Where has the time gone???
Holy Cow the time has flown by!!! I have been happily albeit busily creative during this time!
So let's do a recap of whats been going on since my last post in MARCH! Well...for one we had really nice weather early in March so I started the garden seedling in the second week. This year will have lots of hot peppers!!
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| All the peppers have been planted!!! We have Ghost peppers, Chiltepin peppers, Thai Birdseye peppers, Super Chili peppers, Black Pearl peppers, Habanero peppers, Tri Color Varigata peppers, Jalapenos...and three kinds of tomatoes! |
Here are the babies moved into the cold frame when they were about 4 weeks old. It was so warm in Indiana early however about 3 weeks before Mothers Day, it got COLD so I had to put a small ceramic heater in here to keep the babies from freezing! It worked very well and Sheldor the Garden Gnome made sure the babies were safe guarded from the cold!
They are now all planted around the patio and in the garden. The jalapenos are all in this planter, there are 18 jalapenos total, two varieties: Hot and VERY Hot!!
The garden was planted the week before Mothers day so my early target date wasn't off by much.
Everything is doing pretty well. I already have tomatoes on and the peppers are blooming now. Green beans are up and getting ready to climb the poles. Flowers all planted, pools been opened so summer is in BUSY full swing!
FARMERS MARKET TIME!!!!
Next weekend I debut 6 of my blends at a local Farmers Market in Howe, Indiana. My cousins Lori Brouse and I are teaming up and calling our booth "Sugared and Spiced" She makes sweet treats and I make the spicy stuff. This should be alot of fun but it has been a lot of work to get ready for. I have 94 bottles of spices all packed up in tamper proof shaker bottles all ready to sell. My label brand is called 'Krazy Kat's' and my blends include the following: Krazy Kat's Jalapeno Salt, Gotta HAB It habanero salt, Muther Cluckin Awesome poultry spice, Squealin Piggy Pork Rub, Your Sucha Jerk jerk spice and Fire Flapper Wing spice. Let me tell ya...making the pepper spiced salts is a near death experience as far as breathing goes!! The coughing about killed me, even wearing a face mask I could still smell it!! next time, I am wearing a hazmat suit!! ;)
All this has taken up quite a bit of time as I have created all my own recipes, labels and graphics. We have been testing recipes all the time and I have more in the pipeline but the 6 will do for now.
The hard parts been done, creating the base recipes and the labels so now all I have to keep doing is mixing, packing and coming up with new products periodically.
At some point I would like to sell my spices retail but that entails renting commercial kitchen space, new licensure which may not be too far off. If this thing blows up, I will have to have help or do it near full-time which would mean I would have to let something go in order to have the time to continue. I'll say this, I won't stop painting! :)
PAINTING!!!
As you can see above, I've been a very BUSY girl since March. I painted this beautiful iris and a few weeks later received a call for entries request in the mail for a local juried art show. I decided to finaly throw my hat in. I have never entered a juried show before...partly out of fear and feeling like my paintings were never quite good enough. I thought, what have I got to lose? I can't be an art hermit forever and people do like to see what I do so it's about time I get it out there locally....so I entered... and I WON SECOND PLACE!!!!!
My first show and I placed well!!! I am just ECSTATIC about all this! It was such a great day yesterday receiving the award and the monetary prize ! I feel quite validated with all my efforts...
The best part of the day was that my close family and friends were there with me to see me accept my prize and view that gorgeous red ribbon! The smiles and looks of pride they wore on their faces was the best gem of a memory and beats any prize hands down! :)
It was a fantastic day!!! :)
Today I just committed to a commissioned portrait of three little girls. I am excited about this! I have been itching to paint a portrait for some time so this will fill that desire. Portrait painting is something I really enjoy but I don't do very often anymore. I only take on the ones I want to do. I do enjoy having the freedom to paint what I choose and now and again I will accept an occasional commission so this is going to be fun and I am greatly looking forward to it. It will be quite cute and lovely when I am done!
Well...that's how I have been spending my time...this will be a busy, busy summer!
Hope your all having a great summer so far! Stay tuned and I promise to update more often...
Kath
