My Girls

I'm looking for homes for my girls who have been my constant companions for years. Neither my Ex-husband nor I can offer them the right kind of life for a border collie so I am looking for a good home for them.

Please contact me at carmenrose at comcast dot net if you or someone you know might be able to give them a good home.

A Different Perspective

It's not uncommon to find one of my border collies patiently sitting in the yard staring up into a tree. Now... they are stalking a squirrel when they do that, but if you didn't realize that it would be easy to conclude that they (Misde especially) enjoying looking up through the petals of the dogwoods.

Here's Misde in hot pursuit of a squirrel who is running from tree to tree above her.

I decided that Misde really had the right idea, enjoying a dogwood from a distance is one thing....

But watching the dogwood petals light up in the spring sunshine...

I love how graceful the branches are.

The textures of flowers that are close and those that are more distant.

I love this time of year, even if my cars and deck furniture are all covered in fine yellow powder, and I'm doubling up on my allergy meds.

It was beautiful today, sunny and just a tad cold. I visited Mary Baldwin and then sat outside on a bench enjoying the view for a while, completely raptured by the view and beauty of that place.

I passed the park on the way home and decided to spend some time with the ducks and fish. They've put up a sign, apparently one is no longer allowed to bring a stale loaf of bread and feed the ducks. That's really sad. Maybe stale bread isn't good for ducks, but I sure enjoyed giving it to them.

I really am enjoying spring with these beautiful dogwoods!  I learned something from Misde.  Look up!  Appreciate something from a different perspective today!

Happy Creating,
-Carmen Rose

Hope and Peanut Butter

This is Hope, she's a full blooded Border Collie and my nearly constant companion.

This is Misde, she is Hope's daughter (Daddy was a mystery mutt) and she was the last one of a litter of eight puppies. When she was very little and we were keeping track of eight puppies, seven of them would be together playing and she'd be out exploring somewhere out there... so we called her Misdemeanor. When I finally decided that I couldn't part with her, that we were going to be a two dog family, I knew her name needed some attention.  So she became Misde.  These are my critters.  I <3 them.

This evening I gave each of them an empty peanut butter jar to clean out.  

It's very entertaining to watch them, because they both really love peanut butter. 

The first challenge is to get the slippery jar to hold still.
Hope wants to stand on it, Misde prefers to hold it between two paws.

Then there is the very serious business of getting the peanut butter out of the jar!
And they do take this task very seriously!


Yummm...

There is a little left on the bottom, she'll get it!

Oops, got too close... Border Collie in protective mode!

num num num
Yeah, we save the peanut butter jars at our house, just so the girls can lick them out.  And once they've gotten all they can reach at the top of the jar, we saw them open so they can clean out the bottom also.  And don't worry, the animals and jars are parted before anyone ingests the plastic.  Cheap entertainment. 

It's the simple things,
-Carmen Rose

Snow and more Snow!

This morning we opened the doors to a snowy wonderland and let the girls out, and they plunged head first into surprisingly deep snow.  Here they are just before they get really confused border collie looks on their faces.  They did finally forge a pathway out into wonderland, wish I had video of that!

Then Misde discovered that the squirrels were out, so she went out to check on them, (She's the speck in the distance btwn hemlock and porch post) Hope watched from the lower porch.  Hubby got to uncover the firewood for the wood stove as well, there is no better heat this time of year!

There was a rather large drift on the upper deck, it was a little confusing for Hope...

But then hubby set about removing the snow so that we could all go out and have a look around...

 

Maybe even a trip down the snowy stairs to see what can be seen... except for a border collie the snow was rather daunting at that depth.

In different places we got different measurements... this was one of the deeper spots.

The street side of the house was a sea of beautiful whiteness!  I can say that because I didn't have to shovel any of that!

It took a while, but hubby found the sidewalk and the steps going up to the street!

He moved lots of snow to get to the van!  (The tile for my new kitchen floor is in that van, waiting to be transformed into a real visual treat for our home - just add hard labor and a bottle of advil and it will be beautiful!!)  It can just stay out there in the van a little longer!!

He's showing me that all that can be seen of my Honda Civic is the tip of the CB antenna and the mirror!  We didn't even uncover them, it's not done snowing!  (At least I hope not)  I don't remember a snow like this in Virginia, certainly not since we returned in 2000.

And while he was shoveling all that snow, I was digging out my textile studio near the wood stove.  (Ask me which one of us had the better deal?!)  All the fabric is sorted, folded and stowed away where it goes!!  It's beautifully organized, it is SO FUN when order reigns supreme in my studio.  I've even done inventory (NO PURPLE - O NO!) to see what colors I need to dye up next.  I've even got the dye mixed on the kitchen counter and the fabric is soaking.  Maybe tomorrow I'll don the gloves and get dying.  Everything is canceled, even church - and they say they don't close in "inclement" weather.  I guess this was a little beyond "inclement."

I cleaned up the last of the glaze and packed up my glass studio for the season.  That's the last of that art media for the year and it seems unlikely that I'll even get back into it before spring comes.  It's time for winter weather arts - fabric, quilts and home renovation projects! 

We hooked a projector up to the laptop and hung a queen size sheet over the fireplace and watched a couple movies today.  Everything is now QUEEN size!  LOL!  I have a two week Netflix free trial and so I'm giving it a go again and enjoying it so far.  A perfect activity for a snow day!  A loaf of bread to make the house smell wonderful and a fire in the wood stove.  Tell me... does it get much better than this?  Actually - yes because there are yards and yards of fresh fabrics and fresh dyes just waiting for me.  So clearly it really does get better than this!

Happy creating, stay in out of the cold and say a prayer for those who don't have it as good as we do in our snug homes with internet connections.

Grace,
-Carmen Rose

Tasty Treats

This was dinner last night. And yeah, it tasted good. Maybe even better than it looks even. To start out I sautéed up yellow squash, green beans, red onions, and zucchini in the jalapeño flavored oil that I made the other day. So they were spicy and cooked so they still had their color and were still crunchy. I did potatoes with some salt and balsamic vinegar and they had a little crunch to them. Then the steak was sautéed up quickly with mesquite smoked pepper. The spaghetti was left over and I opened a can of mandarin oranges for a little sweetness. I layered everything up with lime juice and fresh basil over the top.

This was so fun to experiment with the creative process when it comes to food, I enjoyed it very much.

It was an interesting combination of the spicy kick from the jalapeño oil, the sweet/tang of the citrus and the flavor of a great Omaha steak. Mercy it was good. I was a little concerned about what hubby would say because he likes his food to be pretty conventional but he really liked it.

I love the Food Network, it makes me consider cooking with things like texture, spicy heat, sweet , tart, fresh herbs and… of course… COLOR!

Yum.

Then hubby felt inspired to pull an old cake out of the freezer, saw off a hunk and set it to thaw on the kitchen counter. We both ate a piece before we went to bed last night.

And Hope had her piece this morning. Leaving her whisker and tooth marks for us. I walked into the kitchen this morning and looked at the cake and she looked at me and started to growl. So I guess we know it was her and not Misde. What an opportunistic brat-dog!

Yeah, go ahead, look innocent. We all know better!

Two finished!

This little quilt is finished now, I chose an orange binding and that went on rather quickly last evening.

I chose a brighter blue binding for this one, and did that one last evening as well. I debated for a while on how to shape the piece so I finally decided to give it this slight curve on the sides and a subtle wiggle in the bottom line. This is fun for me because all my life I've been sewing quilts in straight lines (except my first quilt which was a double wedding ring.)

I found this in my stash and decided to pull it out. I intend to machine quilt it when I get the chance but I'm not done with it yet. Those narrow borders aren't sewn on, so I need to decide how much white to leave. I think I must have done it that way to leave some space for quilting something interesting but I'm not sure my life goes at the kind of pace that it would require to actually hand quilt that border. So I'm undecided on that one. It might have to go back into the stash for a while longer.

The darker diamonds in this piece are all created from "crazy quilt" style scraps. So even though they "read" as fairly solid color, they are actually quite interesting up close.

I was in my sewing studio earlier enjoying the view. The weather has turned considerably warmer and the wood stove has cooled off and I had the sliding glass doors open. As I was standing at my sewing machine, Hope decided to see how things were looking outside.

She stood there for a few moments, looking beautiful and by the time I had my camera in place she needed to shake so her head so she became a blur. Then she decided to go explore until I called her name. So the second shot shows her coming to find out what I wanted with some wierd look on her face, but she is lovely creature and my constant companion. (Plus you can see them I'm still working at stripping that table as well.)

Progress on the Crayon Quilt

Progress on quilt number seven. I’ve added another row to the string bean quilt. I’ll play with the color placement before I sew any of this stuff together but for now this is how I’ve placed them. They are fun from a distance when you get the overall feel for the colors. And they are fun when you look up close at each block where you can see the various textures and patterns.

Introducing one of my favorite companions. This turned out to be such an interesting photo, her in that strange twisted pose and the feeling that this simply can not be comfortable for her, yet she looks wise and knowing. (And yes, she really does have four paws! LOL) She’s a border collie mystery mutt mix and she’s a delightful creature. She was the last of the litter and my favorite from birth. I fed her goat’s milk as her mother couldn’t keep up with all eight of them. I called her Misdemeanor for quite some time. All seven puppies would be where they were supposed to be and she would be out exploring the far reaches of the kingdom. Once we decided that we’d keep her and become a two dog household we decided that we’d better give some thought to that name. So we shortened it to Misde. Or Miss D. She is a precious creature, currently curled up with me on the sofa.

I had a number of other pressing matters to attend to today, so this row with the yellow seemed to take forever as I snatched a moment with it here and there. But just a bit ago I finally finished it and I’m pleased so far. Progress is good.
Next is the lime green row. :)