Beetle Juice

One day last week, my sister and I spent the whole morning in the garden.  We planted pumpkins and gourds, we weeded, and then we squished hundreds of Colorado Potato Beetles.  Most of them were in the gummy larval stage, and my arms got covered with brown beetle guts.  One squirted on my neck, and thankfully missed my eye.
We have a pretty good potato patch this year.  I like the blossoms and leaves of the plants and think they might make a good fabric pattern.  Hopefully I'll paint them before they vanish.

My Maran rooster is all grown up, and even crowing!  But there are no eggs from the pullets yet.  His name is Hercules Poirot, his hen is Miss Marple and the two other hens are Nancy (Drew) and Thumbelina.  If you remembered that I began with six, the other two were roosters, and hawks swooped down and got them while I was away in France.

And the seeds I planted before I left turned into flowers, so I now have lots of zinnias, my favorite blooms!

Today I made all of my fabrics available for sale on the Spoonflower website:  http://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/maria_pace

And tomorrow my wonderful great aunt is coming for lunch and I'm hoping she might be able to teach me how to oil the sewing machine!