Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

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Archives for July 2012

Senses Inventory in the Museum

Earlier this week I was very fortunate to escape my daily routine 
and tour a few museums alone, with no hurrying and with no cell phone.
The experience refreshed me down to my bones.
Just when I needed it, the universe offered up 
a wider view and a long, cool drink of beauty.
As the first tendrils of inspiration began to wind around my heart, 
I found some paper and scribbled down a senses inventory.
This happened in the Trammel Crow Museum in downtown Dallas, Texas.

See: Filtered mid morning sunlight and small, quiet cones of artificial light glancing down from recessed bulbs in the ceiling… My anonymous purple silhouette against a pair of glass doors and glimpses of a small, exquisite garden through that door… Twenty or more displays of ancient jade carvings… a museum docent dressed in an orange golf shirt and plastic name badge necklace.
Hear: Gentle flute and harp music, like a bubbling brook, nearly inaudible and ticklish in my ears… Echos of two school field trips and the impatient docent who tried earnestly to teach them something… Air conditioning humming through the sealed building… Clicking heels descending the nearby stairs.
Touch: Cool, dry stillness of the perfectly maintained museum air… Smooth marble floors… Cushy leather bench beneath me… and denim on my arms. My sharp right elbow finally split through my favorite threadbare jacket, and the strings are pulling tight against me. They feel like the music sounds.
Smell:  Artificial air fragrances, leather cleaner, and my own perfume… This is all I can actually smell, but the thoroughly meditative environment has me imagining incense, lotus flowers, and maybe hot tea.
Taste: Cheap lip gloss. And a reminder to buy extra tooth paste and tooth brushes at a drugstore, because I forgot to pack them. Grody.
Think: What artifacts from our civilization will be preserved, either by design or by chance, and then studied  in 2,500 years? The Asian artisans a few thousand years ago worked and created beautiful things for their own lives and purposes; I wonder if they ever considered how much we would gaze, examine, and revere their work now? I wonder if Buddha ever considered how his spiritual revelations would impact interior design far into his future?
Feel: Completely humbled by history, intrigued by the spiritual aspects of design and beauty, and refreshed to take another look at our own home… Feeling more peaceful and motivated than I have in weeks. No, months.
The day I spent museum hopping was so meaningful, 
so surprising and worth remembering,
that I hope to share more of it with you this week.
For now, thanks for joining me on this little senses tour!

“Be careful how you interpret the world:
It is like that.” ~Erich Heller
xoxoxo

Hive Relocation Day

   Yesterday was an important day around here, certainly one for the hobby farmer’s history books. Maribeth visited  and helped me relocate our two bee hives from their temporary waxy box homes to their permanent wooden-ware mansions. Perhaps you remember the painting day we had just before bringing the bees home? Well, now all of that artwork and passion is being enjoyed by our 79,987 buzzing, winged children.


   In addition to moving the bees, we also collected several gorgeous chunks of honey comb and about 20 ounces of fresh, raw honey. Our very first harvest of the molten treasure was a surprise to me, as was seeing how much honey was still on the combs when we closed the hives and walked uphill. Just weeks after bring bees to the Lazy W, we have our own honey. Gobs and gobs of the thick, oozing beautiful stuff.


   Everything went so well. The hives are abundantly healthy and have multiplied much more than I expected. The interior frames are all loaded with honey comb, capped brood and capped honey. The bees were active but gentle. Incredibly gentle. At one point I was holding a frame, gazing at the many different cells and relishing a sudden forest breeze, when I felt a heavy vibration on my right hand. At least twenty bees were clustered across my gloved knuckles, buzzing and flittering without malice. Throughout our afternoon in the bee yard, Maribeth’s arms and veil were often dotted by a dozen or more bees, and they all swam loosely and peacefully in the air around us. I never one time felt threatened.

As always, Mia kept his loving vigil. He never crossed the threshold into the bee yard,
but he honked affectionately and watched us the whole time we worked.
Smoking the bees a little calms them down, and it calms me down too.
The fragrance is not terribly unlike burning sage,
a Native American practice used in all kinds of prayerful rituals.
Can you see how glossy and vibrant the honey is? And how calm the bees are?
And how much I look like a Pink Power Ranger?
Here I am using a plain spoon from the kitchen to scrape the raw honey.
Later I licked it clean and almost cried form the deliciousness.
Maribeth is using a “hive tool” to scrape that thick, luscious raw honey off of the frame.
You can see its straight path there in the gold.
Honey bees possess incredibly accurate internal “GPS” systems,
allowing them to distinguish between two hive locations only inches apart.
Bonus points if you can find the Lazy W animal portrait hidden here! 
I now know that a quart of raw honey weighs about three pounds. 
This little guy was nobody’s enemy.
He only circled our sticky tools and gloves and meandered through some clover patches.
But Maribeth did endure one sting yesterday and taught me that
rubbing a speck of honey on the site will kill the pain and reduce swelling.
   Big thanks to Maribeth for her guidance and help. If any of you lovely people should ever venture to keep bees, I hope you find a mentor like her. She makes it feel as natural and magical and unintimidating as it should, and I believe the bees are benefiting from this mood. Also big thanks to Handsome for photographing our second trip to the bee yard yesterday. I will treasure these photos.
Work Hard & Be Sweet to Each Other  
xoxoxo

5 More Pinterest Experiments

 Hi there! So, the biggest “try” in my life here lately has been running at least a couple of miles every morning then staying productive throughout each day despite the heat. Sprinkle in one minor but lingering illness, regular intervals of happy guests, and intense cuddling with my guy every night, and you have a pretty good snapshot of my life lately.
 
   I know that staying mildly productive is a lot to ask of a girl whose home bears the name “Lazy,” but the good news is that I keep discovering little projects that make me a look like a much harder worker than I really am. Leaving me more time to read, entertain and cuddle.

  Care for a quick review? I have linked to the original posts for recipe and tutorial details, but the photos are my own.

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#1. Make a T-Shirt Into a Summertime Scarf:
   I made this yellow t-shirt scarf for my friend Stephanie, and I plan to make tons more. It was so fun and easy, and once you fiddle with it for a while, it looks pretty cute too. Its light weight is nice for summer, and of course “free” is a wonderful price for any craft. I think knotting the strand ends is a good idea, but you do whatever the heck you want to do.

Tutorial from PS I Made This 

#2. Incredibly Effective Bathroom Cleaning & Deodorizing:
http://askannamoseley.com/2012/02/getting-rid-of-that-boy-smell-in-the-bathroom/

   No photo, but this works. Our downstairs bathroom has both a toilet and a urinal but neither windows for sunlight sanitizing nor any kind of ventilation, so there is zero room for error in cleaning. I promise you this method works, plus you can feel good about using fewer chemicals.

#3. Paula Deen’s Gooey Butter Cake:
 
   I made this dessert a few days ago when a cheerful menagerie of loved ones was almost due here at the farm. Between bursts of laughter and slicingly smart and witty stories, my little sister Guinevere read the recipe aloud to me. There is something about hearing a recipe verbalized that kind of cements its nutritional value or, as is the case here, total lack thereof.

   This has a lot of butter in it, you guys. And sugar and cream cheese and powdered sugar. And more butter. Therefore I highly recommend this gorgeous and decadent cake. While it baked, my house smelled like a giant sugar cookie brought from heaven on angel wings under a strand of white pearls and twinkle lights. Everyone who sampled it loved it, and even Handsome approved. It has a soft cheesecake texture but is a snap to make.

Get the recipe straight from her sweet Southern website. 

#4. Edie’s Creamy Tomato Basil Pasta Salad
   So far I have only loved every recipe I have tried of Edie’s, and this is no exception. Especially if you have some tomatoes and bail growing in your garden, try this recipe! A few weeks ago I took a cold batch of it to our most recent book club dinner, and since then I craved it suddenly one night and made a hot version of the sauce to drizzle over some skinny spaghetti. Really scrumptious, you guys. Give it a try.

Edie is also the author of the apple tart and chocolate chip cookie recipe #2, remember? 

#5. Mascara Rescue:
http://griffithsrated.blogspot.com/2012/03/frugal-friday-extend-life-of-your.html
 
   Sorry, folks. I do not really have a photo for this one either, but I can tell you that it does work. Surely you’ve seen the image on Pinterest yourself, right? Just add a few drops of eye solution to your drying up mascara, and it magically reconstitutes. I was able to squeeze another couple of weeks out of mine, which rocks.

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   Well, besides cooking, cleaning, gardening, and fake sewing, I have been realizing that heat stroke and dehydration are real. It has knocked me off of my feet more than a couple of times in a few days, making that little bit of sun glow or farm work totally NOT worth the sickness. Please take care of yourselves. Please work outside early or late or not at all, and keep cold water nearby at all times. 
What New Things Have You Sampled Lately?
xoxoxo

Make Your Own Mulch

   Probably any gardening climate calls for some type of mulch, but here in Oklahoma at the height of summertime, using some sort of ground cover between your plants is pretty much a must. We all need something to slow down weed growth and prevent the soil from losing too much moisture. I am personally not a fan of the commercially bagged mulches for which all big box stores are happy to take your loads of extra cash. I like to use either dried grass clippings, rotted dried leaves, or my new favorite… shredded paper.

   The first thing to celebrate is that shredded paper is basically free. Most offices produce it, and lots of homes do now too. You are recycling something that would otherwise go to a landfill somewhere. Around the Lazy W, just one big trash bag filled with shred is all I need to refresh the vegetable garden and fill our chicken coop nesting boxes, plus a little extra for the flower beds. You need a lot less in each little area than you might expect, and it clings to itself and retains water magically.
   This past week on Wednesday morning I scattered shredded paper all through the garden then watered it all down, deeply. I ended up getting pretty sick on Thursday, spent Friday split between the doctor and my bed, and never got back outside until sometime Saturday morning. During all of these days and nights, we had 100-plus temperatures and zero rain, so I expected some withering and suffering. You know what? Nope. The plants were still fluffy and vibrant and producing food, and the soil beneath the white shred was still damp! Seriously. I would not lie about gardening advice. I might lie about how much I weigh or the status of my library account, but not about how effective shred is as mulch. It is very effective. And I know that when it has done its job, the paper will just decompose into the earth. The worms are crazy for the stuff.
   This photo really shows how nicely some shred fills in the spaces between the growing plants. I also like how the white cools everything and brightens up the garden. I suppose if you were to shred some colored paper or used wrapping paper, all the better! The possibilities are limitless. If you try this with colored paper, will you pretty please share a photo? I would love to see that!
   Here is my soy bean experiment bed, growing like gangbusters! In the gentle morning shade, these vines display fuzzy little purple blooms which should soon grow into edible pods. My eldest human chicken is very excited about that. I’ll keep you posted.
   We are up to 714 farm fresh eggs and two and a half zillion baby cucumbers.
   This is not our biggest watermelon on the vine, but it is the most hilarious. I can see it almost from the house when I walk downhill, just hanging right there in the middle of the garden gate, looking out. It has kind of a high pitched voice and only sings, never speaks. It sings to me questions about freedom and democracy,  love and destiny. This round little fruit is heavy for its size both in ounces and wisdom.
All You Need is Love!
   Besides my garden, do you know what else I love at the farm? Everything. Specifically? I love this fuzzy behemoth so dang much. Chunk-hi let me scratch and cuddle and kiss him for about a million hours on Saturday night. He let me cover his eyes and play gone-gone-peekaboo, squeeze his long floppy ears, steer his horns, pull his beard, rub his wet leathery nose, everything… He is a big, warm, dangerously gentle hunka hunka burnin love around this crazy place.
   Okay, friends, if your garden needs some ground-level TLC, I hope you will consider shredded paper as an option. Get out there this week and enjoy all the changing beauty, no matter what else is going on. Know that your garden connects you to God.
Schedule Your Dirt Manicure
xoxoxoxo