The Potato Experiment

I'm no stranger to gardening or growing potatoes. Our little farm in Oklahoma had a quarter of an acre garden plot that provided our family with fresh veggies, including potatoes. Gardening in the high desert of Oregon is a whole new ballgame! LOL Not only do you have to contend with below freezing temps that can last well into June, but you also have to deal with the problem of having no topsoil. Our home sits at the edge of an ancient caldera (extinct volcano), so our ground consists of rocks and smaller rocks :)

Since we just finished our back deck, we decided to try our hand at gardening in pots, and so far so good! The photo above, is our first attempt at growing red potatoes in a half wine barrel and they are looking great! We'll have to wait a while to see if there are actually any potatoes though :) If this experiment is successful, I'll write a follow-up post with details on what we used inside the barrel.

Update!

Well, our great potato experiment wasn't very successful. The plants bloomed and began to die, as was expected, but when we dug them up, we only had about 6 normal size red potatoes and about 15 tiny ones. I cooked them with a corned beef and they were quite tasty, as they should be considering how much we invested to grow them! :) Nothing ventured, nothing gained!

The Morning Visitor

Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly

I had a beautiful little visitor this morning!  It was gracefully sipping nectar from my comfrey plants and thoughtfully stopped long enough for me to run back inside and grab my camera.

Great New Tynt Tracer JavaScript

Have you ever had someone use one of your photos without permission, or even worse, "borrowed" your idea completely?  I have just discovered the neatest little bit of javascript by Tynt,  that can be added to your blog or website that alerts you every single time one of your visitors right-clicks and saves your content!

What does Tracer do?

Tracer secretly tracks when users copy content from your web site and automatically adds a link back to the original page when your content is pasted.  Tracer allows you to view statistics on how often content is copied from your site, what that content is and what keywords are being copied most. 

The Sea Horse

The Sea Horse

Every evening after we had finished for the day at our art show held Memorial Day weekend in Yachats, we would go roaming along the sandy beach to unwind. One evening, I spotted this wonderful piece of driftwood shaped like a seahorse. When I tried digging it up to bring home, I discovered it was actually a HUGE piece! LOL The next day when I went back to take more photos, it was nearly completely covered by the shifting sands.

Some Things Blue

New Good Dirt!

It's cold and rainy outside, so I thought I would take the opportunity to photo some more items and add them to my Good Dirt Jewelry Etsy shop! I wonder if the gloomy weather is what influenced my choices of blue today? LOL I actually love all shades of blue, especially the more organic shades as is evidenced in many of my pieces.

One of the new pieces added today, is another of my Old Irish Blessing Stones which has been glazed with a wonderfully earthy blue brown glaze. This unique 1 1/2" diameter pendant has been made to look like the Buckquoy spindle whorl, which was excavated in Buckquoy, Birsay, Orkney, Scotland in 1970. The old Irish Ogham inscription is believed to date back to the 8th century.

The unique Crescent Moon and Stars Ceramic Bobby Pin Set were made from a mold of an antique metal button. White earthenware clay and a pale turquoise glaze were used. The beautiful ceramic pieces are attached to 2 1/2 inch long silver plated bobby pins.

And the last added is another bobby pin set, "Tiny Tendrils", which are also made from earthenware clay. They have been kiln fired with the same rich, earthy blue brown glaze as the Blessing Stone mentioned above. The bobby pins measure 2 inches in length and are brass.

Don't forget! Everything in my Good Dirt Jewelry Etsy shop ships for FREE!

Ceramic Bobby Pins

I finally got around to taking photos and listing some of my ceramic bobby pins in my Good Dirt Jewelry Etsy shop. I sold several of these at our last show and had the best of intentions of getting them listed as soon as we returned from Yachats. We all know what is paved with good intentions ;)

Celtic Heart Ceramic Pendant

Celtic Heart Ceramic Pendant

I made this dainty little baby blue Celtic heart ceramic pendant from earthenware clay. Like most of my ceramic jewelry, I have glazed it to have the appearance of an old piece. No two pieces ever come out of the kiln the same, so each piece is a unique treasure! This beautiful little pendant has an Aanraku bail attached and hangs from a suede cord which you can easily removed if you have a favorite chain you prefer to use.

You can find more photos of this item at the Etsy listing.