Local Color

Here are pics I've taken while out and about in our little town and parts of Knoxville. Our trees are not leafed-out yet but will be in a couple weeks, and then they will be Audacious Green... you know, the color that only God and little children color trees. LOL.

Each pic has a caption below, telling what it is. Enjoy our beautiful E. Tennessee!


A patch of Wild Chives in my daughter Des' yard. They're delicious in just about any savory dish!




Tiny blue wildflowers in the grass. I don't know what they're called, but they are ubiquitous.





This is looking down a side-street in Knoxville. Our car was on a main artery called Kingston Pike (US route 11).





This is from Kingston Pike, an exit going on to I-140 in Knoxville. When the tree is leafed out, you can imagine how pretty this is!!




This picture and the one below it are of daffodils growing along the major highways. This is the intersection at Clinton Highway, going North out of Knoxville. The picture below is a hillside along Pellissippi Parkway (I-140/TN 162), another major roadway.





This picture was taken at the entrance of our "Greenway" here in Lenoir City. It roughly follows Town Creek, and goes for 1.7 miles (2.735KM) in one direction. Walking it down & back is a 3.4 mile (5.47KM) walk. I usually start at a small park at the 1/2mile point and walk down and back. Because it is up & down hill, it's quite a workout! Several pics below were taken along this Greenway.
















Yes, this really is a car, embedded in the bank of Town Creek on the opposite side from the greenway walk. LOL!




Some moss growing on the North side of the path





These beautiful, blooming bushes are called Forsythia. They are very common here, and will bloom all summer.




This is either a Redbud Tree or a Red Oak. Either way, the leaf buds & new leaves are a deep maroon color. Beautiful!




Our Bradford ornamental pear tree is budding, in a week these clusters will all be little white, highly-fragranced flowers. Gorgeous Sinus Hell. LOL




This planting bed is in the Walmart parking lot. The tall bush is Holly, short one is Firebush, and flowers are Hyacinths.



Last pic... this is a pink Flowering Dogwood in the parking lot of the Loudon County Clerk's office. These grow wild here too, among the mountains!

Homemade Craft Dough Ornaments

This craft dough is so easy to make and fun to play with, you may never want to use store-bought again!

NOTE: make sure your kiddies know NOT to eat this stuff! One of my 4 year olds once ate some while I wasn't looking and promptly threw up all over the table. It may look pretty and smell nice, but make sure they know it is yucky!!

Ingredients:

1 Cup Flour

1/2 Cup salt

2 teaspoons Cream of Tartar (this is sold in the spice section of your supermarket)

2 teaspoons oil

1 Cup water

optional: colorant (powdered drink mix works well, or just use food colors or paste colors)

optional: fragrance (candle or soap scent oils or food extracts)

Additionally you will need:

cup, 1/2 cup, and teaspoon measure

saucepan

whisk

stiff spoon or spatula

I am making double batches so the saucepan is pictured with some ingredients measured in already. In these pictures I am making strawberry scented craft dough, so along with the required ingredients, I have dark cherry drink mix (1 packet) and strawberry fragrance oil.

Measure the dry ingredients into the saucepan and mix around
with the whisk. Add the oil (and fragrance oil if using) and colorant. While stirring, pour in water. Turn burner on medium heat and cook and stir until mixture thickens and begins to hold together in a ball. Once it begins to thicken, it will thicken up pretty fast!

Turn craft dough out onto a countertop
and let set a minute or two until cool enough to handle. Knead a few times until the dough becomes smooth.

Store in airtight containers for many hours of playtime fun! I recommend using the craft dough on a plastic tablecloth or other protected surface! Just like store-bought play doughs, this stuff does not agree with carpets and upholstery!

We made pale green (apple), white (vanilla) and deep pink (strawberry). We made ornaments out of some of ours. I baked them in a 200 degree oven for an hour or so on each side, turned the oven off and let them cool. If you are going to bake these, make sure they aren't more than about 1/4" thick, or they will not dry all the way through. Dough is also paintable when baked.

G'bye, Leaves, Hello, Yukon Cornelius

So, here in the foothills of the Great Smoky (without an E) Mountains, we have what is called Color. Our hills and trees are ablaze everywhere you look with just about every color God can come up with. I think He does it just to show off. Whatever the reason, it is spectacular. I love living here and looking at the mountains any time of the year, but in October it is wondrous to behold. Thing is, just when the colors can't get a bit richer, it is over. Just the other day I was sloping onto I-40 East and thought, "In another couple days those golds, reds, purples, and yellows will be rusty brown." And sure enough, yesterday they were.

Then this is what happens. We get rain. We had drought nearly all summer. Welcome to Tennessee Winter... cold and drizzle. It's like living in the UK, with better scenery. The first big rain of winter comes with wind, usually hits at night, and knocks all those newly-brown leaves off the trees. Next thing you know our hills look like the buzz cuts of so many Drill Seargeants. Bare black branches reaching soldierly for the sky. The rain came last night. Today was cold and damp. But my Bradford ornamental pear trees stubbornly stuck to their coats or yellow and scarlet, cheering me a little while longer (and I am thankful). Pictures: top, from my front porch; above, from my driveway looking toward my front yard.

Today I made another pair of felted fingerless glove, mitt wrist warmers for my Heart Felt Fun shop at Etsy. I also got a felted, really cheery bag nearly done but not up. Another day maybe.

Today I also got 4 new yarns done for the Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer series:

Clarice - she is brown, pink, and fuschia... lovely stripes and highlights in the highest angora-content yarn I have ever recycled... 40% angora rabbit. Luscious.

The Spotted Elephant from the Island of Misfit Toys. She is a creamy white wool blend, wrapped with a narrow cord of white and salmon pink boucle. A nice, chunky, quick knit for a scarf!

Mrs. Claus - we have Christmas with an attitude! She is the high-angora blend yarn in pink, fuschia-red, and a little bright green.

Yukon Cornelius - this is the first cotton blend yarn I have bothered with. For the most part, I think cotton yarns are a waste unless you are knitting dishrags. But this has enough acrylic to give it memory, and enough cotton to class up the acrylic. AND, I realize that not everyone loves wool, however soft. So here we have good ol' Yukon. The original sweater was a sorry pale algae color, but it did have a nice metallic glitzy thread shot through it. So I have hand dyed him deep blue like his coat, red like his beard, and left a little green. All run along with a fine thread of silver 'n' gold. I hope you will like him too!

Don't forget to enter my "Go Green for the Holidays Giveaway" a couple posts below this one!