Libraries Mean Books

Hi everyone.  

It's already Thursday. Another week is flying by, isn't it?  I've been working out by getting a lot of yard chores completed. We get invaded by annoying little black flies in late April or early May, so I am trying to get as much of my spring clean up and garden prep done (as is possible) before bug season arrives.

Today I have a journal page for both Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's Recycle, Reuse or Repurpose challenge at Art Journal Journey and also for Rain's Art and Dinner Date . This week Rain's optional theme is Libraries. 

Here's a book themed page from my recent junk journal. Other than some washi tape, everything on my page comes out of some pulled out magazine pages. The backgrounds on both sides are journal type pages that were in an old issue of a FLOW magazine. The letters were also postcards that were in the magazine. This quote comes from the same magazine, as do the ladies which were part of a sticker collage and that I cut apart. 

Since I've been busy outside much of the week, I haven't really done much for cooking or baking at all, even though I want to make some anadama bread and the recipe is sitting out on my kitchen counter. I really need to get my act together I guess.

Here's a few garden views from the last few days.

My rhubarb is really growing fast. (And that is not snow around it. It is actually very faded landscape fabric.)

The hydrangeas are getting leaves, and my delphiniums are coming up.

The daffodils will be blooming very very soon, maybe even today.

And the grape anemones are in bloom.

My iris bed is getting  large.

And sadly my crocuses are already starting to get passe, but here's some late bloomers I am still enjoying.

I'm happy that the daylilies a friend gave me last year are really coming back. The ones I already own are growing too. I love daylilies as they are such low maintenance plants and give you weeks of pretty summer blooms. If only my irises would bloom that long as they are also low maintenance and so beautiful when they flower.

I haven't even gotten into this garden to rake but the peonies are coming up.

And for some reason this  last photo isn't very focused, but the beehives are ready for my new bees that will be here in a couple of weeks. My alliums are growing like crazy. too I do need to rake up all the bird seed in the garden though. 

And that's all for me today. It's time to get out and finish the bark mulching I never finished yesterday. Thanks for stopping by. 

 

Yin Yu Tang House

 Hi everyone. Happy Wednesday. Fair warning-my post is a little bit long today.

I still have a few photos  from my visit 2 weeks ago to the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts that are worth sharing. Today I thought I would take you through an actual Chinese house that is at this museum.

The Yin Yu Tang House is from the southeastern part of China in the  Huizhou region. I had to look that up on a map. It's the darker orange part.

 This house was built by a prosperous merchant by the name of Huang and was where  his family lived for over 200 years. It was taken apart and brought to Salem in 1982 where it was reassembled. 

If you leave the museum and walk around the back of it, you see this view of the house. One thing that's interesting to notice is that there  are no windows.

To visit the house, you have to be inside the museum. When you go into the house you first enter this courtyard area. As I just mentioned, this house does not have windows, and the only natural light coming in is from above this courtyard. If you look at the top of the photo you can see some glass panels. These were added by the museum to protect the structure from rain and snow, but in China that part of the building would have been open to the environment. It would be  how light would enter the building.

The rooms are on both the left and right sides of this courtyard with stairs at either end. There are also 2 water sources here, both for home's occupants to use and  as a protection in case of fire.

The person who looks like they are on their phone in the forefront of my photo is actually listening to the device they lend you to self-tour the house.

Many of the rooms off of the courtyard were bedrooms. Next is a photo of one bedroom on the first floor. This huge bed took up much of the room.  It was a place of honor to have your bedroom on this level.

There was also a little storage alcove on the first floor too. I liked this bicycle and all the texture on the walls and floor.

 This next photo is the kitchen. It's not anything  I'd think of as a kitchen, maybe more of a dining room. The actual cooking would have taken place out in the open courtyard because this family did not own modern stoves. I'm actually curious how they would have cooked. I am sure it would have  been in a wok, but did they cook over a fire? I know during the cultural revolution Mao outlawed cooking at home, so perhaps that  is why there was no sign of a place to cook.

This house also had no heat. I never photographed them, but there were lots of small handheld pans where hot coals would be added. You could carry that heat around with you. I'm not familiar with the environment in this part of China, so maybe it was not a particulary cold area.

I showed you the next 2 photos previously, and I thought I'd include them again. Everyone was required to hang a picture of Mao during the cultural revolution. That's creepy and sad if you ask me, but it is history.

Here's another bed and then just a wall with some interesting texture.

And below is a high chair. This was in a storage room. The box behind this high chair was actually a coffin. I'm not sure whose it was or why it was there, but perhaps it was ready for when the family elder passed.

The family and this house were around during the time of Chairman Mao and his cultural revolution. Here's another photo they were required to hang. 

Mao looks so friendly, but if you're familiar with what he did during the Cultural Revolution, it was not a very friendly time.

This next photo is up on the second floor, looking across the courtyard.

And then looking down into the courtyard.

This is the walkway along one side of the second floor. The walkway went around the whole of the second floor. The rooms in this photo were to the left of this walkway, and the courtyard is on the right.

These stairs look a little bit steep to me. 

Looking down into the courtyard you can see the 2 water/well features.

Here's a few more "random" views from inside the rooms.

This next bedroom was wallpapered, and  it was a wedding gift when the eldest son married. 

It's interesting to think about the number of people who lived in this house at various times. Often there were 3 or even 4 generations living here. However the men, who were merchants, were gone for long periods of time to their offices down along the coast, probably near or in Hong Kong.

These next photos are from an upstairs storage area, but I liked them so I'll share.

And finally, here is one of the water features. They would have contained large goldfish (koi), although the ones here are tiny. Those water lilies don't look real either.

I hope you enjoyed your tour of the Chinese home. It is definitely a treasure of this museum.

Rainbow Colors

 Hi everyone.  It's already time for another new challenge at Try It on Tuesday.

First let me thank everyone who joined us for our Hello Spring challenge. I also want to thank Claudia for being our guest designer for that challenge.

It's now time for our new challenge which will run for the next 2 weeks. This time our theme is

Rainbow Colors

You don't have to make a rainbow, unless you want to. We do want to see lots of colors, just like the rainbow has. 

Today I want to share another spread from my junk journal. I think the only rainbow color I am missing is dark purple.

My background is made with  scraps from some magazine pages as well as the backs of some small tags that were also in the magazine. I covered up the holes (in those tags) with some other pieces of paper so they wouldn't look like tags.

The vintage photo and the quote are also from the magazines. The red heart was a left over and on my work table, as was the little wooden star too.  Finally I still had a brochure from the Dali Museum in Florida that I visited back in January. I cut out the special exhibit and also the shape of dream phrases and added them to my spread.

When I finished making this junk journal I realized I still have  many bits and pieces left to use up. There may be another one being made in the near future. Smile.

The design team  over at Try It On Tuesday has lots of colorful inspiration also so be sure to check out their art too. 

I hope you're feeling colorful and will join us at Try It on Tuesday with some art during this challenge.

I am also linking up my spread to Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's Recycle, Reuse and Repurpose challenge at Art Journal Journey. Please remember only art journal pages are accepted at this challenge.

Thanks for visiting my blog.

T Stands for 2 Road Trip Surprises

 Hi everyone.  It's already time for T again so Happy T day to you.

Last week I had something going on every day, and when I was home, I was trying to get some yard work started now that the snow has finally melted in my backyard. I'm hoping this week I can get a lot accomplished outside too, especially since I don't have anything on my schedule. They are saying we  have chances for some rain, which is what we had today, so I will have to wait and see how much I can actually accomplish.

Last week my husband called me during the day on Tuesday and said he had to go to the  mid-coast area of Maine for a business meeting on Friday.  Would I want to come along?  I didn't have to think twice about saying yes, and so we left early Friday morning and didn't come home until Saturday evening. We  brought the dogs with us and found a dog friendly hotel for the night. 

My husband's client's representative owns his own little  4 seater Cessna plane, and he asked if we wanted to go for a flight. I didn't have to think twice about that either. After business was wrapped up for the day, we climbed into his plane, and he took us out for some sightseeing from the air.

Here I am in the backseat. We had to wear headphones to talk because since it's a small plane, the engine noises are rather loud. And the next photo  is  where our pilot/host sat. I actually find all the gauges really interesting.

And then we were airborne.

The coast of Maine is not only one of my most favorite places on the planet, but it is also really geologically and physically interesting. We took off from Belfast and flew out along the coast, heading northeast, although the compass said south. Our pilot says that fact still  confuses him since we are flying in the direction of Canada, which is definitely north. 

In this next photo we are looking down on Bucksport, Maine.  You can see the Penobscot Narrows Bridge. This is one of only 4 bridges in the world that has an observation deck on top, and the only one in the US. It is 42 stories tall, which makes it not only the tallest observatory in Maine, but also the tallest bridge observatory in the world.

 Just in front of the bridge is Fort Knox. No, not the fort where the US money is stored. This Fort Knox was built in the mid-1800's (although never 100% completed) and used during the Civil and Spanish American Wars. It never did see any military action and is now a state park.

 

Here's another view of the bridge and the fort. (Yes, I know, you're a few thousand feet up so they aren't the most obvious.)

And here you have my husband's shoulder as I snap a photo out of the front window.

This part of the Maine coast is jagged and filled with islands. Out of the 50 states, Maine ranks 39th in size but 4th for states with most actual miles of coastline if you include all the islands and bends and curves. (Granted not all of the states actually have coastlines.) It's really obvious from this airborne view why. 

And even though in most of these photos you can't see out onto the open Atlantic, this is all coastline. The tide was even partially out as you can tell from the exposure along the shore.

In this next photo you can see more open ocean out beyond the islands.

I loved watching the shadow of our plane as we were heading in to land.

And that was just our first pleasant surprise of the day.  After we landed and were back in the car driving, my husband's sister called. We knew she was on a weekend get away with her husband, but we thought she was further south along the coast. When she called she asked us where in Belfast we were. We said we were just heading into town because even though it was after 3 in the afternoon, we hadn't had lunch yet.

She informed us that she and her husband had to come to Belfast to try out a brewery, so off we headed to meet them. They were literally about 5 minutes away. Who thought we'd meet them on this trip?

Here's the brewery sign.

You can see in the next photo that the brewery was built right on the wharf and closed in for the winter still.

It was even a dog friendly place, so the pups came in and joined us. They also managed to get a lot of attention too.

I couldn't decide what to drink so I ordered a flight. This is my link to Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog    for T this week.

Here are my 4 beer choices. My favorite was the Seance Saison which had a bit pumpkin in it.

And even though I forgot to photograph it, I had a cheese flatbread pizza with it. The pizza was good, but the beer was far better.

We had a great couple of days away. I have some other photos I can share another time, but this post is long enough. Thanks so much for visiting, and have a great T day and week ahead.