September 5-18, 2025 Fort Collins, Colorado

 High of 74, partly cloudy and cold.

I set 46 pieces of glass and sandblasted, painted slate in resin to use for basket centers. I ground down the outsides of the resin, made a huge dusty mess, then drilled holes in them and made another huge dusty mess. 4 hours of work. 

Finished dying pine needles for use in baskets. For first Fri there were booths set up in Old Town Square. 

Cool clouds during dinner. Sunset on a sculpture on Lincoln Bridge. 

Sunset. My tomatoes are going crazy. I planted them late and they started getting ripe early. 

I made homemade bread, cut some basil and made tomatoes soup from my tomatoes. Yum, yum. A new basket center with slate and some of my murrine , The earth laughs with flowers. 

Sunset. I made this for the glass show in Wy this winter. 

New centers for baskets. Sunset.

Two more sunsets.

Wild animals in our backyard. Sunset over the Poudre River with sunflowers. 

New beveled polished jewels. The multicolored ones are a technique I learned at the glass expo in Vegas. Sunset. 

My sweet husband got me a belated birthday present of a new boat! It is just like the old one that I wore out- broken seat and a leak. Thanks Darling. Rainbow.

Dinner at Austin's. The renters in the front house are supposed to mow the lawn, but they haven't since June. Our yard now has a meadow. 

The bike path. The Poudre river. 

August 24- September 1, 2025 Fort Collins, Colorado

 High of 72, cloudy and gloomy. It was supposed to rain, but only got a drizzle.

10 pounds of pine needles, ready to dye for baskets.  John presenting his baked peaches dessert, and Mandy who brought ice cream. Yummy.

We went to Denver to visit John's nieces and family. Sue, Jennie, Claire and John. Jennie with two of her boys. 

Levi getting his 16th birthday cake. Raining in Denver. 

Couple of recent sunsets. 

I had a booth at  the Artisans Market on Saturday. Ended up with one in the front, no one on either side of me, so had to scramble to cover the backs of the tables. Was lots of work and fun. Did ok. There was a bubble machine right next to my booth. The kids loved it. Everything in my booth probably got covered  with soap from the bubbles. Kind of magical having bubbles floating through. 

Huge thunder storm, they closed the market 30 minutes early and everything got soaked. At least it likely washed out all the soap from the bubbles. I finished this murrine bowl. Took hours to place all the little murrine. 6 1/2 x 7 x 1 inches. It came out cute. 

Sunset. John serving John and Mandy smoked ribs. Yum yum.

I sandblasted some pieces of slate to make into basket centers. I met some friends in Evergreen for lunch, then we hiked at Elk Ridge park. The sign says there were aggressive elk, but we didn't see any. 

Some flowers we saw. Katy, Rosie and Toni hiking, 

Toni, Katy and Rosie. Some more flowers. 

 Suep, Toni, Rosie and Katy. We had a great time and it was good to see them all. Katy and Rosie on the trail. 

Sunset from dinner on the deck when I got home. 

.

August 8-23, 2025 Fort Collins, Colorado

 It was a cool 85 and sunny today.

Poudre River Festival on Sat at New Belgium Brewing.  High 90's and too hot! Sunday I went to the Glass Artists of Colorado monthly meeting at Deb's house. It was fun to see everyone. After our business meeting we had a white elephant plant swap. Those are always hilarious. 

I finished this aspen piece. I pulled white cane for the tree trunks. They came out pretty nice. 7 x 12 inches. Sunset. 

Another nice sunset on my bike ride.  John's sister Katie and her friend Mo met us for lunch in Erie this week. Nice to see them. 

We stopped at Bucee's on the way back from Erie, we had not been and wanted to see it.  It was a packed tourist trap. A mural from Erie. Sunset.

A few new murrine and some twisted canes. 

My garden is going wild. The grasshoppers were eating my basil, so I put nets over them and they are now huge. We are already harvesting tomatoes, even though I didn't even plant till mid June. I bought a garage door opener for my side of the garage. It is a huge industrial door, so it was a weight lifting challenge each time I had to open it before. 

Pre sunset, the clouds obscured the actual sunset. 

We watched the New Belgium's Tour De Fat parade. People dress up in costume and ride in a loop on Mountain Ave. The Tour ends up at New Belgium Brewery for an all day celebration. 

The costumes and floats  are amazing. 

I finished this masterpiece. It is fused, painted with copper luster, fired, then sandblasted, then I added the murine and dichroic glass, fired it again, painted gold paint on it and slumped it into a 10 inch plate. Very flashy.