Market Day

I made a new record this weekend, cramming 27 flower bouquets into one tiny car, and I still had room to drive!

The Stand is Open!

Ok, the corn is finally ripe so the stand is now officially open. As it's so dry (the pumpkins are actually turning orange already because they're so stressed from lack of water) and since everything is so late because it's so dry, we're only stocking the stand Friday, Saturday, and Sunday this year. And as always, it's usually not stocked much before 11:00 AM, but after that it's open till dark. Enjoy!

Olive Oil Soap

Well, I'm getting closer. This was my second try at a batch if oilve oil soap, and while it didn't exactly work out, I think I'm getting closer. I used a bar of olive oil soap once and it was one of the nicest I've ever used, and recently several people at the market have asked me if I do oilve oil soap. So, I've been working on trying to make some. I have a recipe, but I think I'm going to have to alter it. I can't seem to get it to trace following the recipe, so I'll think I'll change the recipe before I wreck another batch.

The difficult part is that I'm used to using lard in the soapmaking, whereas the olive oil recipe is a castile (no animal products). That and I use my own homemade lye, so it's a bit more unpredictable than storebought. I think I'm going to get myself some palm oil to add to the olive oil, that might help a bit. (And I only use certified, sustainably grown palm oil). A batch or two more, and I just might have some bars to take to market.

Downtown Art Show

It was the street arts festival in Canandaigua today, so after the market I parked my car (under the pavillion where I already was because I knew there wouldn't be another parking space for miles), and headed out to the sidewalks. I try to hit it every year. There're always some old favorites, as well as some new ones. I really liked the woman making shampoo bars. It was so interesting, I might have to try it myself. I already know how to make soap from scratch, so I can't imagine shampoo bars would be that different, just a change in a few ingredients.

I collected a lot of cards, I always do at this thing. Some are for inspiration, and some are for people I might want to look up later. And as always, I stopped by the tie-dye guy and the batik woman. I do a little tiedying and batiking myself, but it's time-consuming, so it's always nice to walk into a tent and see walls of it.

Of course the highlight of the sidewalk trip: Fried Dough!

Squirrel Deterrent

It happens every year, the nuts on Gramma's trees and the fruit in our are little orchard are growing beautifully. They get just about ripe, and suddenly BAM! they're gone. Where have they gone, they're taken by the squirrels of course. Between ourselves and Gramma, we've tried almost every deterring technique known to man, save one: Plastic Bags. Believe it or not, this simple solution works better than all the rest.

Just tie a few plastic bags to the trees with fruit or nut and allow them to blow in the wind. The presence of the bags (and probably the noise as well) does wonders to keep the squirrels away, which means we'll actually be able to enjoy the fruit of the trees we worked so hard to take care of. And so as not to deprive the squirrels of everything, we have a bunch of butternut and walnut trees in our yard that they're welcome to.

Simple Pleasures Project, Day 23

Well, I'm 23 days into The Simple Pleasures Project, and I'm loving it. It's amazing the way it really makes one realize just how many of the little things we take for granted. Fortunately, I now have the time to notice and enjoy those little things, things like sharing a hug with my best friend.



Dragonfly (the cow) and me.

Making a Fairy Part 2: The Dress

For the fairy dress, I had a fair bit of white satin leftover from a wedding gown I'd done last year, so I made the fairy dress out of that. I double-layered it on the body part of the dress so it wouldn't be see through, and fortunately satin is still light enough to wear to a summer Ren Fest.

For the gold trim on the pointed sleeves and the collar I found a polyester fabric that worked great. The dress has a zippered back. The costume was finished off with a pair of pointed ears, like the elf's. Glittery makeup, a flute, and a greenery wreath for the head also make excellent fairy embellishments.

My Top 3 Cures for Insomnia

I'm a person who never watches television. I like a good movie on Saturday night or while I'm stripping flowers for the market, but as far as actual television, forget it. When you live out in the boonies with 3 channels, your choices are basically reality shows, medical, cop, or lawyer; none of which appeal. So basically I never watched TV...at least until I found out it could cure insomnia.

I've always been a nightowl. Even as a two-year-old I knew what "Here's Johnny" meant. My body is just naturally geared toward the evening and my energy level kicks into gear in the late afternoon. Unfortunately most of the normal world is geared toward the day, so needless to say, I've had problems with insomnia for years.

I've tried every trick in the book; leaving the lights low for an hour before bed, taking a bath before bed, playing music, drinking milk, socks on, socks off, leaving the window open, Chinese herbs, you name it. So a couple years ago, I decided to try watching a little bit of a movie before bed to see if it would relax me so I could go to sleep. Granted anything I had ever read advised against that very thing, saying instead that a person should turn off electronic lights, televisions and computers an hour before bed to regulate the sleep hormones. But in my case, been there, done that and it hadn't worked, so I decided to give the movie idea a try.

The hitch was, trying to follow a movie when you only watch a few minutes a night really isn't that great. However, around the time I'd decided to try a movie before bed, I stumbled across a fantasy show that actually looked like something I might be into called "Legend of the Seeker" on hulu. It was perfect.

Unlike a movie, a television episode is shorter, designed to have break points in it for commercials. I found I could watch 10 minutes of an episode each night on hulu (basically through a commercial break each night), and make a single episode last almost a whole week. Since it's online, I can just pick up right where I left off the previous night and I sleep great. I'm still a night owl going to bed around 2am, but I'm no longer lying in bed until the sun rises due to insomnia.

For me that simple little ten minutes of an episode each night relaxes me and allows me to easily fall asleep. I'm able to just leave all the baggage of the day behind, turn off my own life for ten minutes and become immersed in someone else's world. And after that, I'm able to sleep.

One thing I noticed, however, is that whatever the pre-bedtime 10 minutes are, they can't be comedy. It can be a serious show with comedy in it, but it can't be full out comedy or I end up just watching it, instead getting lost in it. The getting lost is the key, I think comedy is too light to draw a person in. You have to able to get lost in another world and leave yours behind in order to fall asleep. (And if you like to be kept guessing, stretching a 1-hour show out over an entire week really increases the suspense factor!)

So here are my top three insomnia cures. Unfortunately the type of shows I'm attracted to usually don't last more that a season or two. They're often more like an extended movie than a TV series, being plot heavy, and usually not the type of show that a person can just drop into the middle of, which is probably why they work so well for my insomnia. They're so easy to get lost in. In any event, these are three that work well for me:

#1: Legend of the Seeker
I guess the first love really is the best. I actually found this show because I saw a picture that looked like Lord of the Rings type fantasy (actually that single picture inspired an entire novel I've been working on). This show has it all, swords, adventure, magic, great costumes, and humor mixed into the drama. Sadly, Legend of the Seeker was not renewed for a season three (at least not yet, the Save Our Seeker campaign is currently fighting for exactly that). I never had to worry about trouble sleeping if I watched 10 minutes of this before bed and I loved it so much that I ended up watching both seasons several times (in ten minute segments of course)

#2: Firefly
This show I found because it was similar to something I was writing at the time.  I love almost anything that falls into the Western genre, and had in fact at the time been writing a filmscript for a western. The problem was, I knew that I could never film the movie anywhere near my home because I don't live in the west, so I'd come up with the idea of doing it as a cowboy movie in space on some distant planet that was like the wild west. That was about the time I learned about Firefly. I'd heard of this show a few times, but as far as I knew, it was just another space show, so I wasn't interested in it until I learned it was actually a space western. When I heard that, I knew I had to watch it because I was writing something similar. Firefly was beautifully done. The western element was very prominent, it had a strong plot, and a few ongoing subplots, as well a bit of humor mixed in. Unfortunately this show only lasted one season, but there was a continuation a few years later in the form a movie after the fan kicked up ruckus about the show's cancellation.

#3: Roar
This was the shortest lived show on my list, not even lasting an entire season, but it certainly was good while it lasted. I found this one while I was doing research for a Celtic warrior costume. I had a picture in my head of what I wanted it to look like, and then I saw a picture of one of this show's characters wearing something similar to the picture in my head, so I decided to look it up. I've always had this interest in the Celts (some of my ancestors were Celts, so maybe that's where it comes from), so this show instantly resonated with me. Roar involved the last of the Celtic tribes fighting off the invasion of the Romans 400 years after the death of Christ. A subplot throughout the show involved one of the main villains who was cursed to live forever because he had been the one to kill Christ. Roar didn't have as much of a central plot as Legend of the Seeker and Firefly, and sometimes had trouble following its own story line (they've yet to explain how Molly ended up alone with no family, but then goes home to visit her mother), but it held its own. Perhaps the ironic thing is that the two leading actors were Heath Ledger and Vera Farmiga, who at the time no one had heard of, but now often draw people to the show.

Making a Fairy Part 1: The Wings

It has to be said that wings are the most important part of a fairy costume. The wings are what really prompt the fairy response. Working off the sketch I was given, I fashioned the wings in four sections out of electric cow fence wire (yeah, I know, me using anything other than bailing wire, what are the odds? But hey, fence wire is pretty close). Since it was to be a water fairy, I set out to find an apporpriate blue material to cover the wing frame with. I found this sheer blue material with a wavy pattern on it, which seemed to hit the mark because when I brought it home, my sister commented that the fabric looked like water. Perfect!

I cut the fabric to fit the wingshapes and sewed them to the frames by hand all the way around the edges. (That's the way I've always done it, but I've got to find an easier way, because this way just takes much too long). Then I wrapped a few paint stirring sticks with the elftover blue material and sewed them to all 4 sections to attached them to one another and provide stability.

Since the fairy dress will be white, the ties are white satin ribbon to go aroud the shoulders and tie in the back. There's also and option set of ribbons at the waist.