One of the best places to spend a summer evening is on our porch. This is just a corner, but it's coming along nicely. I have a few projects planned for the coming months, like sanding and repainting that chair 🙂 Our house is little, so I want to use more of the porch, it's really like having an extra room or two. Yesterday I took a lunch hour trip to the nursery and picked up just a few little plants. The largest pot was already planted with mint, sage, and a lemon scented geranium.

We have lots of bits of wood around the yard from our oak trees that all died and had to be cut down. One log in particular caught my eye the other day. It was completely hollow in the middle. A squirrel had used it as a hiding place recently, driving the dogs crazy, since they couldn't reach inside to get it out. I put it outside the fence to allow the little bugger a chance to escape with his life, and wouldn't you know it, he was still there the next day. We have a few grey squirrels and some of their homlier brown cousins living in various trees in the yard. They're cute, but they torment and tease the dogs, and eat my tulips, so I am not a huge fan. I didn't feel too bad about turning one of their little hideouts into a planter for my porch. 

Most of the bark was already off, to I just pulled off the remaining bits and gave it a quick sanding to smooth away some of the roughness. Then I just popped a little pot of lemon thyme in it. I love it!

I've also been cleaning out our shed, and found that little green basketweave California pottery piece. I like the contrast with the golden oregano.

The other pot has a rue plant that I hope will fill out and blossom soon. I also added a little straw flower for some color, and a succulent in a broken teacup to my bright yellow table.

I like the mismatched look of all the different pots and plants. My next woodshop project will involve a planter for more succulents to sit atop the table on the other side of the porch. I hope it works out so I can show you that soon!

Oh how I love summer fruit. Most of the time I just like eating it as is, but I seem to have developed a weekend baking habit. Actually, I made one of these cherry tarts on a weekday, but that was for a farewell lunch at work, so it's not really the same thing at all, right? So, about these cherry tarts…the first one I made following this recipe exactly. It was quite good, although not spectacular, and was quickly consumed by my co-workers, much to the disappointment of Mr. HeyLucy. So I promised to make another one for him, only this time I decided to make it even better. I used mascarpone instead of cream cheese, and added a little lemon zest and juice to the creamy filling at the very end. I also brushed the cherries with cherry preserves, rather than raspberry, because that's what I had and it just seemed to make more sense. Strangely, the original recipe called for a six ounce package of cream cheese. Silly Martha, everywhere I looked, cream cheese is usually in eight ounce packages. I thought the mascarpone version was pretty perfect, very light and creamy. The lemon added a nice bit of tang. I am quite pleased with my adjustments. Also, it's just really pretty, no? 

Our air conditioner is currently refusing to come on before 8:30 pm, so I've been busy cleaning up the porch and making it into a couple extra rooms. It gets the morning sun, but it's lovely and shady the rest of the day. Things will be re-arranged throughout the summer, but I spent a good part of my afternoon here, reading a good book. I planted some lavender and mint in the pot in the corner. The chickens haven't discovered it yet. I'm also working on painting a table and set of chairs. One day I'd love to find a daybed, so we can really stretch out and relax.

It snowed yesterday, and I knitted and baked and watched Love, Actually. It was just perfect.

The video features a brief cameo appearance from Winston and Bear.

Yesterday was Pine Valley Day. The parade lines up in front of our house. There were horses, naturally:

Old cars, all decked out:

Beauty queens with braces:

Clowns, even though everyone is actually afraid of them:

He does look a little sinister, doesn’t he?
Bagpipe bands are my favorite!

And don’t forget the superheros:

It’s also fun to watch the watchers, especially the kids:

Preparations are underway for the arrival of the beehive (in case you missed it, that mysterious implement a couple posts ago was a smoker, to use on bees when you inspect the hive). I've been re-reading all the bee-related books I've collected over the past couple years and I think I'm ready. The beekeeper arrives with my hive on Saturday morning. I found him via craigslist, and sent him an email asking if I could buy a hive from him. He's re-queened a nice hive of very calm bees just for me.  I might need to get this hive and make the bees move eventually. How cute would that be once it's painted white and the copper top has developed a nice patina? I am also weighing my options and trying to select a hive tool. I could go with the standard, economical, and utilitarian model, or I can get the cheery yellow, flashy Italian model for twice the price, which looks like the Ferrari of hive tools. It's a dilemma.

In other minor, daily news, chicks are being fed, watered, held and smooched morning and evening, and games of fetch are played with the adorable dogs. Lest you think it's all cute fuzzy chicks and teddy-bear like dog noses around here, this is the state of the living room as of this morning.

I have strategically not captured the carpet close up. I suppose I should be happy that the surest sign of Spring-the prolific shedding of dog hair-is apparent in clumps and handfuls everywhere I go. I really should get that vacuum out tonight-there was that whole vacuum more often goal I set at the beginning of the year. But that will cut into my chick cuddling time. Also my Buffy the Vampire Slayer watching time. Also, I still need to hem my curtains and slipcover my chair. I just thought I'd keep it real here at chez Lucy. That morning light sure is pretty though, don't you think?

On the last visit to my mother-in-law I brought home not only a mandolin, but also another quilt top. This one was made by her mother when she was expecting. My mother-in-law has always said that her mother was never very good at sewing or needlework of any kind, and I have to say, I kind of agree. I may have to take this one apart and re-assemble it, but I love the big yellow pinwheel shapes, and all the sweet fabric prints.

I'm all over the place tonight, but one more thing, because I need your opinion: You may have noticed that I switched my comments to the new Typepad system. About the same time I made that switch I finally figured out how to connect my heylucy.net email to my gmail account. I think this is all good stuff, but it's taking me awhile to adjust to this new workflow (sorry for the technical term, but I do have this job, you know, where I sometimes have to use that office-speak). Before all these changes I would get comments in my email, which was web-based. Unfortunately, the company I use has a really crappy webmail service and I would have to load the messages every time I logged in. That would often take a good 5 minutes because their spam filter was completely useless and so my inbox would be full of 90% spam and 10% actual mail. Half the time the whole thing would just lock up and I couldn't even get to my email. So that is much better, now that it just goes straight to gmail. This is kind of boring, sorry about that. I never know if anyone cares about these long explanations, but I do have a point, so please bare with me!

Previously, when I would get a comment, I could just reply to the email notification I got. I really like responding to comments as much as possible, because I think this is really a conversation, not just me talking at you. Now, however, when I reply to a comment email, the reply is posted directly under the comment for everyone to read. I mostly like this, but I would like it if the reply was also sent as an email to the person who left the comment. I will have to investigate to see if that's possible, because otherwise you have to keep coming back here to see replies to your comments and I don't think anyone has the time to do that very often. The whole point to this uninteresting and long-winded explanation is that I want to know your opinion! Do you like the comments like this, or did you prefer the old way? As a reward for sharing your thoughts I give you another cute chick photo: