Free Patriotic Printable Tags

Oh boy, I'm just getting in under the wire here!

Below is a sheet of printable tags for the Fourth of July, Independence Day!

The Fourth was probably my most favorite holiday of all as a child -- possibly -- maybe even with Hallowe'en as "favorite." I loved Christmas Eve very much, too, but the Fourth was just resplendent in my mind. 

Since I was age 10, when I asked for an American flag for Christmas, I have flown our flag at every place I've lived. 

Until recently, I had a 40-year-old shot-off firework called "Happiness Pagoda" on display. Oh, how I loved that particular firework. It would spin, rise up to three little stories, and then have a flame inside to glow through red paper windows. I never liked the loud "popping" fireworks. I liked the pretty ones and the quiet ones, the "fountains" and the "snakes" and the "volcanoes" and the "ground flowers." 

We used to buy something called a "punk" to light the fireworks. Punks burned at a slow, constant smolder. There were buckets of punks on the counters of the firework stands. Punks were 2 cents each. The smell of a punk -- I think Heaven will smell like that. These punks were maybe eight inches long, probably made from compressed cellulose if I had to guess, with some gunpowder mixed in. The smell reminds me of the incense at High Mass. In fact, now that I think of it, punks look almost exactly like incense sticks, only uncolored, always tan.

The patience of the people who waited the counters at the fireworks stands! May God have blessed them and if they are still with us, continue to bless them richly. Their patience was astounding, as a bedraggled child put up stacks of pennies, nickels, dimes, and a rare quarter, and began a long, long laundry list of little fireworks in a shy whisper. 

Out of the past, and into the present!

We had a fifty-degree drop in temperature here two days ago, and then RAIN! And it has drizzled ever since. What a blessing and a boon to the desert! I can rest easy about "my" toads in my community garden plot, at least during this weather. 

The "ditch sunflowers" below are at least 11 feet high now. They tower over all the other plots.

I did get a picture of an unusual sunflower at the plot, right before the rain started. I think it is one of the Autumn Mix sunflowers. I don't pick them, as much as I'd like to, because some little yellow-green tummied birds were feasting on the seeds of the older blooms. Tiny little birds, like dull canaries!

 

The zinnias, despite being too shaded by the sunflowers, are starting to bloom, too. They are supposed to be the "candy stripe" zinnias, but the striping is quite subtle. I think the genetics that governed the striping went kaput.

I hope you will enjoy these printable tags, which are part of a set I have up on Etsy. But here some are, free to my Bloggie Frens. "Free and worth every penny," as they say. As always, use this LINK TO THE DOWNLOAD <---- and don't try to just save the image below. It won't print nicely. The link is stored on Google Drive and it is safe, or as safe as anything can be, I do believe.

Are you prepping for the Fourth? How do you and how DID you celebrate it?

A Walk Through the "Bosque"

In the lower elevations of the Southwest, we don't have "woods" naturally occuring, other than those around a water source. We do have "bosques" (BOHS-kays) that form along the Rio Grande. They are just a few yards wide along the banks of the river. Some of you may not know that much of the year, the Rio Grande is just a sandy, dry riverbed in these parts. Only when the various governmental agencies "release" some water does the river run. This year, because our extreme drought is continuing, the river is very shallow. They released very little water. It's easy to walk across the river.

I drove my husband around for an outing on Sunday, and ended up going down a washboard dirt road to what is called the Mesilla Valley Bosque. I had never been before. When I lived here a long time ago, the roads were "free" and we would just take a truck down the ones that paralleled the river. But the state developed the area, with hiking trails and bird feeding and watering areas, and native plants, along with picnic areas and educational displays and buildings. We were very surprised to see how beautifully done the little state park is. 

So, come along with me as we walk around in the bird-watching area! We were told that many animals, such as rabbits and skunks, also venture up to get some water. Indeed, I startled a cottontail taking a sip. The river runs beside this bosque, but over a slight rise. The watering pans are easier for the wild animals to use than the river. I took a good look at the watering pans: They are upside-down garbage can lids! Reduce, reuse, and recyle, I guess! 

It was very hot so I could not keep my husband out in that very long. But he did walk a bit and seemed to enjoy the area. We saw quite a few black-chinned hummers but they are too fast for me and my phone camera! 

 

The entrance was very inviting.

One of the first things we saw in the birding area was a nest in the arbor.

The river is just beyond that rise. Pecan orchards are along the banks for many miles from this point.

Red and yellow yuccas in bloom. Their bloom stalks stay pretty six months.

This was labelled as a "Fairy Duster" tree. They bloom in the raw desert without any irrigation. 

Close-up of their gorgeous blooms.

Mesquite trees (known for being good wood for barbequeing and smoking meats), have little puffy yellow pompoms, but take a good look at those thorns all around them.

Hubby resting in one of the pretty picnic areas.

These strange, low-growing plants were along a mushy place where I think the river has a tunnel stretching out from the bank. The cones of the flowers were really very pretty, polka-dotted with white, but I couldn't get too close.

This is a pretty set of doors opening onto the dry side of the bosque, farthest from the river. There is some prairie and a line of salt cedars. The hiking trails go in two directions from here.

Just a little weed underfoot, but the tiny flowers were a bright shade of hot pink!

A barrel of brilliant yellow flowers bid us goodbye as we made our way back to the parking lot.

I hope you enjoyed your bosque trip! I try to find and appreciate beauty in this area, although my heart is somewhat heavy and wishes for a place more like "home" as I get older. But I do try to appreciate what the desert offers. God's handiwork is truly amazing and I work on that.

Have you ever found yourself in a place that doesn't feel like "home" to you? And what did you do? 

Kind regards,

Olde Dame Holly

Toad Went A-Courtin'

I went back to my community plot after a hiatus, and it was overrun with bindweed. Ugh! Bindweed everywhere, and nutgrass, too. And the sunflowers are looming -- glooming -- over the other little plants. I wanted them to shield the plants from the worst of the sun, but there are too many. The tomatoes and the onions are not growing well in constant shade. And so I began thinning them.

The sadly thinned plot, boo!

And I saw him. Mr. Toad. Backed into his little scooped-out hollow, with the soaker hose above his back, looking at me. And I had already pulled several large sunflowers. Boo, hiss! His little living area, now quite possibly too light.

I think he is making a gesture at me...

I decided to start on the other side, and leave him the middle area and the other end. He will have to dig another hidey-hole, because the sun now gets through to that one. So the pulling began of sunflowers on the other side and other end of the plot. I just wasn't thinking. Or, I was thinking too much of what I wanted.

And then I saw HER! Oh, she jumped, and I jumped. I screeched, as usual. Another toad, a smallish one! His little ladylove, perhaps, leaping frantically away from the now-sunny corner of the plot and into the thicket of sunflowers still standing!

NOW what? I tucked some chile pepper plants into the sunny spot and sprinkled them with the hose. May they grow quickly and lend some shade again. 

I sprinkled water on some mint at the very end of the plot. And out jumped another toad, and hop hop hop, hop hop hop, sought shelter under the lemongrass at the opposite end of the garden. 

But...THREE toads? I was all ready to throw the first two a lil' toad wedding, with a piece of Kleenex for her veil, and a chunk of cat food to attract flies for the elegant repast at the reception near the third turnip.

It's a terrible picture because I completely lose my bearings at such an exciting time. 

I am not going to pass judgment on the living arrangements of these three toads. Ménage à Toad might be their nature, or maybe they aren't even dating, but are forced into that little oasis together!

So, I've decided: I can grow vegetables, or I can grow toads. And I have chosen toads.

No more pulling of the sunflowers. Not a single one can now be moved, or it will get too hot and bright on the dear amphibians. And extra watering dishes will be placed in the plot (there is just one right now), one deep enough to hold tadpoles just in case one of them is a lady toad. No more gathering cilantro because it would take away the leafy undercover they are enjoying. No pulling of the onions. But if I get some tomatoes, I'm picking them. I will leave them one. I will share.

Because they are plug-ugly to most, toads get mistreatment. They are the lowrider gargoyles of the garden, and don't get the love the prettier froggies do. I wish love of all God's creatures was emphasized in grade school. 

I have gone from "Toad Catcher" to "Toad Hatcher." I feel I have been blessed with these handsome toads, out in the desert. Would you choose the veggie plants or the toads? 

Kind regards,

Olde Dame Holly, Toad Wrangler

Life Is Like An Onion

From Seed to Shining Seed

Here in New Mexico, onions are an important crop. But lately, more than for the onion bulb itself, the seeds are being grown. So we get to see hundreds of thousands of seed heads, which I think are very pretty. "Summer snowballs" or maybe "smelly summer snowballs" would be a good description of some of the onion fields. 

"Life is like an onion," Carl Sandburg wrote. "You peel it year by year and you cry."

But no! No crying today, I hope. If there be tears, may they be happy tears, healing tears.

Those onions are tall. Waist high. It is hard to tell in the photos. 

 

Taking photos in the strong sun, I felt like an overbrowned crouton, next to a big bunch of baking onions.  The onions scented the hot air. I was awash in French Onion Air. Before I knew these were being grown for seed, I kept saying, "Why don't they harvest these? They are going to get soft and bitter!"

I didn't get very many nice photos, because even though I would try to adjust the camera in the car, once in the sun I couldn't see anything on the screen, even in the shade. Boo! Yet some bloggie frens are having freezing and near-freezing weather, and rain, rain, rain.

I met my husband at Cracker Barrel for lunch. He eats like a bird, but at Cracker Barrel, he eats better than usual. I love those purple-leaf plums they have planted all around the restaurant. You can see some plums ("no culinary use," as they say) in this photo below. I wonder, though if they do have a culinary use: perhaps to tint an apple or other light-colored jelly a beautiful color? 

I like the light through the leaves, giving them a flame-like look:

On the way home, I stopped by my community garden plot and got these: Mint, Lemongrass, and more Egyptian Walking Onions that were arching over, out of the garden into the path and getting squished.

I should have taken a picture of the lemongrass clump. It is thigh-high. Sharing the bigger clump freed it to grow!

My blog is named "The Merry Needle." Lately, it has been too much The Idle Needle, but I did get some needle-weaving done, making a little pair of what I call "Persian Lantern Earrings." I have made many of these. They are based on a rope design by Jill Wiseman. I just make a little piece and cap it top and bottom. I am grateful to have a job, but gone is my energy by the end of the day! I can barely keep up with the household chores. 

I am not in the mood for needle-weaving, though. I am in the mood for beaded cross stitch! Gah! Come on, eyes, stop drooping down and shutting! Help me stay awake and make some pretty beaded designs!

 Kind regards,

Olde Dame Holly

Making the Grayed

Pshew, I am exhausted from battling Blogger and trying to make my blog back to looking like itself after the strange Blogger glitch that shrank my header and then took away my Blog Roll. I am still working on the roll, but I got the header back to a reasonable size. Then I decided, what the hay, I'm going to change to a gray theme for summer. Summer is so hot here that I need a calm, cooling color. 

That battle has lasted for days. I guess I forgot most of my tinkering tips and tricks, but I think it's ready for its debut. I must have hit "Edit HTML" and "Restore" fifty times. 

But first, a word from our sponsor:

That's Sophie, our part Bichon mutt, queen of our household. That dog is the love of my husband's life. She has brought such joy into his life. She brought him back INTO life, really. She is licking her "puppypop," a Tootsie Pop that has been "started" and has the chocolate center exposed. There is so little real chocolate in it that it's not a danger to her, but our vet frowns on letting her have sugary things. She has such a sweet tooth, and we are putty in her paws. You can see ol' Champie the Chiweenie in the background, waiting for his chance to get a few licks in. He doesn't really like it, but he likes to participate. With both of them, I have to hold the stick very tightly because they try mightily to pull it away.

I miss Charm pops! They were only a nickel and lasted for days. I think I had some a few years ago, but either they or I have changed. No chocolate in the middle of them, though.

Today was busy. In the hot weather the front courtyard has to be watered daily. I noticed how the tangerine iceplants hold the water they receive:

Today, my husband wanted to eat at what I call a "dive." He does not eat home-cooked food anymore. I just am glad he eats, although it is less and less and less. I knew the food was going to be bad, but he had his heart set on it. The decor was nice; the food, no. Each chair had a carved, painted scene of Old Mexico. Here is a burro, in one piece.

Outside were some pretty petunias and a rose! The rose is just a partial shot because the sun was so bright I could not see what I was taking. I try to cast my shadow on the flowers I'm photographing, but it's just too bright sometimes. The fiery colors of the rose were gorgeous in real life.

Hope your weekend is going well!

Kind regards,

Olde Dame Holly

 

Walk Like An Egyptian...Onion

Tra la, tra la, some of the Egyptian Walking Onions from the community garden have made "pups" and I have some planted in my garden at home now!

 You may recall, a nice gardener invited me to harvest both pups and big onions to get them started in my garden. I "traded" a big lemongrass clump for them. I also got a Jerusalem artichoke to plant from the deal! Made out like a bandit, as they say!

The pups of these unusual onions are tiny bulblets that grow atop the flowering stalk. They start growing right on the mother plant, and even start making roots. The weight of the developing pups causes the stalk to arch over eventually, and they then anchor themselves in the soil and in this way "walk" aross the garden, gaining about a foot each time. The bulblets ask, "Mother, May I?" take a giant step forward? "Yes, you may."

Each pup can be broken off from the top cluster and planted, and will make an onion plant.

Goin' to seed...ha ha me and the plants both. 

The plot above in the community garden belongs to a REAL gardener. She is letting the Egyptian Onions make their bulblets and also letting her radish, I think, make seed. She has baby radish to eat in another plot. 

The onions are also called "Tree Onions." They look like a Dr. Suess tree!

I am fussing, fussing, fussing over my little courtyard. Some of the new plants were not happy in their places, so I did some switching around. It will be another month before everything hits its stride, I think, and soon I must rig up some shade cloth to shield them from the desert sun. And to think, some in northern climes are still waiting for their weather to warm up and plants to awaken! 

Yesterday I drove hubby to see a little manmade pond on the campus of his alma mater, NMSU. This was put in after we moved from here the first time, so I did not even know it existed until I saw it on a Google map. There were a few ducks, too! And some anglers. Evidently they stock it with trout. 

Kind regards,

Olde Dame Holly 

hOnEySuCkLe tHyMe

Showing my age again, and my roots way back when blogging was new! It was common on "prim and rustic" blogs to use the mixed capitalization. For some reason, it reminds me of when "knee warmers" and "cummerbunds" were popular, but that was in the 1970s.

Anyone remember that, the knee warmers? Ringing any bells among the belles who read my little bloggie? I had a little pair of red acrylic knee warmers, of knitted fine-guage acrylic, but still; scritchy-scratchy acrylic yarn of the day. And I had a red cummerbund that matched, but of a fine-guage material. Oh, I was so thin. But the advantage was I could wear anything. I was so thin that people felt I had an eating disorder, as I did. Eating disorders were just getting known then, in the 1970s. But I looked well in clothes and I bought the "display" clothing from fine stores in size 3, and took them up. The display clothes were sold for a song at the end of the season, as were the shoes. I had tiny feet, size 5 narrow, the usual display size.

My mind is off and running now! White sales! The White Sales -- we would wait for them and then get our linens. And the department stores had whole floors of china and stoneware and flatware, and so many pretty silver things. The peasant in me chose a Mikasa stoneware design for my first wedding: Strawberry Festival. Funny, I don't have a single piece left and I loved that pattern so much. Strawberries have always made me smile. And my flatware pattern was Oneida American Colonial. Gosh, haven't thought of that in years. 

In New Orleans, we had a beloved department store, D.H. Holmes. Its colors were a light cream and dark chocolate brown. The bags, the boxes, the giftwrap, the name tags were all that color combination. I loved those stores, especially the big store on Canal Street. At the very top floor, there were hats and wigs and the offices. We would take the escalators up and up and up. It always made my heart race a little bit to step on the escalator and start rising. One of my aunts was a "window dresser" for a local department store in a smaller city. She had such style, and store windows in those days were glorious things. 

If I have been slow to comment on your blog, I apologize. I have been very tired and I am also racing back and forth from work taking care of my husband, who has had some procedures done. He's pretty independent in general, but anything out of the ordinary hits him hard, making him more oppositional and not do the things he needs to do to heal and stay healthy. And yesterday I drove a teacher from school to the ER and stayed with her for hours, as I could tell with one look that she had cellulitis starting on her leg, and indeed it was so. She is deeply hypochondriac, but sometimes she does get sick for real. But it all makes for long days and I have little energy, sometimes just falling asleep with my head on the desk where the computer is. 

But I did go see if I could get a cutting from a wild Queen's Wreath vine and a Silver Lace vine. [Success! And I saw a pretty old-fashioned fence it was growing up!] And then I stopped by the church to light some candles.

If you have read this far, you are probably saying, "Cough up the honeysuckle! Where is it?" This honeysuckle vine surprised me! It is growing all mixed in with the wisteria vines at church! Right now it is smothered in blossoms and I did allow myself to stand there and pull off about a dozen blossoms, pinching the end off and pulling the stamen through, carrying that tiny drop of nectar that we dab on our tongues. 

Then of course, just as if I were ten again, I have to suck the open end and get the rest of the nectar out. I can think of so many "wild foods" we ate as children! Gosh, the list is just forever. Pepper plant, honeysuckle, wild onions, wild garlic, grapes, figs, plums, loquats, maypops, rabbit grass, elderberries, blackberries, huckleberries (which I disliked), digging sassafrass roots, climbing to get at pawpaws and persimmons. I know I'm forgetting a lot. 

May the rest of your week be "just as you like it." See you around the blogs!

Kind regards,

Olde Dame Holly

Lavender Wands, Dilly Dilly

"Lavender's blue, dilly dilly
Lavender's green.
When I am king, dilly dilly
You shall be queen."

Once upon a time I had an ample supply of blooming lavender, and a wonderful co-worker showed me how to make lavender wands. This was, oh, perhaps 40 years ago now? 

Alas and alack, I have a very limited supply of blooms this year. Between three small two-year-old bushes, I had enough blooms for three wands.

It's easy to make them, and it's a bit of lore I'd love to pass on.

All it takes is the fresh lavender cut with as long a stem as you can manage (it can have little leaves and side-buds on it); 1/8" satin ribbon or similar narrow ribbon of your choice for a small wand, and wider ribbon if you are lucky enough to make a big wand; and a toothpick to help you move the ribbon among the stems evenly.

Skip down to read about how to make wands! 

But first, some garden news! (1) The Egyptian Walking Onions at the community garden are making "pups" and I have planted some at home. WILL THEY MAKE IT? (2) The lemongrass in my courtyard seems a lost cause. It is not visible any longer! The doggies have eaten it all. I always call one of my dogs "my little curly lamb," and indeed she is like a sheep, chewing grass. The chiweenie was in on it, too. They split up the lemongrass between them: He ate all of it at ground level, and she climbed into the raised beds and ate the rest! (3) The Sweet Meat squash is up and looks like it might make it. 

Back to our wands:

Gently remove any side leaves or side-buds. Work with fresh lavender. The type doesn't matter. If needed, put the cut lavender in water in a vase in the fridge, like the florist does.

I could not put my hands on my plastic canvas sewing "needle," made of plastic with a huge eye for yarn. But that might make the weaving so very much easier.

There are many tutorials on the web on how to make these wands, but many of them are bunk. Why do I say that? They don't share the most basic part of making the wands: YOU MUST HAVE AN ODD NUMBER OF STEMS. The simple over-under weave will not work with an even number of stems. You are going in a spiral pattern, a basketweave, and thus an odd number is a must.

But the other tutorials have nicer photos. I was doing this, oh, around 3:12 a.m. I had intended to do it in the morning, but I had already picked the stems and taken a photo of them with the ribbon,then put them in the fridge. Since I have terrible trouble sleeping more than an hour at a time without having to get up, it seemed like a good idea to get up and make wands at that hour, but it didn't lend itself to clear thinking or clear photos.

Gather as many stems as you want together, with the HEADS of the lavender together. Make sure to have an odd number. Tie a piece of ribbon right under the heads. Don't make the knot too tight. Don't cut into the stems. 

I just use one piece of ribbon, so I make sure the knot has a tail that extends down several inches. I'm going to tuck that tail in the middle and let it just hang, and let it be covered by the weaving of the other end of the ribbon, and then once I am done weaving and wrapping the unwoven stems about a half-inch to an inch, I use that bit of tail between the stems to tie off the weaving ribbon, and cut the excess from both tails.

The other way is to just make a nice knot and cut, then tuck in the end of another piece from the ends of the stems and coming out from the top of the "cage" described below. 

Making the cage: Once you have the knot in place under the heads of the lavender, you carefully pull up each stem to make a "cage" around the heads. At this point, just pull them gently, one at a time, up and over the flowerheads. You will use the toothpick or your fingers to arrange the stems as evenly as you can. Now turn it over. You are holding the stems and the caged flower heads are at the top. 

Some people with a LOT of lavender make wands that are practically CLUBS. I envy them! If you want to make a huge one, limit your weaving to just the outer stems.

To figure out how much ribbon you will need to cut to do the weaving, I put my fingers together, like two fingers for a small wand (I have tiny fingers), and wrap the ribbon round and round in a downward spiral until it's as long as the caged flower heads. Then I add about two inches. CUT. 

If you are using the one-ribbon method, the other end is still inside the cage, part of the knot that is under the flower heads. Come up under a stem, pull the excess ribbon through, and go over the next stem. Then under the next, over the next, under the next, again and again until you have covered the entire head. Don't overthink it.

This is the part that is difficult. The first few turns are hard to do, and the basketweave isn't very visible yet. You are working from the TOP down.

Use your toothpick to push up and tighten the ribbon as needed. It might be like lacing up a shoe. You pull up some excess, and kind of sequentially pull the slack up between each stem, all the way down. Then wrap the stems without doing any over-and-under once you are past the "caged" part. Pull out that tail and tie an overhand knot with the weaving end of the ribbon.

Make sure the weaving is pretty tight, because the flowers will shrink as they dry. My darker wands came out much better than the first pale ribbon one I did. The blue ribbon above needs to be pulled and the slack taken out before continuing.

To refresh the scent, just squeeze gently on the woven end of the wand.

I hope everyone had a good weekend and is having a good Monday!

Mulberry Time!

The shortlived mulberry season has begun, and they are raining down by the hundreds while the dogs walk slowly around the tree trunks, hoovering them up. The backyard has both fruitless and fruiting mulberry trees, and, a bit rare, pale white mulberries that are especially sweet and taste far better than the dark berries. They are the last to ripen; the dark purplish-black berries ripen first. 

Mulberries don't pull cleanly from the stem. The stem, a few millimenters long, stays with the berry. I just eat them, stem and all.

Mulberries have a bland sweetness without a distinct flavor, but they are fun to eat fresh off the branches. 

When I was young, I would use berries to stain my lips, like a lipstick. I think most young girls do that! With mulberries, they get stained unintentionally. The berries are very soft and are dewed with juice.

Besides using berries as lipstick, I remember making clover chains and dandelion crowns for "jewelry." We'd also use the dandelion blooms as "powder puffs" and powder our noses with the pollen. We would light matches and then blow them out, using the burnt ends as "kohl" around our eyes.

Sometimes, we'd smooth a patch of damp dirt, and pack it down tightly by bumping it with the heels of our hands. Then we'd scratch a "floorplan" into the dirt with a small stick. We'd get various blossoms and use them as the inhabitants of the "house" and play for hours, moving them here and there and chattering together as the story of the Flower Family would unfold. Sweet times!

Kind regards,

Olde Dame Holly