Our son, Seth

Seth visited us last weekend for a couple of nights.  While he was here, he helped us with some projects and worked on a painting. 

Here's a video of Seth when he first started working on this painting.  Link HERE.

Seth opened his first Etsy shop and you can find it HERE. 

HERE he is working on a project for us, cutting metal and HERE'S another one. 

I'm very excited about his new shop.  He is so talented.  Here's a drawing he did when he was between nine and eleven years old.  There is some glare because it's behind glass.

Rustic Oval Table

Our newest little table from reclaimed wood (and new wood ball feet) that was a custom order for one of our customers.  See link HERE.

Mike's Barber Poles

Barber Pole Link.

We recently sold this barber pole and I just found out that it's for a museum in Illinois.  Here's the link to the museum where it's being installed.  It's all finished and we're shipping it out this afternoon. 

Mike makes the barber poles and I paint the stripes on and do all the finish work. 

As far as big names goes, so far, we've sold a pole to Disney and to Facebook.  Here's the commercial that our Disney pole is on.  Our barber pole is near the end of this commercial, it's right behind the old guy reading the paper on the bench.  The set with brick buildings is a faux set that Disney created with the help of a set design company.

Disney Barber Pole Link.

See the great big ball on top?  Mike carved that 9 inch ball by hand.  He's pretty amazing.  

One Eyed One Horned Flying Purple People Eater

We went to Glashoff's spring party and for the first time, we bought two of Chad's sculptures.  Usually we buy at least one sculpture from his dad, Phil, but this time I fell in love with two of Chad's pieces.  Don't you just love this cute guy?

Gardening

Yellow Yarrow and Horsetail

Some of our plants in the backyard died over the last winter, so we needed to replace them.

Mike's Quail he carved.

I love Statice, the flowers have almost a paper like feel.

This afternoon, we went to our favorite local nursery, Mid City Nursery, and picked up several plants.  Some of them are going into pots and some directly into the ground.  Mike just tells me to place them where I want them to go and he pops them into the ground.  Well, after he does the hard part and digs the hole.  While he was busy doing that, I made some burgers for dinner with grilled onions.  

We were pretty busy this week, lots of orders.  Thank you!  Today we worked on orders, I washed and hung out some laundry along with our bedsheets and blanket.  Oh, they smell so fresh and sweet after being blown about and air dried in the sunshine.  It was very windy today, too.  It even blew over my clothesline.  The sheets were like a sail, filled with air and tipped it right over.  Only one thing (one of Mike's t-shirts) got dirty from that fall and had to go back into the laundry bin for next time.

Newest Painting

Here's my little shorebird, all finished.

A Lazy Weekend

We went to the coast last weekend.  On the way up Highway One we encountered some cows in the road.   Spent all day Friday in Fort Bragg and Mendocino.  Lots of wonderful little shops and art galleries to while away the day. 

Lake Cleone.

Went for a bike ride along the beach in Fort Bragg.

Navarro River.

A Fun Play Day Today

Mike carved a bird today and now he's carving another one.  Watch the video below, follow the link.

See the video HERE.

This one he carved earlier today and it's carved from a solid wooden post to install in the ground as you would a fence post with cement.  It will be listed in our Etsy shop when he's completely finished with it.

I'm excited to say that I've started painting again and I don't want to ever quit again.  It seems as though I go through long, long periods (years) where I don't paint at all.  Except furniture for our honeystreasures site, that is.  At first I was going to move all of my paintings and the photographs from my honeyscolors site and eventually close that shop but I decided against it and am going to keep it open for business.   

Here's a few of the paintings I started today to begin warming me up.

Pot of Hydrangeas.  Impasto.

Blue Trees.  (not finished)

Shorebird.  (not finished with this one either)

Zion Canyon.  (base layer of paint)  Waiting for this to dry before going back to it.

Thijme Termaat

Thijme created this video two years ago and it's pretty incredible.  He's a very talented young man and I only just discovered him.  Here's his website:  http://thijmetermaat.com/

(pronounced 'tie-muh' 'ter-maat').

Be sure to read his story, here:   http://thijmetermaat.com/news/thijme

Memorial Day Weekend

Spent the last week up at Duncan Mills with our friends, Jan and Gary.  We had a great time. 

Jan and I went across the street (more than once) and shopped till we dropped.  Brian Trombly, the owner of a very cute shop called, Mr. Trombly's Tea, recently opened a darling new kitchen boutique next to the tea shop called, Mr. Trombly's Table.  He was busy running back and forth between the two because they were having a big weekend event in both stores.   Brian said that's how he stays so skinny.  The windows were decorated all pretty.  We got to taste of all the little scones and jams in the tea shop and oils, vinaigrettes and mustards in the kitchen shop. Yum! 

Jan and Gary belong to the Duncan Mills Camping Club and the club had a BBQ event and a band called The Fargo Brothers that played music out on the lawn.  What a fun group of guys.  I got to dance my feet off because they played not only at the campground, but the next day played again (walking distance) at The Blue Heron.

He's impersonating an Elvis Impersonator.  Ha ha

Homemade Beef Jerky

Shown above is the marinade.

The beef is all laid out, ready to go into the oven overnight.

Here's the recipe that I got out of an old magazine (Mother Earth News) back in the 1980's.  The recipe was created by a young man and they did an article about his homemade beef jerky.  I used to make it all the time and it's really tasty.

Marinade

5 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp salt
2 Tbsp black pepper
1 small onion, chopped finely
2 stalks celery, chopped finely
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp. hot sauce (I didn't have any and used a little cayenne pepper instead)

Bring this mixture to a slow boil (stirring so it doesn't burn) and lower to a simmer.  Simmer for 10 minutes.  When it's cool, pour the liquid over the sliced meat in a container.  Cover and keep in the refrigerator for 8 hours.

Afterward, remove the strips of meat and lay them across a broiling pan.  I used a light spray of oil on the pans.

Put them into a cold oven.  Turn the oven to 125 degrees F.  Let the meat dry in the oven overnight for 10 to 12 hours.

Note:  The newer ovens only go as low as 170 degrees F.  So, doing it on this higher temperature is new to me and I'll have to let you know how it goes.  I just put the pans into the oven (10:30 pm) and in the morning, I'll check on the jerky to see how done it is and will let you know how it turns out and how many hours it took at this temp.

Oh, one more note on the meat.  I used to have the butcher cut me a one inch thick piece of round steak which I would then partially freeze in order to make it easier to thinly slice.  This time I just bought a thick roast and I didn't have time to wait for it to partially freeze.  Therefore, you can see from the photo that I have some smaller pieces along with some longer ones.  Next time, I will go back to the thick round steak, it always turned out good.  I was just a little in a hurry this time.

Also, be sure to lay the meat flat and try not to have it overlap.  When taking the pieces out of the marinade container, you want to smooth out each piece to make them sit flat on the pan.

When the jerky is done, you need to let it cool before placing it into a covered container.  No need to refrigerate the jerky. 

Alameda Spring Festival

Went to the Alameda Spring Festival today with our friends and hooked up with Mike's daughter and son-in-law and my two sons, Amon and Seth.  We all went to lunch at a favorite, Burma Superstar.

Park Street was closed off from Lincoln to Encinal with food and craft vendors.

There was a stage set up on both sides of Park, one at Lincoln and one stage at Encinal and various bands played throughout the day.  We saw Fleetwood Mask.  And I caught the tail end of Long Train Running.  They sounded pretty good. 

This is the Tom Petty Tribute Band and they were really good.  Who doesn't love Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers?  I got to dance to a few songs before we had to leave.  Yay!  As you know, I love to dance, dance, dance.  Here they are on YouTube.  

Just saw that they're playing in Vacaville soon.  We might go. 

In July, we plan on going to the Alameda Art and Wine Festival the weekend of July 26th and 27th.

Snow! Rain! And Mud!!

On the day before we left Zion, in the morning, we woke up to gently falling snow. 

It felt like being a kid again, we were so excited about the possibility of getting some pictures in Zion with snow on the rocks.  We grabbed the camera and took off for the park.

I took the above pictures out the truck window.

We stopped along the road to grab some more shots and Mike got this one of me.

When we got there and took the shuttle into the park, we saw the fog hugging the mountains of rocks had an ethereal beauty and presence.  It was breathtaking. 

Later that same day, we discovered there was a nearby ghost town and since we had nothing else to do, I said to Mike, why not take a drive out to see it?  So that's what we did.  The drive going out there was okay but when we got to the actual town, where the buildings were, because of the recent snow (and rain) it was very, very muddy.  Michael parked in the mud and we got out of the truck and  before I knew it, he took off with his camera to get some pictures of some barn he saw.  There was no way I would follow him down that road. 

I was freaking out and worried about getting our truck stuck in the mud and not being able to drive out, so I went back to the truck, got in it and sat.  Grafton was quite a little drive, out in the middle of Nowhereville.  The tread on our truck tires was covered in mud and my good hiking shoes (ugh!) were caked with mud about two inches thick.  I kept slipping and sliding all over the road and to tell you the truth, I wasn't enjoying this one bit.  Honestly, you couldn't walk anywhere without getting mud all over your shoes and the bottom of your pant legs.  It was awful and all I could think of was getting us out of there so I just sat in the truck with my arms folded.  Fuming and worrying.  Michael came over to the truck and said, "Well, Lisa, your shoes are covered in mud.  Your as muddy as you're going to get.  Why don't you just get out and take some pictures while we're here?  Because we're not coming back ever again." 

So I did.  He was right.  It couldn't get any worse than it already was.

I like my pictures in black and white the best.  I got some really excellent shots in Grafton and am only posting a few for you to see.  Upon further research, I found that this is the most photographed ghost town in the U.S. and has been used in films.  The ghost town of Grafton.

So, if you ever decide to go to this little ghost town in Utah, make sure it's not after a rain.  Or have a 4 wheel drive and some sturdy rubber boots!!!