Sad Old House Photos

 Update....THESE are probably the last photos I'll ever take of this house. It's almost entirely collapsed in on itself.

Well.....I think these photos speak for themselves that they may well indeed be the last ones I take of this poor old crumbling house. By an eerie coincidence, when we stopped the car to take the photos, another car was parked there and a man was getting out, eyeing me suspiciously. I told him I try to photograph this house every year and he said ,"It's my house." I replied, "REALLY?" (hoping that maybe he would tell me a bit about it.....but he seemed to want to be left alone.) He took a couple of shots of it with his iPhone and turned to leave. I said, "I like photographing this house so much that I even made a gingerbread house of it." He said, "Are you interested in buying the property?" I said, "How much?" Then he just said, "It's not for sale." He went back to his car looking a bit lost in thought and sad. My guess is he inherited the property from a deceased relative and was going to hang onto it for sentimental reasons, and was sad to see what years of neglect had done to the house that he probably grew up in. That's my guess, anyway.

Old House Gingerbread

And here's a photo for comparison.......and here it is in the daylight. Those other photos were taken late at night.

The Decorated "Old House" Gingerbread House.

Well, it's certainly not a replica.....let's just say it is inspired by the old house. Unfortunately, I couldn't find red licorice ribbons, so I had to use sour strawberry "belts" to represent the "Insulbrick". I had fun using PEZ candies as "bricks". I think I'll do a whole house in them some time.
And of course, there's the cat, going to her food bowl. It's almost midnight....time for her to be wide awake. I spent roughly 4 hours decorating this house....so it's off I go to bed.

This Year's Gingerbread House

I have an obsession with this house off the Highway near the town of Dundalk. I just love photographing it:
And this year I've decided to make a pattern of it and make it into my new, official, gingerbread house pattern.

That's right. Gingerbread. Here it is, undecorated and suffering a bit from "icing was too thick" syndrome. I almost cried trying to squeeze it through the pastry bag tip. I bought the powdered stuff you just add water to, and I think there might be a misprint. I ended up adding 2 more mL of water and it worked a little better.

I'll thin the icing mixture out a bit more to adhere the candy decorations. But for now, this is how she looks!

Salvador Dali Meets My Little Pony

Here is my latest needle felted creation. I started him last year, but then put him on hold while I made my Hallowe'en costume. Now that I'm finished with that, I picked up the wool and needle and went at it again.

It's of course supposed to be modelled after the Salvador Dali painting "Burning Giraffe"....but mine looks a little like a "My Little Pony".
I believe the following photo shows my sculpture a little closer to its inspiration:

My Fair Bag Lady

This year for Hallowe'en, I've made my costume almost entirely out of plastic bags. I made "plarn" and crocheted a dress and hat. I fashioned the dress after the Ascot Dress worn by Audrey Hepburn in "My Fair Lady". Of course, there's no way my figure could possibly compare with Audrey Hepburn's, so I modified the dress to suit my shape. Here is the finished result.
I am still in the process of re-doing a parasol with plastic from some bags as the finishing touch.
But for now, here's just the dress.


And a special Thank You to my husband for taking such flattering photos!

Skull Photos

Welcome Bugs

I'm always happy to see Bumble Bees buzzing in my garden. They're so fuzzy!

Let us always welcome the tiny Long Legged Fly. They're cute and their larvae are beneficial in that they feed on harmful insects.

Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy says that
"the best drink in existence is the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, the effect of which is like having your brains smashed out with a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick."The "official" recipe goes as follows:

"Take the juice from one bottle of that Ol' Janx Spirit.
Pour into it one measure of water from the seas of Santraginus V...
Allow three cubes of Arcturan Mega-gin to melt into the mixture (it must be properly iced or the benzene is lost).
Allow four litres of Fallian marsh gas to bubble through it (in memory of all those happy Hikers who have died of pleasure in the Marshes of Fallia).
Over the back of a silver spoon float a measure of Qualactin Hypermint extract, redolent of all the heady odours of the dark Qualactin Zones.
Drop in the tooth of an Algolian Suntiger. Watch it dissolve, spreading the fires of the Algolian suns deep into the heart of the drink.
Sprinkle Zamphour.
Add an olive "

Since these ingredients are almost impossible to attain, we have to use Earth substitutes and personal interpretation......

OKAY....A COUPLE OF YEARS LATER AND I HAVE DECIDED TO IMPROVE THE RECIPE.

Also, having discovered that a SUNTIGER is a type of TARANTULA, I figured we don't need to go putting one of their teeth in our drink now do we?

Here is the new and improved recipe, which is not so much accurate to what dear departed Douglas Adams wrote, but has a similar effect and is much tastier.

For ONE drink, use:

1 oz Jack Daniels Tennessee Whisky  (for that ol' Janx Spirit)
1/2 oz Blue Curacao (for the seas of Santraginus V)
1 oz Bombay Sapphire Gin (for the Arcturan Mega-gin)
1/4 oz Green Chartreuse  (for the mint flavour)
1 tsp Jägermeister and a dash of Angostura Bitters (for the "heady odours" of the dark Qualactin Zones)
THEN, top up with chilled SANPELLEGRINO LIMONATA. It has the lemon, and the carbonation which is the best we're going to get for the Marsh gases. 
You can also add a couple ice cubes if you like.

The olive is optional....I personally like to add two olives.
Let's just say "Zamphour" is edible glitter or something....and that's just for show. You don't really need it.
If you REALLY want to add something to be the suntiger tooth, I suggest using a sliver of candied ginger.

Ed Bernard of Druckfarben

Rose-Breasted Grosbreak

There was a Rose-Breasted Grosbeak at my feeder the other day! I also had some White-Crowned Sparrows. The House Finches are around all the time.

My Mom's Cat

My Mom is an artist, like me....and she owns cats! Here is the newest member of her family.....Shadie! He was a stray whom she adopted and had neutered.....and now he loves her!
She took these photos of him playing in the backyard.

He likes to climb....like a tiny panther!

I think he's really cute up high in the tree! He better beware of squirrels!

A Visit To The Metro Toronto Zoo

Here are my kids at the front entrance....posing as if they were with the actual animals! (Ha ha ha ha!)

Since I wouldn't want them to be in the enclosure with the real Komodo Dragon we saw, I had them pose with the lifesize statue outside the pavilion.

The giraffes were stuck in their little enclosure for some reason......maybe it wasn't warm enough for them to roam in their little field. I love giraffes. They almost look like left-over dinosaurs!

The Polar Bears were quite active though.





And there were Arctic Wolves and Foxes. These are the Arctic Foxes. I didn't get any good photos of the wolves.

My Daughter's Narwhal

I made a needle felted "Narwhal" for my daughter. He's her favorite character from "Almost Naked Animals".....the show I work on.