Tomorrow I'll be at the Buy Local Market in Brownsburg, organized by the Our Special Tea folks. I'm looking forward to it! There'll be a good variety of excellent vendors on hand. Here are the details-- drop on by if you can! (there's a nice flyer listing all the details and vendors here)

When: 4-9pm, July 1st
Where: The Crown Room, in the Strong Building, 900 E. 56th St., Brownsburg, Indiana.

I'm adding my friend Abbie's journal to my (rather eclectic) blogroll. She's a PhD student in my former program, and this summer is in Mali, doing language documentation in a Dogon village. This isn't the first time she's done this (she was in Mali in the Peace Corps), but she's in a different village this time, and the language, although called Dogon just like that of the people she worked with before, is apparently different enough that is could be considered a different language completely. But that's the sort of thing language documentarians enjoy (not confusion over terminology, but working with unfamiliar languages), so no doubt she's in her element there.

Anyway, it's an interesting read, do check it out.

Audacious! I just listed this pendant in my shop. I'm really happy with how the lettering turned out here (it's on my favorite paper, one that always makes my lettering snappier somehow).

Speaking of audacity, take a look at this. It's one of the neighbor's cats-- he isn't very friendly or endearing (won't let anyone within 10 feet of him, and is Ballyhoo's archnemesis), but here he is, lolling about on our front walk. Why was he lolling about on our front walk? Because he had just finished trimming my catnip plant for me, rather severely. I don't begrudge him that, really, but I did have to move the plant to higher ground.

Did I mention I planted pumpkins in the side yard? I did. If you know my house, then you know how absurd this is. It's a great spot, though, with southern exposure, on a slope. Nothing useful there now, just grass. Sooo...why not? Actually, technically winter squash, not pumpkins, though I'm not even sure what kind-- I saved some seeds from my annual pumpkin massacree a couple years back, did not label them. I like surprises. This picture was taken a week ago, so they're actually a few inches taller now.

Friday Cat Blogging

Ballyhoo, waiting for birds.

Actually, he's never been much of a hunter-- he's definitely in the lover-not-fighter camp, and that includes fighting random small wildlife. Live and let live, he says. He does get excited when he sees birds--makes those funny little noises as ardently as the next cat-- but he never goes so far as to encroach on their personal space.

In other news, I've been playing with resin. Among other things, I made this nifty plant marker. You can't really tell from the photo, but the paper is completely encased in resin so as to render it impervious to the elements. I'm kind of excited about this idea...and there are plenty more where that came from. Jewelry for your plants? Oh, I think so. Stay tuned.

Had a wonderful day at the Bloomington Fair of the Arts, an art show that happens the second Saturday of every month at the Bloomington Farmer's Market. We had beautiful weather and a good crowd. (Also, might I add, excellent strawberries and sour cherries, sugar snap peas, and tender asparagus).

Of course, I neglected to bring my camera.

Finished up this custom order last night: hot pink with a touch of orange and yellow bracelet/necklace/earrings set with some of my cheerful flowers and the words 'live, laugh, love' on each tile of the bracelet. Sleeping Beauty turquoise beads and sterling silver wire. Super summery fun! [I have no idea why the earrings photo is sideways-- the original isn't, but I've uploaded it twice and it keeps coming out that way. I give up].

Friday Cat Blogging

Here it is, at long last: the cat who will do anything for 5 minutes of internet fame (shhh: don't tell her that being on my blog doesn't really count as fame). This is my mother-in-law's cat Dolly, who happened to be in the room when we were arranging the doll centerpieces for the baby shower we gave a couple of weeks back. She held still just long enough for me to get this shot, then beat a hasty retreat.

I've been reading this book that the philosopher found for me-- a mystery in which the sleuths are sheep. Their shepherd George has been murdered! It's quite good. I've told Ballyhoo that he should read it when I'm done-- maybe reading another non-anthro-centric mystery novel would help inspire him as he works on his. He's skeptical. A little disappointed, I think, that he himself isn't going to be the one to invent the animal mystery genre. Also, he says he can't believe a sheep could be a good writer. As if he's even ever met a sheep! He's from Gainesville, Florida, for cryin' out loud-- when would he have had opportunity to form opinions about sheep?! Even putting aside the fact that the writer was probably not a sheep. That's beside the point.

Cats. Sooo stubborn, and not nearly as worldly as they think they are.

I'm pleased to introduce the webring for the INCrowd, the Etsy Indiana team. Anyone who is a member of the team can join! If you sell on Etsy and live in Indiana, you can join the team, too-- just go to our discussion board, join, introduce yourself. It's pretty easy, really.

Um, what's a webring?
A webring is a group of websites that all display a set of links that lead from one to the next. (Scroll to the very bottom of my blog here and try it out to see what it looks like and how it works)

But I don't have a blog. Can I add my Etsy store to the ring?
Unfortunately, no. Etsy doesn't allow html code to be added to stores, so you wouldn't be able to add the navigation bar that will allow our visitors to follow the ring-- it would be a broken link.

I'm ready, now what?
Join the webring here.

After you sign up, you MUST add the html code for the navigation bar to your blog or website. After I've checked out your blog and confirmed that the code has been added, I'll activate your site in the ring, you'll get a confirmation email, and you're done! Nothing to do but keep on bloggin'.

If you need help adding the code, just drop me an email and I'll be glad to help as best I can.

Visitors, please use the webring to take a mosey through the blogs of some talented Indiana artists and crafters. (Um, scroll all the way down to the bottom of the blog to find the navbar....)

Thankfully, the building that the festival was in did NOT flood (how it managed to stay dry given the photos of Franklin shown on CNN last night is a mystery to me), so my goods and everyone else's were fine. A kind neighbor-vendor brought my jewelry back to me today (after he spent hours yesterday trying to find a non-flooded route from Johnson County to Bloomington), but I still have to return to fetch my canopy once the flooding is done with. But today I can relax a bit.

The several varieties of mint I orderd a while ago arrived at long last, and now I have only to find decent places to put them all! I got: banana mint (actually smells much more like banana than I had expected), mojito mint (from Cuba!), Kentucky Col. mint (super-spearminty), Hillary's sweet lemon mint (a lemon mint-apple mint hybrid that I find much more pleasant than plain lemon mint), pineapple mint (a pretty white and green variegated plant with soft leaves), and wintergreen mint (guess what that one smells like?). Add that to my chocolate mint, peppermint, marshmallow mint, berries n cream mint, and apple mint, and what you have is someone who is going to be drinking a lot of mint tea this year. And also having lots of juleps, mojitos, minted lemonade, minty fruit salad, mint ice cream, mint sorbet, and probably lots of leftover dried mint to give as presents. I have this thing with variations on themes, and when an herb I like has multiple hybrids, I go a bit crazy. And if my yard becomes overgrown with mint (as it surely will, as I am a madwoman who has recklessly planted it directly in the ground), well. There are worse things to have happen.

My favorite thing to do with mint (or lemon balm, for that matter) is to make a mint-infused simple syrup. Take equal parts suger, water, and mint springs, snip up the mint, mix it in a little pan, and bring the whole thing to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Once it's boiled, turn off the heat and let it sit there in the pan for a bit. Then strain out the greens, and use it in iced tea, over fresh berries, in mixed drinks, etc. etc. YUM.

Well, then when we got home, there were severe thunderstorm warnings and tornado watches, and so no cat blogging. It rained (with lots of loud thunder and lightening) all night long, and this morning when we dutifully tried to drive back to the festival, we found that EVERY ROAD that would have taken us there was flooded. We saw serious flooding in Martinsville--like, cars in it up to their windows, and lots of houses flooded, fields turned into lakes, and so on. One side road we tried to take (I know-- like the side road was gonna be clear) had turned into a raging river about 8 feet deep. Um, yeah, time to turn around.

So I'm wondering whether the building the festival is in has flooded, and whether or not I'll find that I have any non-soggy inventory left when I get there. But given the devastation I saw in some areas we passed by this morning, I'm really feeling pretty fortunate.

Been busy lately-- a 5-day stay in Memphis to throw a baby shower for a friend, followed by a few days getting ready for the Hoosier Hills Fiberarts Festival. Which is where I will be today 12-7 and tomorrow 10-6-- come see me if you're in the area!

And yes, I hope to get a little cat blogging in today when I get home. We subjected one of my mother-in-law's cats to some amusing indignities that must be shared with the world.