Saturday, October 30, 2010

October 31 2010

It's Halloween! And here for your viewing pleasure are some shots of Sadie just barely tolerating my improvised photo-shoot.


















Did someone say "Cookie?"


















Must we?


















Enough!

















Have you no shame?

It's given me a whole new appreciation of animal photographers, if nothing else (and to judge from Sadie's mostly disgusted expressions, there was not much else. Apparently she and I are not going to duplicate the Weimariner dog/photographer success story, much as I would love nothing better than to have Sadie be a self-supporting member of the family).










As you can see, it was a lot more fun for me than for Sadie.
















In other news, my calligraphy class continues to be a real joy. Once a week my four loyal students carpool to the studio and work their little hearts (and fingers) out under my careful scrutiny. We are now beginning to learn the capitol letters of our second alphabet, Fractur, and as always they exceed my expectations by many a country mile.















I am so happy to have found them! We'll finish up soon, and then I think will take a break for the winter snows - but maybe the weather will be mild enough to get a few more lessons or workshops in.


















I know I will really miss the weekly sessions, not just for the calligraphy, but also because these are such kind, funny and inspiring women. And that goes for my single private student too, diligently at work for at least an hour's practice a day on the nuances of Old English - I just haven't made her pose for me - yet!

We've had almost a week of 70 degree weather, which was the final confusing blow to several plants (and me!). I just harvested the very last of the chilis and eggplants today as it will begin to be below freezing by tomorrow night. The eggplant are the size of chilis, and the chilis are so small that the one other harvest I got a few weeks ago, after grilling, had many of them just disintegrating when I tried to peel them. There wasn't enough chili to have anything BUT peel!




However, I must also say that the half-cup of baba ganoush I made from the first four tiny eggplants was delicious, and the chilis that could be peeled were hot enough to make my eyes water with the tiniest of strips put on my lunch bagel. Our chard is still going strong, and the spring lettuce that I let go to seed right in the garden cage, and then buried the seed stalks, has resulted in many tiny but also delicious red and green lettuce babies. We ate the first of the thinnings this week - so much better than that tasteless green roughage at the store.

That's the sum total of my news from here - not a word about the upcoming elections as I'd rather not add to the impressive but completely unwelcome amount of opinion/polls/attacks/etc making the rounds these days. We got a robocall from The Big Dog himself today. Hope you have a happy Halloween and get only GOOD candies!