Naughty Knightley at it Again

Ringing in our youngest member of the family's birth month... the naughty Knitghtley is at the pet emergency hospital. He must have swallowed a rock or some foreign body a few days ago and now has a major problem. He'll be spending the big 4th of July weekend as an inpatient.. hopefully passing the 2 objects in his intestines so he can avoid a second surgery for this very problem.
Please, if you have time, say a little prayer for our Mr. Knightley... he'll be 2 years old on July 22nd if he can get past this current crisis. Why is it some pets (and people) are just born to get into trouble?! I'll update you on his status before the weekend is over. Fingers crossed, he'll get through without a surgery. Happy 4th of July!

Sleepy Puppy and a Bowl of Cherries

Cherries for Pierre

Mr. Darcy... he's a cutie but he's chewing his way through our house! Must get more raw-hide chews for him. My theory is he thinks he's a person already and only wants to eat people food.

The bowl of cherries is a new woodblock for spring - it's 4 x 4" and will double as a lavender sachet when printed on linen. My mom has quite an impressive cherry orchard in addition to all her lavender. (Summer is glorious at her place!) The bowl is dedicated to the dear departed Pierre - our Briard (French Sheepdog) who used to lounge under the cherry trees as we picked and caught some in his mouth. Never knew a dog who like cherries.... he also carefully ate the raspberries off the bushes. We miss him.

Sketchbook Thursday

With a new puppy in the house... how could I not sketch him?! Naturally, this is only possible when he is fast asleep on his blankie taking one of the many puppy naps of the day! These are in my Moleskine sketchbook (love 'em) and today, *gasp* I painted in it for the first time. Learned that the paper in the regular sketchbooks (as opposed to watercolor paper sketchbooks) is rather slick and had an almost 'waterproof' feel to it. The funny things one learns by accident :)

Baby News...

Meet Mr. Darcy... the newest edition to our family. He's a Pembroke Welsh Corgi and super cute... but a little shy and sad to be away from his parents. We love him already!

Lavender Buds and BooBoo

The big harvest. But, first, some news about our cat...

Stop all the clocks, we had to say goodbye to our beloved BooBoo Kitty. He became very ill with Lymphoma and only lasted a few weeks. He is the only pet our kids have ever known and really 'one of us.' Even though they said 'goodbye', they keep asking when we will pick him up from the vet...

BooBoo Kitty - November 1994-February 2, 2009. Sending you lots of catnip and a big loaf of bread!

Stripped lavender stems.... make great kindling

Yesterday I printed on linen... I'm trading a woodblock pillow for a print with a fabulous Seattle artist! (Hooray!!) So, naturally I printed some other things since the ink was mixed and ready to roll. It was then the idea came to me... lavender sachets. My mom has a small lavender farm and there is a lot of the stuff drying in our house. I finally got around to stripping the buds. It was a long process... my daughter helped and later, hubby came home and chipped in. The sachets will likely end up in the shop once the ink dries.