More "Hearts"

Hello Everyone, Yesterday a friend brought me this beautiful little heart basket filled with succulents . I used some twine to tie it onto my old shabby chic back porch chair. I love how cute it looks! Of course, you can't sit on the chair now, but usually I have some decoration in the seat anyway.

Here are some of the stuffed felt hearts I made for my antique booth to spruce it up a little. I will try to take some photos this week of the shop and what is happening there. It is well stocked for the winter as that is the busy season in Florida. Some of the items that I have sold recently are garden related things, granite ware, ceramic birds, old doll parts, clocks and a very nice steamer trunk. Old keys sell well. I think instead of collecting antiques, younger folks are re-purposing them and painting them! I will show you some of the neat things the owner of the shop has done with bits and pieces of this and that. 

So keep watching and soon I will give you a tour of The Rustic Star Antiques. You can check it out on Facebook, too.

Decorating for Valentine's Day

Hi Everyone and welcome to Ten Gables! It is really cool today, but sunny. It's about 60 right now and we should see in the mid 70's before the day is over! It is time to decorate a bit for Valentine's day. I have already been sewing felt hearts and decorating them and will show you those later. But today, I will show you what I have done so far in the line of decorating. Valentine's day is one of my favorite "holidays", because I just love hearts in any form....they say love and remind me of the fun we had as children in school making Valentines for our friends. We would always cover a shoe box with pretty paper or white paper and decorate it. We would cut a slit in the center for our classmates to put their cards in the box. It was fun on Valentine's day to see how many you got, who sent them, and if maybe some special person put one in your box! Do you remember that, too?

I have a beautiful bowl on the dining room table that has red "coins" around the edge. In fact I have several pieces of this type antique glass and I don't know the name of it. Does anyone know?

One year I made the heart shown above and a whole stack of them. I like to hang them in the windows in the dining room. They were fun to make, but I have lost the instructions and really can't remember how I did them. I think you put white felt over red and sew your design and then cut out around the stitching (the white layer) to give the design. Each one I made is different.

The little feather tree was left up after Christmas, and all the Christmas decorations taken off and  then covered  with little plastic hearts. I think I like it better now than at Christmas!

A cute Annalee doll sits on the buffet....a gift one year from my brother and sister in law. Love it!

And here is her little partner, a cupid. Hope he shoots some arrows your way! More hearts to come, so watch for them. Have a great day, Egretta.

Yummy Garden Soup!

Hi Everyone and hope you are warm and cozy wherever you are! The weather across the U.S. seems to be quite cold, especially in Minnesota where I heard that the wind chill is minus 30!! That is cold! Here in Florida, it is in the low 70's and absolutely gorgeous. We will be in the 50's tonight, but tomorrow will just be a nice 70. 

I harvested some veggies from the garden and decided to make some nice veg soup today.

In the soup, and from my garden, I added eggplant, broccoli, tomatoes, cabbage, green pepper and arugula.

Below is a photo of one of my cabbages.Not the one I used....it was much bigger!

I also added some rich beef stock with chunks of beef roast that I had frozen for this purpose and some chicken stock as well. Then I put in plenty of other veggies, including potatoes, green beans, pinto beans, fresh spinach leaves broken up, celery, sweet red peppers, carrots, and parsley. And of course, a bit of sea salt and pepper. It simmered a couple of hours and we had it for lunch. Oh, so good!!!

I really could have done with a larger bowl of this, but will let it sit in the fridge overnight and we all know that soup is always better the second day!

Looking forward to tomorrow!! Wish all my Minnesota friends could just beam themselves to Florida tomorrow for some hot soup....also my English and Northern Irish friends who are getting some snowy weather, too.  Maybe you, too, are making a big pot of soup wherever you are! Have a great day, Egretta

Winter in Florida

It is "winter" in Florida! As you can see, we don't have snow! We don't have cold!

We have roses in bloom, and a lot of other flowers, and a nice winter garden growing. Today reached 80 degrees, and that is plenty hot, but it was a beautiful day with a nice breeze and sunny. 

My one eggplant has about 8 egg plants on it....not really big, but getting bigger since we had some nice rain.

The cabbages are heading up and you can see a broccoli plant in the corner and a tomato plant with two small tomatoes touching the ground. I need to stake that!

On the fence across the front of the property is a beautiful Mexican Flame Vine and it is in full bloom!

Here us a close up of it....little trumpet shaped flowers in a bright orange. They make quite a show.

The guest cottage (Twin Gables) peeks out behind the Flame Vine and you can see the big Live Oak tree in front of the house with plenty of Spanish Moss hanging down.

A photo looking up into the tree. Makes me think of lying on the ground as a child looking up at the trees and clouds.

Things aren't quite as green as they are in Spring, but our Spring is just around the corner. Under the oaks the grass is quite brown, but in parts of the yard there is some green grass. You can catch a glimpse on the right. The squirrels had so much fun in these trees this year and ate a bunch of acorns. Yes, they hide them in Florida, just like they do in Fall in the North, but food for them is always plentiful here in Florida.
I hope wherever you are, your weather is mild and not too cold, unless, of course, you really LOVE cold weather!!! Have a great day, Egretta.

We need rain!!

Hello Everyone, I hope you are enjoying the beginning days of the New Year! I feel like doing a rain dance, as it is so dry here and my little garden is in need of a good soaking! Above, see my little white Pansies. Don't you adore little Pansy faces. You can see that the leaves seem a little wilted. It has been cloudy and has misted just a bit today, but we really need a good downpour!

 My cabbage is heading up now, but it too would really benefit from some rain. It looks good with no insect damage.

I am afraid my Arugula lettuce has started to bloom and is over the best eating days. It has become bitter. However, it is so pretty in the garden that I am just letting it go for awhile.

The eggplant has about 5 of these on it and they are small. I only have the one plant and it is looking really bad, with brown dried up leaves. If only it could have some nice rain, I think the eggplants would increase in size. Perhaps I would have enough to make a nice Parmesan dish with them. Well, must go....I have to do my rain dance. Is that more than you needed to imagine??