Busy in the Garden

So... up here in the North, we had about four days of spring, and jumped into summer! Yesterday the temps were in the 80-90's. Now every thing in the garden has catching up to do. Over the weekend, while we were gone, our grapes noticeably popped their leaves and buds.Some one though was busy and prepared for the speedy spring-summer arrival. Robins have been nesting for the last couple of weeks already, in this half-fallen bird house by the grape vines. Last night Joe decided to put out all his chillipepper and pumpkin plants from indoors. His pumpkins were already blooming!!

Guess who was closely watching Joe's every move, every seed?? Yes, the chipmunk. Here, he's munching (and thinking oh boy, more yummy seeds) while supervising Joe not to miss a hole to bury sunflower seeds.

Lastly, here's Joe with a not so evil but hopeful and confident smile holding a jug of repellent. It's all natural with ingredients like dry blood and garlic extract. It smelled very garlicky to us... we shall see how it really works on chipmunks and bunnies. (Oh yes, we have a couple of big fat bunnies, too.) Well... as of this morning, I didn't see any holes dug up... yet.

Crooked Tree Debut

This weekend we went to Petoskey to attend a couple of exhibit openings. "North of the Bridge" was the title of the group exhibit at this wonderful community arts center, Crooked Tree. I got to show my new oil paintings and Japan prints in the new, a bit more up scale, location, among with many other U.P. artists. It turned to be a very exciting show, and I feel very honored to be included.

Here're some photos to show the corner of my artwork display.

The three of the four season paintings.

Three of my Japan prints.

Fuzzy, but happy was I that the general public reception on Saturday was much less formal than the previous evening's by-invitation-only social party where they served fancy hors d'oeuvre, including morel mushrooms, and had two small wine bars!!

Yesterday's Adventure

Yesterday we woke up to... this white January weather outside. But we proceeded to head down to Petoskey to drop off my artwork for the exhibit.As it turned out, we didn't have to drive 5 miles from our house before snow levels went down. The rest was a pretty easy ride. We realized this wonderful small community of Petoskey is only half an hour below the bridge. Not bad at all. Still, in case we got really hungry in the car, so I didn't become Joe's lunch, we took sandwiches along. Check this serious creation of Joe's!

We strolled through downtown Petoskey before heading back and enjoyed every little corner, including a neat general store and an ice cream/chocolate shop. We'll be going back in a couple of weeks for my show opening. Now we're looking forward to exploring the town a little more.

On our way back, the sun was out and warm. One couldn't believe it was snowing earlier in the morning. We took a side-track to do some mushrooming. We went back to our usual spot where we celebrate our anniversary. Here's a picture for my mom, who still has a hard time believing we just pick and eat things from nature and not get poisoned. It's hard to imagine how mushrooms grow and even harder to understand how one can spot such a tiny object. Trust me, it's still a mystery to me.

Well, Happy Mother's Day!

Four Years...

... and 3 days, and it's snowing outside. Our weather guy was right this time. If he's really right, we are expecting 3-5 (No! they increased to 7-10) inches of accumulation by tomorrow morning. Great. We get to drive 4 hours to drop off my artwork for an exhibit below the bridge tomorrow.
On this 5th we went out to Sai Uwa Thai Bistro for our 4 year anniversary. I almost DIED with heat from my dish. Our authentic chef, actually from Thailand, cooks jalapenos like we would sweet bell peppers. He told us kids in Thailand grow up eating hot peppers like that. Amazing! Meanwhile, Joe just enjoyed his noodle dish, watching me with burning red fat lips.

For dessert I made a tiny cheesecake with a hint of caramel. Yum.

And tonight we're having a bit of Mexican to make up for Cinco de Mayo. Pork enchilada, black beans, fresh guacamole, and what's miraculously left of the caramel cheesecake for dessert.

Spring Blossoms

Happy Spring! It was only a few days ago that I complained everybody else's lawns were so much greener than ours. Well, our lawns don't look much better, but our cherry trees in the backyard are blooming. Last year we didn't have any blossoms on the cherry trees. They actually had bugs, and Joe sprayed bug killer and seriously thought they were dying. So these cherry blossoms were quite unexpected surprises. I love these modest pale blossoms... a symbol of Japan. Today Joe got to go out mushroom hunting. It hasn't been a good season for mushrooms. Way too dry. But he managed to pick a handful of morels, along with six wood ticks!! Yes, spring is here.