Succulent Homes

Last time we spoke of a new home for some of the cake-pan-bound succulents.

This is where they have been living, by the window in the guest room.

This photo was taken around 2pm, and it still isn't getting much in the way of natural sunlight.  This is why I take them outside for direct sunlight every once in awhile.

I bought a vintage tin for a planter on ebay. 

It was 5 bucks.   

I like it, I do, and it goes with the kitchen, but it's all wrong.  I'm thinking I'll put something taller and fluffier in there.  Cilantro, or basil.  However, and let this be a testament to my laziness, tins have to be prepared before you plant in them or they will surely rust.  I doubt oxidation can be stopped indefinitely, but Apartment Therapy once advised applying nail polish to the bottom to slow down rust. This is just to slow down the process, I'm sure, to keep the tins a bit longer.

But because I didn't like the succulent in there anyway, that project is going on hold.  

Serendipitously, D and I ended up going antiquing last weekend when my parents came down from the north for a visit.  And there I picked up a mini chalice made of solid and heavy marbled stone (marble? maybe?).    Solid. Cute. Safe to get wet.  Sold : $5. 

I cannot imagine anyone drinking from this thing. 

And then there is the teeny, adorably kitschy cat planter I purchased off of ebay.

And we've got some new homes for my succulents.

with room to grow!

The bathroom gets great natural light almost all day long but because our bathroom is tiny, and so is the window ledge, I hadn't thought we could take advantage of that natural light.  But my Vintage 1960's Napcoware planter ended up being smaller than I had anticipated.  So small that it fits the ledge like it was made for it.  That's a happy kitty.

another happy kitty in the background here

Well, that's two down.  

Homeless Succulents

Succulents boomed a few years ago, and now crafty people and hipsters have them in wall-boxes (homemade and not), terrariums, and wreathes.  Because of the sheer variety of shapes and their utility due to their arid proclivities, I love them long time.

We bought a flat of succulents on ebay and gave them as mementos at our wedding reception.

Dubiously saran-wrapped and yet!

Wee delightfulness!

   

 

the re-potting seemed to take forever....

I put mine on the fireplace which was quite stupid, as fire dries things out at a much faster pace (duh), and the thing died.  :(

But a friend of ours had gathered up the plants orphaned at the end of our reception, took them home, fostered them in her garden, then after a few months she dug them up and gave them back to us.  :)

They are lovely.

yes, that's snow on the ground

They need a new home.  Some will go into the ground next spring, but I'd like to keep a few indoors with some herbs for a kitchen garden.  All summer long these succulents have sat in this disposable foil cake pan.  Which is fine for the banished recesses of the guest room window, but I'm sending a few to the kitchen or dining room for the southern exposure.  So I'd like to make them a bit happier.  

Ceramic planters are fun, and ceramic animal planters are a hoot.  Sherry from YoungHouseLove has a prodigious collection of them.   You can select your totem from etsy or ebay with no difficulty whatever, it's really size and budget that limits the veritable ceramic menagerie out there.    There is a bonanza of dogs and cats and mulecarts and sheep, obviously. 

Even deer,

Vintage Bambi doing Blue Steel

Or hippos.  Like hippos?
how about in blue?

From Etsy by Coastalmoss

 or vintage Japanese hippos, perhaps?

Old timey vintage ceramic animals seem to go for a lot less than Etsy ceramic animal planters.  In my quick window-shopping spree they were running the gamut of $20 bucks to $25 bucks for an awesome ceramic bull planter

From Etsy by Kitschparade

to $35 bucks for this sweet pig planter from Fruitflypie.

from Etsy by fruitflypie

I love this pig.  Do not judge me for it.

Alas, I cannot pay $35 for a ceramic animal planter.  I just can't do it.  But I totally would.

Ceramic isn't the only way to go.  When I saw this photo, I knew what I did covet this setup.

(originally from  Image from poppytalk.blogspot.com)

Vintage and appealing to my yen for Fallout-style sensibilities.   "VitaPep."  It sounds fake, I love it.  

If I go tin there's a lot to choose from.  Upcycled old tea tins, most prominently, featuring floral motifs more often than not, but sometimes also birds or sailing ships.  Also old tobacco tins, or tins for curries or candies.  I like Red Owl spice tins, but they're a tad small for my taste.

Cannot remember photo source, but can be found on Ebay

These tobacco tins are fun too, but somewhat thin for my purpose. 

Retro:

On Etsy by RockyMTNsteeze

Folksy Floral,

Vintage Product Placement, 

Cottage Chic

From Etsy by VintageJunkDrawerToo

I've already been surfing the internet for far too long this day.  So, I'm looking for some planters.  Some for herbs.  Some for some succulents.  I'm into the inexpensive, and not averse to simple DIY.  

Any ideas?  

I am the Captain of My To-Do List

It is time once again.  Time for a New Year's Accounting. 

Another year in the can?  How can this be?  

This year more than ever before I face the coming turnover with a greater measure of anxiety than in the past.

"ohh, I'm too blue for work... oh wait, I don't work, I'm a dog."

I know that a small life is nothing to be ashamed of.  And yet I feel like this past year has been filled with more disappointments than happy accidents.  More missed opportunities than bridges built.  

Still, I think this past year I have planted seeds.

I have broken down obstacles, and I have swept away the dust.

Each year I try to say I will do something I've never done.  

• I got a new job.
• I volunteered with the elderly (once only, I admit)
• Went to a Reds game (twice)

at least the weather was nice

•  Took D to a soccer match (twice)

Columbus Crew: Rentariaaaaa!

•  Went to a Seahawks game (in Detroit)

Nailbiter game

•  (Finally) went to Shakespeare in the park

Taking the dog seems like a good idea: it is not.

Each year I try to go somewhere I've never been.

• Ogunquit, Maine

• Equus Run Winery, Midway, Kentucky
• Cave Run Lake Morehead, Kentucky
• Ash Cave, the Hocking Hills

And I try to accomplish something.

Completed Home Improvement Projects: 

• Planted the front garden. 
• Built a small plot where once there had been a vine orgy and assorted buried bricks and trash and a laundry pole.

• Built and installed closet shelves for office.  
• New external doors to replace some really crappy doors in pretty poor shape.
• Massively de-junked and reorganized the basement storage (thank youuu holiday vacation)

And what do I want for 2013?

• Help the front garden survive and thrive.  
• Replant (the poppies didn't make it.  dunno why...) (and the irises never flowered...)
• Hopefully the lilac survives, and it should, since we murdered the honeysuckle that was choking it.  If it does,we will finally prune the lilac in the spring after it blossoms.  Because as of now, it still looks like an unholy mess. Albeit slightly less unholy now that the honeysuckle is gone.
• Plan and plant the veg garden.  (we are weighing options to keep the groundhogs at bay...)
• Replace the gutters. 
• Paint the basement floor (it's gross)

And other than this?  This, which is really just a home improvement To-Do list?  Isn't there more?  

Of course.  I have things I want and the means to walk the road to get them.   

I am still and always a work in progress.  

I have some regrets, but here at the end of the year I want to lay them down, in the hopes that they create a more fertile ground.  So that next year is better.  Braver.  Stronger.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
(Invictus, William Earnest Henley) 

Fall Preparations. Of the Raking and the Baking.

A few weekends back was the 25th annual Prepare Affair.

This year Cincinnati's non-profit construction company People Working Cooperatively coordinated around 3,000 volunteers providing assistance to low income elderly and disabled people.  This year volunteers raked leaves and cleaned gutters and helped out at 1,000 homes in the Cincinnati area.

A charitable endeavor, and more about what you can do with your own hands than how much money you can give.  It was quite stressful playing coordinator for an army of Good-Deed-Doers.  But our good deed was done by noon, with plenty of time to enjoy the gorgeous day we were blessed with.  

Ye, this is how we did procrastinate away from our own leafy mess

Then there came the hustle and bustle of Thanksgiving.  In years past we have gone hither and yon, to D's parents and to my parents, which are both hours away and hours apart.  This year my parents (and my aunt) made the drive down to us... and then slept for a goodly portion of the visit.  I'd like to call "Do-Over!" .... But (sadly) I'm pretty sure this was a one-time Thanksgiving at Casa de O-Town.   

We prepared a dinner of turkey chili and turkey soup for my parents, and a cookie plate.  But the cookies were the real stars, and no mistake.  

punkin cookies and backup tollhouse cookies

The first to disappear were the drool-inducing Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies stuffed with Nutella by AmbitiousKitchen.  I did not add sea salt per her awesome recipe, and only used dark chocolate and milk chocolate chips.  No semi-sweets were added.  These cookies suffered no detriment from my subtractions.  "Enjoy," Monique says, and we did.  There were no survivors. 

By no means do I wish to deter you from making these.  They are my new favorite cookie.  They would have been a knockout without the nutella.  Here I mean to caution you.  When you are trying to delicately ball up chocolate chip cookie dough around nutella, you may suffer a Rage Embollism.  I so nearly did.  D got so enraged that he shook off his hands and stomped out of the kitchen.  The cookies are not pictured in the photo above.  (Those are the Safety Measure Tollhouse cookies that D bought just in case we were Recipe-Betrayed by the internet. ) 

Au contraire.  These cookies were perhaps the best I've ever made.

I took no photos because I was exhausted after handcrafting these Holy OmNom Grenades. (There is Recipe and CookiePorn to be found at AmbitiousKitchen's blogsite) I may not add the nutella next time I make them, but the chocolate chip cookie dough itself is strong enough to stand alone.  But as a Share-Type cookie, these nutella babies will wow your friends and enemies alike.  

The second batch, only slightly less awesome but also a new O-Town Tradition are the Iced Pumpkin Cookies from AllRecipes.  The dough is pictured above.  

These are crazy easy, and gratifying.  They smell and taste fantastic.  We will be making these again too, they are perfect for fall or whenever you want a bit more spice along with your sweet.  

We added cardamom, because we put it in everything we can conceivably put it in.  

Happy Cookie Season!

Blog Cabin in the Woods

Everybody knows that once a holiday has hit, all of the remnant holiday gear goes on sale.  Our purchase was completely not pre-meditated, and probably not driven by the digression in my last post.  

Best $2 ever spent.  ha ha.  Poor Max.

Digression concludes.

And now for some autumn color, eh?

With my new job and D's new position and other family responsibilities, we elected to spend a weekend away from all the stress and chores and all.  So we whisked Bobby dog away to Hocking Hills. 

We rented a cabin with Old Man's Cave Chalets, and were really pleased with the place.  It was peaceful and quiet, and despite the cold and rain, we spent a lot of time outdoors in what has ended up to be one of my favorite memories of this year.

Ash Cave was just beautiful, and the scenery had us talking about Thoreau (of whom I am no fan), and Emerson (of whom I am); 

about the scary horror movie Cabin in the Woods, which, I mis-remembered to be the horror movie about the flesh-eating disease that was written by a guy who suddenly and horrifyingly caught a flesh-eating disease that almost, well, ate him (*it was Cabin Fever, my bad);

and also about fortifying a secluded cave-type dwelling in Native American times/in the event of a zombie apocalypse.  

Obvious downside in that the valley backs into the huge cave and cliff walls.  

Well, it would be good in that you know the direction of enemy approach, because there is only one way in to this valley that leads to the cave.  The cliff walls at Ash Cave are so sheer that your enemies would be daft to try scaling down them to surprise your forces on the sides.  Spelunking attacks weren't a successful old-timey battle tactic to my knowledge.  Still, you have no plan B.  There's no escape.  

 The cave itself would have been excellent protection against the elements, plus a fresh water source.  

Isolated for sure.  Great tree cover.  Terrible acoustics for keeping a low profile though.  Bobby was bound and determined to leap off of the cliff to play with the dogs barking in the cave below.  Voices and bird calls (and dog barks) bounce from rock to rock down into the cave and from the cave out of the ravine.  Nature's own fun little echo chamber.

And at one point we heard kids whistling and hooting and whooping from the other side of the ravine, and D hooted back at them like a monkey.  This continued for awhile, much to Bobby's utter glee.  Here was a primate symphony echoing all around us.  

 

And when we finally hiked down into the cave, we found that some poor people had been trying to get married in the cave, their ceremony surrounded by inescapable and untraceable monkey calls.  

But I bet the wedding photos will be nice.  

So there you have it.  Hocking Hills.  Not so far from Cincy.  

A beautiful way to spend a day.