The last show of the 2016 Holiday Season . . .

The Lincoln Craftacular!

This is the first year I've been able to do this show and what a night!

People came ready to BUY!

I LOVE my little antique table!
And those boxes and advertising memorabilia always make me clutch my pearls.
Mink Chow - love.

If I had had time to take pics of the crowd, I would have but it was busy from the time the opened the doors at 4:00 to those early shoppers to 9:00 when we all began packing.

Over 80 artists and crafters with an incredible array of work.

I think (I think) I was the only watercolor artist there (woohoo!) so for sure I hope to be invited back next year.

Did I mention that the temps outside hovered around 5? These folks were BRAVE!






So much sold tonight including a few that I have really grown attached to.
I'm never sure if people understand the attachment to and the meanings behind these little paintings.
I hope so.
These have found some wonderful homes.

Crazy Snow . . .

 Crazy.  We don't usually get this kind of snow until January or February.

Eddie is all snug in his shop getting the BobKitty ready to push snow for us and our surrounding neighbors.

 The farmette - snow was just starting late in the afternoon.

My front porch!  There is an equal amount of snow on all four of the porches of this house, the wind is blowing so hard! Usually one side gets it all but this time, the snow is equal opportunity.

Yeah.  I need to shovel off the hot tub first, for sure.  I have a feeling it will come in handy by the end of day. 

Oh I really should not have opened that door . . . 

Bats, we got 'em . . .

Before I get a collective 'ewwwwww' from everyone, let me say that bats are not blood-sucking rodents that attack cows and people and grow up to have teenagers swooning over their washed out and pale good looks.  Those are Hollywood Bats.  What we have are what we have been hoping to  attract them into our barn all summer.  Here's the deal.

15 feet up - here batty , batty

A couple of photos of the bat house we installed that is designed to hold 50 bats or more (I know! jam-packed!) and we're reeeeaalllly hoping they take up residence.  Please, please, please.

From the Bat Conservancy website in Austin, Texas (where people gather every evening at the Congress Avenue Bridge to watch the bats), bats will eat an unbelievable amount of mosquitos, garden and farm insects every day.  A good thing around the farmette.  

Bats are NOT birds - they are little flying mammals and give live birth to one little pup a year that weighs nearly what they weigh - imagine that, moms.  Take a moment and ponder.

Cute bat : what we have

For the bug thing alone, we've been hoping for bats to take up residence in the barn and a few nights ago, we were putting some things into the old stable portion of the barn when a bat flew in, made a couple of laps around the  light, a few laps around us and off he flew!  We were so excited that we were nearly giddy!

By the way, do you have any idea how hard it is to find cute pictures of real bats?  Completely unphotogenic.

No worries - we don't have nearly this many

And so it begins . . .

Yep.  Daylily bloom time once again.  Rather, daylily bloom time FINALLY.  Lots of things are in bloom at the Bowes Motor Speedway Farmette right now and the green things are lush but nothing, no nothing, beats daylily bloom time.  srsly.

Mystery Daylily and Oprah
surveying her domain

I'm only posting one here so as to not distract with other lovely daylily blooms as this one outshines all of the rest and will likely be moved to a showcase spot for 2013.  (Oh my, did I say 2013? Too soon, too soon.)

I bought this daylily fan from someone I 'friended' on flickr in one of the daylily groups and I'm sure I started a stampede.  He said it did not have a name and was a volunteer crossbred plant - not sure what its lineage is but just feast your eyes on this heavily veined beauty.  Colors are exactly what you see here and the veins are beautifully prominent.

No further comment required.  Behold.

Corn crib gazebo . . .

I have large plans for Spring.  Seriously large.  I've been on the lookout for an old corn crib since, oh, forever and I've had a hard time describing what I envision.  Lo and behold!  I came across this picture on a website - The Mustard Seed - and here is my vision in the flesh!

We have two pads here on the farmette that both held old silos for many years.  I removed the old auger from one and it will hold my Purple Martin house later this Spring.  The dryer and blower portion is still covered with a vented steel cover that is about 6' square and my plan is for that to become a firepit.  Ed still cocks his head and raises one eyebrow when I talk about these plans so let's just keep it to ourselves, shall we?

I picture the corn crib with a couple of adirondack chairs and maybe a table for my ever-present Diet Coke, vertical garden panels, Passion Flower and tangerine colored Trumpetvine, surrounded by my ever-growing collection of daylilies.  From here I can see for miles and miles and miles - maybe just watch the storms blossoming on the horizon.  Dream.  Draw.  Nap.

Be honest, isn't this the sweetest thing ever?