Honey locust seed pods

After walking my daughter to the school bus stop in the morning, my dogs and I have resumed our daily walks in Washington Park which is just a couple of blocks from our home.  It’s an amazing park and quite popular with humans and dogs alike.  The honey locust trees have a fruit that looks like a huge seed pod (apparently edible) that are just starting to ripen – though a few have already fallen to the ground, most likely the work of industrious squirrels.  I picked a couple of pods up the other day and brought them home because I just love the shape.  By autumn, the pods will have grown longer and often twist and curl making the most pleasing shapes.

Cosmos with bee gathering pollen

Meanwhile, the cosmos in my yard are bursting with a riot of color that has attracted almost every single bee in the neighborhood.  I have cosmos all over the yard and believe it or not, they all self seeded from a single plant from last year’s garden.  They’re so prolific and almost impossible to kill – I wonder why they’re not on the noxious weed list.  Good thing I like them.  This year, I even moved seedlings with no harmful effects and even dog pee can’t kill or maim these flowers.

Sweet 100 Cherry Tomatoes

The bees are great for my little garden patch!  Not many of my cherry tomatoes have made their way into a salad or recipe, because I often stop and pop all the ripe ones I find in my mouth like candy whenever I pass by.  I have larger tomatoes growing too, along with basil, lemon thyme, chives, cilantro and other herbs.  This is the first year in a long time that I’ve grown any edible plants.

Now that my daughter has started school again, I thought I would be much more productive in the studio.  I haven’t been because I’m catching up with busy work related to some of my PTA volunteer duties such as updating the auction website and all the related forms etc.  The auction is being moved to November from February this school year and now that the date is only 2 full months + a few days away, we have some serious catch up work to do to make this happen.  Last year we raised $45,000 after expenses and hope to match or exceed last year’s totals.  It’s a huge job.  I wasn’t going to do anything with the auction this year since I spent 2 years as marketing and pr chair, but guess what?  I’m back in the thick of it.

Ya know that feeling when you have something you want to do (in my case it’s getting back to the studio), but you don’t quite have time to get to it?  It’s sort of frustrating.  Now that I have most of the work done for the auction for the time being, I’m hoping to move on next week.

I guess I have to content myself with those things that I do find inspiring for the time being cause it sure isn’t in the studio right now.

~Cynthia