Photos in my camera

I seem to always be grabbing my camera to take a picture of something "for my blog" and then they sit in my camera.  So, today I'm emptying my camera!

November 13 - our first snow of the season - this was taken when I woke up that morning.  I went out later to run errands and it was more impressive where there were bushes and such to catch the snow than it was downtown.  Right now, the weather is saying possible snow tomorrow too.

 I'm pretty sure I posted a picture of this in one of my California posts, but this was my favorite souvenir (aside from lots of nice wine) from that trip.  It's a trivet with the logo of the Ravenswood Winery on it.  I loved the logo plus which I knew it would look great in my red, black and ivory kitchen.

I said I would post photos of my two purchases at the Rappahanock Arts Festival so here they are.  I need to get the etching framed, of course.  It is the work of Margaret Rogers and I had a hard time deciding what to buy - I loved almost every single piece in her gallery!

This leaf is ironwork from Nol Putnam.  As I said in my post about that trip to the festival, he has done numerous large pieces for the National Cathedral in D.C. and I'm delighted to own even a small piece of art created by him.  This was apparently his last year in the festival and he plans to "retire" although with an artist of his caliber, I'm pretty sure he will still be working.

This next picture shows (barely) where I think I'll be displaying these two pieces.

The etching will hang where it's taped here and over on the other side where just the side of a lamp shade shows is where I think I'll hang the leaf.  I think the light shining up from the lamp will set it off nicely and I plan to hang it at a slight angle with the leaf pointing down.  And then I think that wall will have all it can handle!

 I woke up one morning and looked out my windows to make sure the world was still there and it was, but I saw that brilliant yellow-green on the street and thought "my gosh, what are they doing there!?"  I got my binoculars and saw that, in fact, the three trees standing there were bare naked and had apparently during the night just dropped all their leaves - they obviously hadn't really blown off cause there they were.  It was kind of intriguing really - did some kind of signal go out?  "Ok, guys when I count to three, we're all going down, right?"  At any rate I took two because the shadow shifted throughout the day but never was the whole place in bright sunlight.  Walked past there a day or two later, and, after Googling to make sure, I can tell you they are gingko trees!  Who would have thought it?  I apologize for the fuzziness - I zoomed in quite a bit...

 This is my latest finished cross stitch - miniature, of course.  It took me forever partly because there were 21 colors and lots of stitches, but mostly because I just didn't work on it regularly.  I started a little Christmas one yesterday and hope to have it finished today or tomorrow.  It's much simpler, obviously, but also, I 'm just kind of in a cross stitch mood.

And, finally, I've posted this picture before but I keep it and look at it every now and then just to have a little smile.  After waking up to a fairly nasty, anonymous letter delivered to everyone in the building and then getting an e-mail telling me one of the residents had a bicycle stolen out of our garage, I quite needed a little smile, so when I saw this in my photos file, I thought I would post it too.  Her expression pretty much covers how I felt after reading the letter!

Hope everyone has a fantastic Thanksgiving.  I'm going to be brining for the first time ever - got a small roasting chicken because that same Ravenswood Winery sent me an e-mail for a brined roasted chicken that uses half a bottle(!) of one of their wines in the sauce.  I'll be posting about that, no doubt. :)

Back to Huntington tomorrow but first...

I got to Chris's Friday late afternoon after a nice visit with Heather, Alex and the grandkiddies and then a quick, but nice visit with January and Maggie.  Chris had already let me know that he and two friends of his were going to make their annual trip out to Rappahannock, VA for the Artists of Rappahannock Studio and Gallery Tour and that I was welcome to come along if I wanted to.  Well, of course I did so I did!  It was an absolutely gorgeous day and as far as I know I'd never been out to Rappahannock and was thrilled with how lovely the countryside was.

There's not really too much to report on - we all managed to find something to spend some money on - I bought a piece from Nol Putnam, a blacksmith who is one of Chris's favorite artists and has done some magnificent iron gates for the National Cathedral in D.C.  I also bought an artist's proof of an etching by Margaret Rogers whose work is exactly the type I like.  I think I'm going to replace my rather pitiful New York City photo that I enlarged and hung in my bedroom window recess with this.

So, what I will do now is just post the pictures I took and pretty much let them speak for themselves (not too many as we had to keep busy getting from gallery to gallery - they were spread out all over the county!  But the day itself was one continuous picture for me.

In the little town of Washington - the starting point for the tour.

 Nol Putnam's yard outside the studio...

Tiny little pine cones - maybe about 1/2" which reminded me of the pinecones on the gigantic redwoods - they're tiny too.

I'd assume these are pretty contented cows :)

Back at Chris's that evening, this was the view from his balcony:

Tomorrow I'll hopefully get an early start home and probably spend a couple of days settling in as usual.  And, when I go to restock the fridge and pantry, I will definitely be getting a chuck roast, potatoes and carrots for my first pot roast- it is way overdue and then comes the chili from the leftovers - oh happy day!