Work in Progress

(This is the first present-day entry to what will be my permanent blog site.  It is a duplicate from my wordpress.com blog dated today.  Some beautiful changes to this blog are coming soon.  Can't wait!!  Please stay tuned...)

We are getting back to normal at the Bass household these days. Our visit from Glenda has come and gone already. That is hard to believe. The following weekend was a visit from my husband’s brother. Both he and his wife were down, but wife was at a class reunion and brother got to have some free time. So the brothers enjoyed a morning of kayak fishing in our sweltering heat. Still, the water was beautiful as always.

Meanwhile, I am working on a new blogging project that I will share soon. I’m making some changes, but this time change is good. I can’t wait to fill you in. So for now, I’ll just share a few pictures/sites that I love.

You know we love our chickens. Owning chickens (or CHOOKS as they are called in Australia) has become a popular hobby. Anytime I see someone’s coop and yard, I have to save the picture. I love our set up and will look for some pictures I already have on hand. In the near future, I will take some pictures of all the upgrades that have taken place in our yard and house. It all looks so great!

This is one of my favorites. I’m not sure where I found it, so unfortunately I cannot give credit where credit is due. Love, love, love the roses and chickens together.

Then there is this entry from Heather Bullard’s site. I mentioned her in my previous post.  Heather is the senior editor of Flea Market Style magazine. Check out their new blog at the link. She is also an accomplished photographer, so all the pics are her own. She and her “man” visited Santa Barbara and found this set-up behind a store they visited. So charming!! She says that the children of a family come in daily to tend to the hens. How sweet is that?. Click on the link to see all the pictures from her post. You will want to add her sites to your favorites to visit often. I have! We have said that our next coop (when would we need a next one?) would be a walk-in type and this is great inspiration.

I had intended to show our own pictures next, but I believe they are saved in my other computer. So I will wait and take current pictures to share instead. While you wait, here is our kitty….Gracie Allen Bass. She is sitting on top of the opened chicken coop door, but appears to have her eye on something in the distance. She is our miracle cat who survived a near fatal dog attack a few years ago. She has even had one of her hind hip sockets removed as a result, but seems good as new these days. When we have had a few rainy or chilly days she looks to maybe have some arthritic pain there though. She is a beauty!

If I hadn’t started painting, I would have raised chickens. ~ Grandma Moses

~ ~

Links and Recipes

(Reprinted from my wordpress.com blog dated June 10, 2010.)

I just realized this morning that I had incorrectly typed the link to Seeds of Change in the list to the right. I have since corrected it. I also added a few new links to new-to-me blogs.


Chelsea Blue Whispers is a lovely blog from Australia. The author is in business with Cathy Penton of Simple Things-Small Joys in Queensland. They each have their own blogs as well as the business blog.

52 Flea is a new blog to me entirely. I actually picked it up (and the others) from Chelsea Blue Whispers. That is how the word spreads on this interesting medium. I used to be referenced on others’ blogs with my first blog a few years ago, but not this one….not yet. Anyway, 52 is most interesting. Just looks that I love and wish to share.

What luck I had in running across Cannelle et Vanille. I have no idea how to pronouce this pretty-looking set of French words. The author is a chef, food stylist, and photographer. What a great combination! Interestingly enough, especially for me, many of her recipes are gluten free. They look absolutely yummy, something not always found with gluten free. I can’t wait to try a few.

And finally, Heather Bullard. Another woman after my own heart. Her entire site is quite lovely.

PINEAPPLE-GINGER RICE WITH EDAMAME ~ I tried this new recipe last night. I had intended to make it while Glenda was visiting. I even had it clipped to the refrigerator, right in plain sight. I finally made it last night and it is my NEW FAVORITE!! I can see me making a batch each week for me to take to work for lunch and nibble on for dinner. For me, it is a complete meal. For some, it would be a side dish. I got it from the Whole Foods Market website. Please click on the link for the full recipe. I think I will put my own spin on it in the future by adding different nuts and/or seeds, other herbs from my garden, and maybe apples or pears in place or addition to the pineapple. The more I add, the more vegetable broth I will need to add to compensate. It is good warm or cold. For lunch today I added a drizzle of Drew’s Rosemary Balsamic dressing on top. YUMMY!! Hope you will try it and love it as much as I do.

Those who don’t pick roses in summer, won’t pick them in winter either. ~German proverb. HUH???

My How Time Flies

(Reprinted from my wordpress.com blog dated June 9, 2010.)

It has been well over a week since my last post. Many, many exciting things have happened in that week. It began with two friends meeting after over 40 years. That sounds strange, doesn’t it? For over 41 years I conversed with who would become a lifelong friend via “snail” mail, a few phone calls, and finally email. Many, many times we referenced meeting one day. Maybe we just thought that was what we were supposed to say. I’m not sure we ever really thought it would happen. We come from very different lands on opposite sides of the world, on opposite sides of the equator, in different hemispheres. Amazingly enough, the time came when, yes, we would meet and spend a wonderful week getting to know each other. What we found was that countries apart, worlds apart, people are the same. We have parents, husbands, children, and friends. We deal with the same situations that having those things brings. We also found that we had an uncommon amount of things in common. Our views were often the same on many topics.

We shared the same favorite things, favorite foods, favorite colors, favorite styles. When we met for the first time, we were both wearing the same color shirts. We wear similar styled glasses. The list continues. The more we talked about our daily lives, the more familiar our stories were. How we looked at our day-in, day-out activities. Why we made the choices we have, how we rationalize things…..so, so similar. The more we were made aware of our similarities, the more we realized that we had not conversed enough thoughout the years to have influenced each other’s thoughts. It is just how it is. A sisterhood that was formed many years ago, came full cirle.

The timing of it all was also very interesting. I shared with her that my favorite musical artist, James Taylor, would be coming to her hometown of Melbourne, Australia. She said she wished we could see him together instead. Then she said that she would be traveling to Canada to participate in an international Dragon Boating celebration/competition. If she visited with me here in Florida the week before, JT would be in my neck of the woods. Another “amazingly enough”……we did just that. We attended the Carole King-James Taylor Troubadour Tour concert last Saturday in Ft. Lauderdale. You’ve Got a Friend never had more meaning as it did that night.

In this high-tech world in which we now live, this story will never be repeated. You will not find two young children who will find each other via Brownies, begin writing….as in handwriting words and thoughts onto a piece of paper, placing a stamp on an envelope, and sending it off into the unknown with great anticipation of a letter coming back in return. Today it will be an instant response via email. We even conversed with her husband and children in real time, with live pictures, via Skype. It was amazing.

A bond that began 40-something years ago is now forever sealed. When we said our tearful goodbyes yesterday at the Fort Lauderdale airport, I told her, “I will see you again.” Her adventure continues with a trip to Toronto, then Quebec. I imagine she will be anxious to go back to her place below the equator very soon. Her family awaits. She will have so many stories to share.

Meanwhile, the next phase begins. The planning of a trip to her land. Maybe in a year or two, but it will now move up on our list of travel priorities. The obtaining of passports, the gearing up for the long flight. I know it will happen. So to Glenda…..until we meet again.

Ain’t it good to know you’ve got a friend? ~James Taylor

All Grown Up

(Reprinted from my wordpress.com blog dated May 25, 2010.)

Almost every day is filled with something wonderful and something not so wonderful.


Here are some of my wonderful moments so far today: My granddaughter, Kloe, gave me a sweet soy-milky smile while wrapped in her daddy’s arms as I kissed her forehead goodbye this morning (I kissed my son’s forehead too.) My husband brought home a beautiful pint of blackberries from his walk to the grocery store. All day I have been thinking of delicious ways to enjoy them and was once again reminded how I love that we can walk to the grocery store. At lunch today, I began reading a beloved book, A Way to Garden by Margaret Roach (more on that later).

Here are some not-so-wonderful moments. While sitting in my truck at lunchtime, enjoying my beloved book, I noticed how old my arms are starting to look. Scars on my hands and some new cuts from pruning dead wood from my roses add to the damage caused by growing up in the Florida sun. It was a not-so-gentle reminder that I’m almost 50. (I still have 3 years to go, but my husband likes to call it almost 50. Thanks, dear.) Then I glanced again at the cover of A Way to Garden and noticed my favorite part: the author’s hands look like my hands did this past weekend, covered in dirt with dirt embedded in my nails. It has taken me almost three days to finally get the last of the dirt out and it doesn’t even bother me! (So did I categorize this correctly after all?)

In my constant struggle with my weight and how I really want to live, I feel defeated that I give up on my attempts to eat gluten-free/vegan. It is truly what I want to eat and be, but it is an effort when I am the only person in my household who embraces it. I am encouraged to be that, but I am the only one to eat that way, so that means two different meals or variations of a meal. I don’t have the energy for all the prep and the result is that I will not be presenting my best self to my long-awaited friend. (I hear my husband telling me that I am too hard on myself. Yes, I know and I know that only I can make it happen.)

And finally, I have just learned that a dear colleague where I work has died. He was sick for about a year. His quality of life was not good, so does one feel sad or silently rejoice that he is now in peace and with the Lord? (Perhaps both?) When a friend said to me, “Why does this always have to happen to the good ones?” I found myself saying, “We will all have our day.”

When I hung up the phone I thought, wow, I feel like an adult….all grown up to know that I will not live forever on this earth. I pray I will live forever elsewhere, as I pray this gentleman does as well. I even feel comfortable expressing my wishes for my own end. I want to be cremated with some of my ashes scattered at the Bass Harbor Head Light on the coast of Maine and the remaining planted in the ground with a new tree in someone that I love’s yard; be it my son’s or one (or more) of my grandchildren’s yard. I am hoping that it will be a long time off and that all my grandchildren will be all grown up with yards of their own and can say “That’s Grandma’s tree. She is planted there too.” This may gross some people out and may greatly upset my mother, but I really don’t want to be buried in a cemetery taking up space where some trees and flowers could be growing instead. And NO FUNERAL!!! I want a party, if the living feel there must be something. It is depressing enough that a loved one has passed, but to have everyone endure a week or more of preparation so everyone can stare at my casket and weep? No thank you. When a friend died a year or so ago, we all met up by the beach to honor her love of the beach. It was lovely. I want that. Eat, drink, and be merry. Shed a tear if you feel you must, but be outside enjoying all of nature…the trees, the birds, the flowers, the water — all the things that I love. Play my favorite music. And just to save my mom from the phone call that I know will follow this post, No, Mom. I am not sick. I am fine, just all grown up. I love you very much and will see you soon!

And so while we all speak of our friend’s death, we also prepare to welcome another colleague’s granddaughter who is in the process of being born right now. (And all this going on in the same hospital!) It is a continuum.

So bascially, in their own way, all the moments have wonderfulness in them. Even those originally considered not so. When one can have these thoughts, see the good and accept the not so good, but carry on nonetheless….that is pretty wonderful.

Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.  ~Unknown

If growing up is the process of creating ideas and dreams about what life should be, then maturity is letting go again.”  ~Mary Beth Danielson

Paint and Worry

(Reprinted from my wordpress.com blog dated May 21, 2010.)

I felt Martha Stewart would have given an approving nod in our direction this past weekend as the shed was painted Martha Stewart Saguaro (MSL092). The house will soon follow suit. Eventually, the hen houses will be painted the same (very Martha-esque!). I glanced out to see a freshly painted wall and a chicken walking past. It was as if I had opened an issue of Martha Stewart Living and was pleased it was actually my very own back yard I was seeing. The trim is my favorite Ultra Pure White from Behr (the brightest white in my opinion), and back to Martha Stewart for the doors: Kerry Blue Terrier (MSL161).


It looks like this coming weekend will be an exterior paint fest. Calling in all favors from all those for whom we have ever helped paint (or other such projects)!!! Yes, I know it will be hot, but I will keep the liquids flowing. We have a small house….won’t take long at all!!

Meanwhile, worry is filling my mind this afternoon. Yes, I know how fruitless this activity is. It is not about the painting of my home, but of other things I cannot control. In an effort to contain it, I did some research on clever quotes.

“People gather bundles of sticks to build bridges they never cross.” – Author Unknown

This conjers up a vision of a bridge so grand that even my bridge engineer brother would be impressed. I feel that at least something constructive would come from my worrying. But if I never get to cross it….wasted energy. Point taken.

“That the birds of worry and care fly over your head, this you cannot change; but that they build nests in your hair, this you can prevent.” Chinese Proverb

I laughed at this one as I instantly saw a FLOCK of birds trying to build a nest on my head. I liked that it brought me to laughter, which has always been a great anxiety reliever to me. It also made me see the nonsense in this activity…this worrying thing.

“For peace of mind, resign as general manager of the universe.” – Author Unknown

BOINK! Hit right on the head! Right….I am not in charge. Okay, I'll quit!!

Check out these nests. Maybe I could wear these as earrings to match my bird nest hat!

Fake It Till You Make It

(Reprinted from my wordpress blog dated May 11, 2010.)

Someone said that to me years ago and it just stuck. Today I will fake that I really don’t have a nagging sore throat; that the projects I always have on my list each night will really get done; that I really am not worried how my son will make it in this life and that his son and daughter will grow up to be perfect and well adjusted; and that I really don’t want to just be out in my garden up to my elbows in dirt instead of where I really am. There – just writing all that down seemed to unload it all just a bit. There isn’t much there that I have control over, so why let it continue to stew?

Over this past weekend, when my sweet little Kloe fell asleep in her swing, I ran out into the backyard in the hopes of planting a few new plants: Russian sage Pevovskia and Powderpuff Mimosa strigillosa.

To me the sage almost looks like lavender with stalks of lavender blooms. I think two more will create the drift I am hoping for. They only go to Zone 9, but I often have good luck with that still. It is planted in a semi-shaded area under a tree that I wish I knew the name of. It is a tropical tree native to South America (I think), with beautiful yellow blooms in the winter (which was why I wanted it) and BIG thorns (which is why I was asked to please not plant it a couple of years ago). I planted it anyway. I cannot fully stand under it yet so I am on my hands and knees digging a hole with my small hand trowel while trying not to get thorns in my back.

The pink powderpuff mimosas are native to Florida. I planted them in and amongst some other groundcovers…a creeping jasmine and dune daisies. I like the idea of the pink powderpuffs popping up their little bushy heads there. All in keeping with the backyard color scheme of purples, whites, pinks, and yellows (and shades thereof).

Any gardener knows that when you are out there on your hands and knees (or finally just sitting there in the middle of the bed), weeds seen have to be removed. I have a pesky weed that likes to invade everything in the yard….grass included. As I was pulling it up and flinging it into a pile, I turned to look over my shoulder and saw our chickens feasting on them. First of all, I didn’t even realize they were out. It is a different view to be sitting on the ground when they are having their walk-about. They look so much bigger. Secondly, it was pretty cool to just watch them pecking all the leaves off the weeds I had discarded. My pest was their feast.

Out of nowhere, these lyrics popped into my head:

To everything: turn, turn, turn;
There is a season: turn, turn, turn;
And a time to every purpose, under Heaven.

I guess seeing the chickens eat what I had considered to be trash reminded me that everything has a purpose and place in this world. And since I basically think life is one big musical anyway and that in certain situations one should just break out in song, I was not surprised that a song came to mind. However, that particular Byrds song had not entered my mind in forever. And right then and there, I felt peace. I enjoyed just sitting in the middle of a flower bed, under a thorny tree, watching a chicken dance, and humming a song in my head.

Next scene, my husband is walking out of the house with our granddaughter, who is now awake. He sits down in the grass so she can see the chickens up close and I can finish getting my few plants in the ground. Here Comes the Sun, the James Taylor/Yo Yo Ma version, is next on the In Carol’s Head jukebox. Truth be said, there is almost always a song going on in there. Kloe mostly bears the brunt of my constant singing and often looks at me quizzically. The other day I made up a little ditty that almost made her laugh. She goes to sleep every night listening to Jewel sing lullabies. I have no idea if it helps or if she likes it. She seems to. It makes me feel better anyway.

In my Fake It Till You Make It world, I often don’t have to fake it for long. I just break out in song and everything seems better!

~~
I miss my singing career very much. ~ Elvis Presley

The only thing better than singing is more singing. ~ Ella Fitzgerald

And finally….

If your lifeguard duties were as good as your singing, a lot of people would be drowning. ~ Simon Cowell

Where my heart is today...

(Reprinted from my wordpress.com blog dated May 6, 2010.)

     This is the only David Austen rose that has ever grown for me.

A little water, a little sunshine, and I'm good.

Sweet lavender.

Crazy climber...

My prettiest dill ever.  I think I'll plant some more.

(Postcript....not tolerating the hot Florida summer very well.  So sad.)

Happy endings.

A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.

Chinese Proverb