing well. My sister and family only bought the house last year so a lot of the garden plantings were unknown. So we were watching and figuring out what various things were, and then planting more things. I also had scattered all the hollyhock seeds I’d brought with me last fall and have to say they are thriving here.

The existing hydrangea is a gorgeous rich pink. I haven’t previously seen one this colour – blue and purples and very light pinks, but not this bright. And the Rose of Sharon hibiscus – the neighbours on a couple of sides have a purple version. The daisy we planted this year. And the darker Mallow we planted, the lighter one is coming up so there must have been some here previously.

My sister’s goal is a self-generating perennial garden that appeals to butterflies and bees. I think we are well on the way. There are numerous other things: herbs, a rose, lavender, a white peony, black-eyed susans, sweet-william in a deep red, butterfly bush, milkweed, snapdragons, bleeding he rts, lilies, iris and several others. Next year the hollyhock will bloom so there should be quite a show.

One house down from us has a giant hibiscus… the flowers are over a foot across. I tried to discreetly get a shot of it without walking into the yard. The bloom is a bit droopy here – it was in full open position the evening before but I took too long to decide to get my camera out.

We’ve been harvesting tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, carrots, beans and zucchini. Also lots of herbs. My sister planted about 12 different kinds of basil all in one huge pot. There is dill, sage, lemon balm, cilantro, thyme, chives, rosemary and parsley too. I love fresh thyme and rosemary!

I did some face painting over the summer for events and birthday parties. I am now starting to get inquiries for Halloween. As Halloween is on a Wednesday this year I expect that the weekends before and after will be quite busy with parties. The last time it was mid-week I was booked solid for three weekends back in Grande Prairie.

I also worked with Theatre on the Ridge in Port Perry – rebuilding a dragon into a Lake Monster and wig work for some shows. I’m hoping to get more involved in the local theatre scene over the fall and winter. There are local groups all around with lots of productions of various sizes.

Fall will be here before we know it! Unfortunately the pumpkins plants failed – well, actually it was the squirrels, they ate the baby pumpkins. So we’ll have to buy some again this year.

I am thinking about taking a trip next summer. Just need to find out final costs and decide if I can swing it. There are still so many places to see and I’m not getting any younger, so want to get to as many as I can, while I can.

Hope you all had an enjoyable summer!