spring

Guess Where I Went

May 7, 2011 by The Noisy Plume

Yee haw!

I spent eight hours answering emails, packaging and shipping jewelry and sorting some material orders today and when it was all said and done, I was feeling kinked. I hopped on my trusty bicycle (not quite a dapple grey Percheron…but it will do) and pedaled over to the post office, then down to my favorite antique shop for some haggling and finagling and then finally, oh-sweet-mashed-potato-Idaho-heavens-above, (Whatttt???), I made it to the nursery.

I love this time of year!

I used all five senses while strolling around the greenhouses. I ran my hands over plants, sniffed and nibbled on the herbs, took in the chroma-vibrancy laid out in all directions, I think I even heard the cellular hum of chloroplastic work. It was magnificent.

CONFESSION:

I knew I’d get carried away with my plant purchases, as my eyes tend to be larger than my available garden space, which is why I rode my bicycle instead of taking one of the trucks.

I did walk away with one ceramic mushroom (long story), a pineapple mint and a chocolate mint. Whew! RW will be pleased by my self-control!

Our springtime is winding down here and I’m trying to squeeze every minute out of every day and every ounce of love out of my man before he takes off for the fire season. Gosh. I can’t believe it’s already here again. At any rate, I’m going to treat this weekend like a weekend. Tomorrow there is cattle branding over at the Gilbert Ranch, the installation of a new fume hood in my secondary studio space, a movie with the lady friends, some tasty meals (if I don’t burn them) and some quiet times with RW.

I hope you bite off more than you can chew, this weekend,

and I mean that in a good way!

Cheerio!

JSL

Post Scriptus:

I wore my swan, all day.
She’s so glad she’s mine.

Filed Under: flowers, garden, idaho potatoes, plants, spring

Solo

April 20, 2011 by The Noisy Plume

I’m just in from a twirl about town.

I traveled by bicyclette and my oh my, the breeze was brisk and the sun was pooling like young amber, musky and musty, light and bright. The wavering flex of spring shift is falling all around like chandelier crystals on white marble — so pretty and smashing and the delicate light spinning through and through.

The daffodils hold their holy rows.

The world is tossing itself about in shades of green…

I went on a solo date. The rules for a solo date usually include food, coffee (green tea, in this case), antique or second hand stores, book stores and a camera.

Regardez:

1. The sushi was delicious (my pot of green tea overflowed=eth),

as was the pillaging of my favorite antique shop, right across the street.

2. Walrus and Carpenter, my favorite used bookstore, held more treasures than usual.

3. Will gave me a start from his century old jade tree (it belonged to his mother and her mother before her, before it became his…). I’ve been begging for a piece of this plant for a year and a half…..most politely. You’ve never seen a jade tree like this. The trunk of it is at least as round as my leg, just above the knee. How lucky am I to own a small piece of such a fantastic chloroplastic dynasty?

4. My trusty steed was heavy with bits and bobs but we cruised the sidewalks and greenbelts with utter grace.

This was my first time out and about in my little community on the South end of town in roughly two months.

How did I get so busy?

How did life get so wild?

Well I’m simmering down now and taking my time. I was supposed to take one day off…but it has turned into three. You’ll have to forgive me that! I thank you in advance!!!

Fact:

I love it here.

And I think here loves me too.

Post Scriptus:
This
This
Lots of This
and
This

Filed Under: pocatello, seasons, solo date, spring, springtime

Yellow

April 14, 2011 by The Noisy Plume

“I understand how scarlet can differ from crimson because I know that the smell of an orange is not the smell of a grapefruit…Without color or its equivalent, life to me would be dark, barren, a vast blackness…Therefore, I habitually think of things as colored and resonant. Habit accounts for part. The soul sense accounts for another part. The brain with its five-sensed construction asserts its right and accounts for the rest. The unity of the world demands that color be kept in it whether I have cognizance of it or not. Rather than be shut out, I take part in it by discussing it, happy in the happiness of those near me who gaze at the lovely hues of the sunset or the rainbow.”

[Helen Keller, The World I Live In, 1908]

…humdinger.

I picked daffodils this morning

because their yellow hues made my soul sing.

I wanted even more sunshine in my home,

more light for my eyes,

more color.

What hue is twanging your heartstrings today?

Filed Under: color therapy, daffodils, flowers, spring, yellow

Lions and Lambs

March 30, 2011 by The Noisy Plume

It’s windy as bee knees here today,

glorious springtime weather with the fleecy white bleat of lambs and fierce tawny roars of lions blended together into a hair raising melody.

Plum and I are just down from the mountain and besides being thoroughly buffeted by wind, we were misted on, swooped on and nearly mud bathed (I managed to keep my feet though).

What a beautiful day.

RW has been away steelhead fishing in the central part of Idaho.

Last night, I stayed up far too late whilst watching this from the quilt nest of my bed.

Have you seen it?

I know it might seem perplexing to you to know that I am an avid sci-fi fan as well as a feverishly devoted supporter of period drama, but it’s the truth.

North and South is one of those classic BBC period dramas wherein the romance is so drawn out, so practically painful in every way, so annoying and relieving simultaneously — she thinks she knows everything about him and he thinks he knows everything about her and so they deeply loathe each other and then find each other to be rather pleasant and then there’s FINALLY that kiss in the last five minutes of the film……exhale…...

I love that kind of love.

If you adored Pride and Prejudice (either BBC version or the Keira version),

you’ll love North and South…if not for the story, than for that gorgeous Richard Armitage and his hawkish glare.

The cuckoo clock chimed twelve some time ago and I’m headed out to the studio to finish this bizarrely beautiful cocoon necklace I started two days ago. It’s one of those pieces that I’m just not entirely sure about whilst I’m building it — as in, I’m not sure how it will turn out. I have the image of the finished piece on the tip of my mind but I don’t yet believe, wholly, that it will exactly match the image in my mind when it’s finished…I suppose we’ll just have to see how it turns out!

Good Wednesday to you all!

Smooch.

The Plume

Filed Under: idaho, lions and lambs, mountains, New Jewelry, pocatello, spring, west bench

March Is A Flirty Tease

March 23, 2011 by The Noisy Plume

I love March.

I love it when it comes in like a lamb and goes out like a lion.

I love it when it coaxes the tulips and daffodils out of the dirt and then suddenly

decides to snow and blow and frost and freeze all over the buds

of sweet, darling nature.

Oh, silly nature, don’t you know by now that March is a tease?

I know that March is a tease.

Yesterday I was drifting about The Gables on cloud nine with a springy draft blowing in from the North.

I went to sleep with gardening dreams in my fluffy little head and woke up to a few inches of new snow that fell in the night and a heinous wind out of the North.

I don’t mind. March is a tease. She’s a glorious old flirt. The fresh snow in the low country means there’s a new and sassy layer of powder in the high country and I’m going to take my new skis out for a blitz sometime this week (might even coax dad to come with)!

I am, after all, a cup-half-full kind of girl!

Back to this necklace. It’s big. It features several of my favorite design elements: hollow form, long trailing pendants that drop from a focal pendant, coral, antlers and two dimensional forms. Whew. Made for a lady who isn’t afraid of false springs. Made for a lady who likes to garden but keeps a wee shard of ice in her soul because she finds all-things-Arctic particularly blissful.

Humdinger.

It’s built of sterling, 14 carat gold, coral and prehnite.

In other news, I’ve been faffing about the studio all day long waiting for my mum and dad to arrive and they seem to be taking there sweet time between Montana and here! Yeesh.

Mundane life details:

1. I’m making quinoa and steamed broccoli for dinner. That sounds meager…perhaps I’ll add an elk sausage avec moutarde!!!

2. Today I casted something. I can’t wait to show you!

3. Yesterday and most of today, I had a pinched nerve in my lower back. One hour ago, my discomfort disappeared after I did three sets of ten pull-ups out in the studio. Huh…

4. Plum gave Judith a kiss. It was quite the sight to behold.

5. Have I told you that RW gave me an ameraucana chicken last week! She’s going to lay me blue eggs after she recovers from the dismal life she had before she became mine…already, after free ranging in the yard for a week, her feathers have filled out and she seems much more confident! The Gables is officially a chicken rescue!

Here she is!
Her name is Debbie Gibson.
6. Isn’t Lionel beautiful?

He hails from the same ranch as Mister Pinkerton (the same mother as well, in fact). Next time there’s a batch of kittens out at the Gilbert Ranch, I’m going to claim a fluffy tiger kitten like this.

7. I’m wearing galoshes.

8. RW spent the entire day cleaning the house. Isn’t he wonderful? Don’t you want one like him?

9. I just checked the mail, one second ago, and there was a pink letter from Corinna.

10. Sometimes I wish we could all get together, in the summer, and camp on a beautiful lake and have campfires and splendiferous s’more making and star watching. Do you ever dream of such jamborees?

The Plume

Filed Under: cats, mister pinkerton, New Jewelry, spring, woah there are lots of made up words in this post