by Susan | Jun 22, 2020 | Garden, On the Farm
My favorite thing about my disorganized, overgrown, under-tended flower garden is the Korean lilac mom gave me years ago. Planted from cuttings, they’ve grown into lush 4′ bushes circling my birdfeeder. It blooms for all but a week in June. For one...
by Susan | Jun 21, 2020 | On My Mind
I’ve so enjoyed working from the deck since screening it in last month. I’ve been researching roll up blinds for the porch but decided they’re just not in my budget. A search through the linen closet revealed one old curtain panel (just one). A couple of old...
by Susan | Jun 18, 2020 | On My Mind
It’s official. Hannah WILL be returning to Denison University for her senior year. She learned the news last week and is over the moon, knowing she’ll reunite with her friend and begin classes again. It’s been three months since she was sent home...
by Susan | Jun 11, 2020 | Odds and Ends, Projects
I’ve had many questions about my rain barrels since sharing this picture of the completed project on social media. Here’s a look at the details of the project. Given our steel roof, no basement, and a foundation drainage system, we never bothered with...
by Susan | Jun 5, 2020 | Birds and Wildlife, Out and About in Maine
The weather app reported cloudy all day. By mid-day, the sun was shining on one side of the house while cloudy on the other, so we took our chances and headed to the beach. We parked our chairs and were rewarded with a quick 20 minutes of sunshine before the clouds...
by Susan | May 31, 2020 | Odds and Ends, Projects
A porch is to a house as a smile is to a person. When planning our house, I was adamant that I have a porch big enough to sit on and enjoy being outdoors. I’m a winner, and we have a fantastic 8′ x 33′ porch that runs along part of the front of the...
by Susan | May 25, 2020 | Birds and Wildlife, Out and About in Maine
Hannah and I headed up to Meddybemps today to pick up a couple of barrels to turn into rain barrels. Meddybemps. It’s such fun to say. On the way home, we drove through the Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge, and pulled into a river overlook just in time to see...
by Susan | May 22, 2020 | Birds and Wildlife, Out and About in Maine
A couple of times a week, Hannah and I end the day with a drive before dinner. Cameras in hand, we take off for an hour or so in search of wildlife. Sometimes we only spot some Canada Geese. Or Cormorants. Or a gulp of Cormorants being harassed by Gulls. And then last...
by Susan | May 16, 2020 | Odds and Ends, Projects
For the past couple of summers, Hannah and I have been raising Monarch butterflies. I’ve used little net houses and plastic totes to raise them. Inside, they’ve escaped, and I’ve found the caterpillars crawling up the walls. Outside, the wind has...
by Susan | May 11, 2020 | Out and About in Maine
Hannah was out and about this afternoon on a hunt for sea glass. She called to find out when I would be finished with work and said she was kidnapping me so I could enjoy the beautiful day for a while. We visited for a while with this Common Eider Duck pair. Hannah...
by Susan | May 10, 2020 | Bird Patterns, Felt Patterns, Perching Bird Patterns
A friend shared a photo of a Magnolia Warbler on Instagram. Intrigued, I sat down yesterday to design one. This morning, as I was cutting out the pieces to sew him, I spotted a flash of yellow out the window. I popped up to take a closer look – a Magnolia...
by Susan | May 9, 2020 | Backyard Birds, On the Farm
May 9 and the weather forecast called for snow. A polar vortex they say. I can’t imagine what my first hummingbird of the season thought of this turn of events. In this one it looks like he’s thinking WTF! My sentiments exactly.
by Susan | May 7, 2020 | Backyard Birds, On the Farm
It was so beautiful yesterday that I spent my morning working on the porch. I made it through a Zoom meeting and another couple of hours of work before the sun slipped behind the clouds, chilling things down. It was absolutely lovely. No bugs. The wind chimes were...
by Susan | May 2, 2020 | Out and About in Maine
I tagged along with Hannah today. She was on a mission to take pictures for her school photography assignment. The subject was beach trash. It was a beautiful day in Beals with lots of whitecaps in the harbor. Hannah scoured the landscape collecting images of trashed...
by Susan | May 2, 2020 | On My Mind
We’ve just finished our first month of “Stay Safer at Home” here in Maine and are now into month two. Yet for the Bennett family, it’s been over eight weeks of hunkering down. When Hannah arrived home from Denmark on March 14th, we...
by Susan | Apr 28, 2020 | Collage, Felt Patterns, Squares
This collage card started with a felt square design. Yet when it came time to make it, I was more interested in creating it from paper than I was from felt. The tree is created from magazine text torn from the magazine to mimic a birch tree. As I did with my Puffins...
by Susan | Apr 26, 2020 | Bird Patterns, Felt Patterns, Perching Bird Patterns
I have a “to-do” list for my backyard bird books, but lately, my inspiration wants to go other directions (see last weekend’s puffin square). Today, I buckled down to create the Red-bellied Woodpecker and check it off my list before I venture into...
by Susan | Apr 25, 2020 | Out and About in Maine
These days I feel as if I live at work. The commute from the home office is a ridiculously short one during the quarantine. So when the Saturday forecast was sunny and 50, Hannah and I packed a lunch and headed out for a photo adventure. Obligatory stop at Dunkin for...
by Susan | Apr 21, 2020 | Collage, Odds and Ends, Projects
This weekend I designed a felt square called Puffins on Rocks. I liked the Puffins so much that I started thinking about other ways I could use this design. I decided to try a collage greeting card with the Puffin scene. Somewhere in my stash, I used to have some...
by Susan | Apr 19, 2020 | Bird Patterns, Felt Patterns, Squares
Earlier in the year, I designed the Felt Loon at Cadillac square. At the time, it was a one-off type of thing. A few days ago, I woke up in the middle of the night with designs for two more felt squares clearly outlined in my mind. I grabbed my iPhone and emailed...
