Rain again

Hi again. Good news - it is raining and my garden will be saved!! The rain last week was great, but this is enough to ensure survival and also give the seeds and seedlings I planted a much-needed boost.

Drew and Barbie and Ben are here and we all enjoying hanging out together very much. We haven't really done much - just had the odd latte in town and stayed home playing pool and chatting. Very calm and a much needed catch-up. They haven't even appeared interested in going over to their place at Tuateawa - that is usually the first thing they do when they arrive. Today is day 4 and I have a feeling we wont go today either.


Ben is a joy and like all babies rules the house. I think Jarren is a little non-plussed about all the attention he gets, but all in all he is captivated just like the rest of us. During sleeps I have managed to finish 2 more vegie paintings: a carrot and a green pepper as acrylics. I have also completed another 2 pages of the journal with sketches for that - a melon (I thought it was a pumpkin!) and a dwarf bean. I had to draw the bean because I planted it in the rain last week and it popped out of the ground and grew 8 inches high in 4 days!!! I couldn't believe it. I'll be eating them next week.


I am having a week off from the Source (the gallery I part own with 6 others and that we run as a co-operative for Coromandel-only produced art). It is nice having a job with that kind of flexibility. It also gives me time to integrate a few ideas.


I got very excited when I was waiting for the kids to arrive and both Tim and I were having weird dreams. One night he kept me awake all night because he was being chased by snakes that bit his heels. The next night I kept him awake by waking him and telling him about the messages in cards I had been sent(!) In the end I got up and wrote them down. The upshot of it all is that I have designed a new product - a bit sick - called 'dark thoughts'. Small black cards with that unspoken thought you (okay, I) have, but don't dare to say out loud. Thought I'd put them in a card. But some of them have to be censored! Here is a PC sample, but others are: "You're leaving? "About time!"; "Getting married?" "Why?"; "Pregnant?" "Who's is it?" Someone may buy them.






Well I think that is it for another week. Nothing much to report except that I am enjoying having the children here very much and already feeling sad about them going. It is not often that I have my own people here. I tend to get overwhelmed by Tim's friends, workmates and family. Lovely to have people around who understand my sense of humour and who I don't have to wait on hand and foot or work hard to make conversation with!! Time to go. Love to you all, Annette

Is anyone out there ...?

This isn't working the way I imagined it would. For a start I have the devil's own job to access my own account!!! Some days I just can't get on! Keep getting told I am not entitled to access it and yet I wrote it! As well, I am wondering if anyone but me reads it ... maybe the two issues are related? So, I am going to try opening it up to the net and see what happens. If suddenly I get awful things happening to my computer or overloaded with junk mail, then I will change it. It may make it easier for other folks to read it. I mean, if I am having trouble ...?

So, what has happened this week? The picture of the beach published here in my first week won the people's choice award at the exhibition. A real surprise, especially to me. Compared to other paintings in the show, mine was so low key, it barely made a statement at all (I thought). It just shows you though. I wanted to capture the lonely, beachy feel. Tim and I were the only people there that day and the feeling of the sea and sky and sand all blending one into the other was what I was aiming for. I thought I had achieved it, but I didn't think it made for a memorable painting at all. Hey, local scenes sell I guess. I sold the other 3 seascapes, but not this one. Suffice it to say, I was thrilled.


Drew, Barbie and Ben are in NZ at the moment with my family in Marlborough. They come to me next Tuesday. I am very excited. It will be wonderful to have them here.

This is an old picture this week because I haven't had a spare moment to paint. I have decided to put it into The Source just for a change along with my old one of op-shopping in Coro (see below).

I have spent a lot of time in the garden though and the dwarf beans I planted are already 8 inches high!! The purple climbers didn't show again so I guess maybe I got a dud packet. I planted lots of sprouting broccoli and have to remember now to keep dusting them to try and limit the white butterfly damage. That's the only problem with planting them now. At least we have rain - lots and lots of it. Gorgeous though the humidity is nearly killing us all and has started the mildew on the zucchini. I should spray them with milk, but they are nearly finished anyway, so I may just pull them out next week.

This picture is of clematis that I had climbing over a dead ponga trunk last year. Kate gave me a number of seeds and they all took, but this was the best. This year they came up again and 2 flowered earlier in the


spring, but then the hot weather hit them. This one has decided to get cranking again. Hopefully I will have another good show for while mum and dad come are here. They are due in a few weeks.

At the garden circle on wednesday I was lucky enough to buy a number of oxalis bulbs from the sales table (a good handful for .20c each!!!) I am going to put them all in pots and look forward to seeing them flower. One of them is the candycane which Mary-Pat had at the Waitati Gardens when I worked there. It is gorgeous.

Well, not a lot happening this week so i will go to bed. before I do I will try and open up access and reinvite you all.

Hope you are all having a good week. Love Annette

Yay! Schools back!

I don't mean to be awful, but what a relief to have school back. I have to say that Jarren has been wonderful during the holidays and on the whole I have enjoyed his company, BUT! I haven't managed to get a moment to myself let alone complete any art. Gone are the kind of holidays we had as kids where you ran out the door in the morning, only coming back home to get food or drink. Exploring and long bike rides are a thing of the past for this generation of kids. There were no kids around for the whole holidays because their parents worked and they were all 'in care'. Usually grandparents who didn't want another stranger's kid to look after as well their own grandkid. I even (desperate measures!) offered to look after kids, but "No, arrangements were already made". So it was a lonely old time for poor Jarren. He went out on patrol with Tim while I worked and the rest of the time either helped me in the garden or at the shop, or hung out inside. I felt very sorry for him.

Anyway, he is happy as a sandboy back at school. Despite the haircut Tim gave him where he lost 90% of hiis curls. There were a few tantrums about that and he decided we would just have to home-school him because he couldn't be seen out in public! Not likely! He got frog-marched to school and dumped and I gather forgot about it all soon after with the joy of having other kids around again. Phew!
Life in the garden has picked up a bit this week. Tim got 3 trailer loads of topsoil and we spread it all over the vegie gardens to try and nullify the effects of the bought compost I had used and also in preparation for planting this week. He is going to get more for the front gardens. The gardens are now suffering badly from lack of water and the blazing sun day after day. I am hand-watering every night and it takes ages. It is the prolific time according to my moon calendar so I have planted seed - carrot and parsnip - and seedlings - beetroot, cauliflower and sprouting broccoli. I also planted out some lettuce that had seeded themselves and pulled out some tomatoes which didn't last the distance. Quite busy really. I think my work will be cut out making sure they all survive this hot weather though.

I have actually managed to keep up my journal on the garden. This pleases me immensely because for once I am up to date whereas my friend Annette, who is doing this with me and I usually struggle to keep up with, IS NOT! This is a first. Here are the sketches I have completed for it - flowering dill above (went to seed the week I planted it, so I am pretending that's okay because I want to collect the seed); flowering chives, which I don't mind quite so much about because there is still part of the plant you can use; and corn. My corn in the garden doesn't look as if it is coming to much but I could be wrong. Sort of small, but maybe it will get better.




I sold a large watercolour at the art exhibition last week so I needed to replace it with something. I had decided last year that I wanted to do a series of paintings in acrylics of individual vegies so I whipped up a couple of paintings (see what I can do at home when I have some time?). So far I have done an aubergine and a beetroot. I was sitting waiting for the paint to dry and got all overcome with the beauty of being able to grow such wonderful things myself. I began to think about how much I liked to eat them and my favourite ways of preparing them and next thing I knew I was writing it all down over the top of the paintings in pen! I think Tim was appalled when he came out to find me in the middle of desecrating them, but actually, I liked that, so that is what they are. That is why the first one is called 'Ode to aubergine'. I took them down and hung them in the exhibition, where everyone has been very polite about them! They are VERY different than anything else that is there and stick out like 'you-know-what'. The exhibition finishes this Saturday so if they haven't sold, they will be perfect to go into the shop. I'm a bit short on stock there at the moment.

And talking about the shop, I made good sales last month and was able to finish paying off my membership, so I am now a fully paid up partner in an art gallery! One of 6 owners. It feels very good. Now all I have to do is make it work for me. That means making a lot more art to sell. I used what money I had left over to restock with new pens and paper and canvases and card today. I think I can finally say that my art is paying for itself now. Now I just have to get it to the stage where it pays me too!

My latest project is making comics and putting them onto board. Weird I know, but I am fascinated by it. Couldn't downlaod pictures to use and wanted to try it out quickly, so drawing was out of the question, so I ended up getting Tim to pose as a model and also used myself on photobooth. Then I 'doctored' it a bit, printed it off and then coloured it in. And the result is below. I hope you can read it. I thought it was funny.

On that note, I'd better go to bed. Tim is snoring his head off so I don't know how I am meant to get to sleep though. It will be one of those mornings tomorrow where he wakes up complaining that his body feels as if he has been in a fight! Love to you all, Annette XX

Hot, hot, hot!

It's been so hot this last week we have all been wilting. Thank God for the ceiling fan in our bedroom - I don't know how I lived without one before. Unfortunately, along with the heat comes the mosquitos. And I got bitten in my ear and it went septic! A week on antibiotics. Would you believe it? That put me out for a few days.

Before I go on, the mother-in-law has been transferred to Thames hospital, so no more back and forth every couple of days to Waikato. That will help take the stress off and give us more time. Poor Jarren is heartily sick of the car.

I have managed to get into the garden despite all of this. Not a good time to plant or do much that is exciting though (according to my moon calendar). Mainly weeding and trimming back and deadheading. It's awfully dry and things are running to seed as a result. There are good things going on though. Check out this monarch on my cosmos under the front pergola. And my lovely Little Joey rose at the back where I can enjoy it.

My other project at the moment is to make cards of my art to sell and to use myself. So watch out all of you - you are likely to get an 'AK-budget' card for your next special occasion! Funny though - some pictures didn't come out very well, but in the main I am pretty pleased with the results. It was a trial learning all the intricacies of the machine down at the chemists. Liz, the chemists wife, came and we figured it out together. Seems I am the first one to want anything non-standard since they have had the machine. Figures.

We went out fishing and caught dinner but not much else. It was great though to be out on the water. I changed Jarren's and my hooks to a size smaller and we caught enough small fish to keep the cats in food for the rest of the year. It kept us entertained. Here's a photo of Castle Rock from out where we fish.

Before I forget, I learned something important this week from my friend Pam about bought fertiliser. Her runner beans and tomatoes were thriving and set fruit well then began to die for no apparent reason. This is the 3rd year this has happened to her. She got fed up and rang MAF who did some research and came back with this: bought fertiliser is made from green waste at landfills and this waste contains spray residues for prickle weed which affects runner beans and tomatoes, not other vegetables. I am inclined to believe this because for the first time ever, this year I put bought compost onto one of my vegie gardens and guess what? My tomatoes have done the same thing!! Something to be aware of I guess.

With the huge glut of zucchinis in the garden I did some research about how to preserve them in some way for winter. I made ratatouille and soup and froze a heap of both. The soup particularly is delicious!! And I mean delicious. I ate a whole pot full - thick and creamy and very filling. Here's what you do: Fry up a chopped onion (I also put in garlic) and then add 250gm diced potato and fry until it is soft. Add 1Kg diced zucchini and fry that for 10 minutes. Put in 2 pints water and seasoning and cook with the lid on until soft (about 20 minutes). Blend. Add any herbs you have - basil, parsley, whatever. Eat. I added a bit of sour cream and sprinkled fresh chives on top. To die for.

I sold a painting at The Source this week. I think I have made enough money this month to finalise my payment into the business. Only one problem now - and that is that I have nearly sold everything I had to sell and have nothing else to sell. Thank heavens Jarren is going back to school next week so I can have some time to myself and get cracking.

For those of you not acquainted with my grandson Benny, please meet grandson No. 2 Benjamin Hugh. Drew and Barbie and he are due for 4 days on the 17th February. We can't wait. Isn't he a cracker?

Well I think that's all for now folks. I hope you all have a good week. I will. XX Annette

Gardening and painting again!

Well I'm back. This week is proving to be rather challenging. Just when I thought we would be settling down into the holidays at last. On Sunday Tom and Deb came to stay and we had a great night catching up with them. They went to Stony Bay for the rest of the week to camp and we decided to go up Tuesday night and share their 13th wedding celebrations with them. It was gorgeous up there and anice to catch up with old friends. We have decided we don't do it enough. This is a picture of the Tom and his boys Hugh and William boy-talking with Tim and Jarren overlooking Stoney bay.

Unfortuntely the peace got shattered when Tim got a call telling him his mother had had a serious fall and was on her way to Thames in an ambulance. Kind of spoiled the night somewhat. From Thames she was sent to Waikato and is due to have a hip operation Thursday morning. It's all a bit of a worry. Tim has been down to see her today and she is in a lot of pain. It has brought matters to a head though and it is very likely she will go into Tararu in the hospital wing when she comes out of hospital, so all is not bad I suppose. Though we would rather it hadn't taken the fall to bring that about.

This week in the garden the moon has entered a barren period, during the full moon on the 11th so no more planting. There has been lots of rain at night though so the ground has softened and so I have taken the opportunity to weed. It's all looking lovely at the moment. I am particularly proud of my roses. This is a picture of Little Joey.

I did 2 pictures for my project with Annette today. Pen and ink as usual. The idea is that I paint a picture of something in my garden every week for a journal to go with notes about what I did and what I planted and what we are eating etc from it. Hopefully fun and useful too. So, here are the pictures of what I did - a zucchini plant and my runner beans which grow up a bamboo tripod.
Something went wrong there and both images have come out the wrong way round! I can't seem to turn them. Oh well, stand on your heads or something.

Tomorrow I am off to a meeting to plan the art club exhibition. I will be showing 3 island paintings, 2 big and 2 small and a sunset island one (these include the 2 paintings in the last blog). I have a weird painting of lilies too so I will put them in even though they are a bit different. I was hoping my cards would be back from the printer to sell there too but no such luck. They went to be printed in November!!! I guess Christmas got in the way.

Well my bed calls. Darling Henry (cat) is quite recovered today from his wee operation on Tuesday and he is waiting patiently. Goodnight.
Annette

Here I go!

Right-o. This is it. I am blogging. I have to catch up with my gardening history for the first week of January, which happened to fall in the prolific period. That is, it is an ideal time to plant according to the phases of the moon. So I got stuck in and planted flat out. Planted
mixed Mediterranean lettuces , lemon thyme and camomile, more climbing beans and transplanted daisies I had raised from cuttings and a tobacco plant I had under the bananas.

We are eating fully from the garden now: zucchini, rhubarb, beans, lettuce, broccoli, a few tomatoes, carrots, parsnips (but they are getting to the end), cucumbers, beetroot, cabbage and celery

I have noticed some Italian parsley plants popping up out of the compost along with about 300 tomato seedlings. I’ve ripped out most of the tomatoes but left the parsley.

I mixed up some liquid worm tea to boost growth on the tomatoes and vegie gardens.
The tomatoes don’t look too healthy – the soil is poor so they need the boost of compost as well.

On the work front, I have been working at The Source a lot to fill gaps for other people over Christmas and as a result haven't managed to do a lot of work myself. I'm trying to get organised for an exhibition with the art group on the 23rd but can't seem to get going. At this stage I have 3 island paintings similar to this one and that's it. I did try to do an acrylic of a man rolling a fag ( a drawing I did last year) but it turned into another island!

I did manage to make a few more birds for the shop but that's all. I have lots of ideas but no time. I'm lacking that time you need to dream before you actually begin working. Hopefully things will settle soon. I sold 2 of my clay faces and would love to make more but Tim hasn't the time to get the kiln made yet. They'll have to wait. I ended up painting the background of the middle one black - I think it looks a lot better.

Time to go to bed. This has been a learning curve. I'm sure I'll get better at it as I go along. Let me know what you think.
Love Annette