Latest Stunt

Check out my latest stunt HERE.

Yes, pictures of blossoms will follow. And the 7 and a half thousand trees we've been planting.

xx CJH

Running around....

I've been running around a bit lately, and great changes are afoot.

The making has started again, along with living loving gardening and farming.

Beware. Shots of bursting blossom follow soon.

Love in the meantime.

Mrs CJ Houston.

mwah.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever.

The present from Pen makes herself at home.

We haven't caught a mouse in two days. And the sewing machine is back!

Electricity rising = billy on the open fire. Billy on the open fire = discovering the sturdy iron bar that will hold the pots. Anthony Bourdain on TV = fascinating with fire cooking. I roasted a whole butternut in the ashbed. Good it was too.

The flowers will come from our gardens

Postcard from inside a wedding machine

I went to a shop called Flowers Naturally. I could smell real flowers, but I couldn't find them. Room after room of towering plastic constructions, table drapings, $230 plastic posies, perfect daze. I left.

My mother, the page boy, the bridesmaid and I went for a ceremonial dress fitting in Wodonga. The dressmaker was trapped by an ash cloud in Darwin.

We went to see the photographer. His shop had been turned into a tattoo parlour. He was not there.

The hair and make-up interview was great. The woman knew exactly what I wanted. Then she rolled her eyes and looked a bit frightened. I have seen similar looks in first -calving heifers. I did not stay to watch her bump descend.

Our musician has gone off to make a documentary about permaculture in remote aboriginal communities. Dad rose to the challenge of downloading some music. Mum stopped him just before he sent his bank details to an obscure russian website. Dad reckons she sounded like a banshee as she did this.

Long time no....

Dear Blog,

You have been neglected.
I lost my camera charger.
I found my camera charger.
By then, the camera was lost.
I am in documentation withdrawal.
Lots of new work created, a big cartel account that can take 100 products, and....
Bear with me.
Some old work perhaps?
From back in 2005, when my house was still a shed by the cattle yards.
And I was cranky about information age teething pangs.
And how I lurked.

xx Char.

Hey Horatio

1. Alas poor Yorrick, I resuscitated him frequently.
2.Late 20th century momento mori from Tooles Disposals - closing down the Thursday before Easter. Wah.
3.He looks good as a stationery caddy - pencils in the brow, scissors through the top of the dome - but I'm also tempted to paint him up. Then he'll qualify as hand made at the Albury Makers Market.
4.Shove over Hirsty and lookout ric rac chicks.
5.Whack day today - fluctuating between Myles Davis Bitches Brew and Tim McGraw (Live like You were Dying)
6.Whatever gets you through stitched finger, studio sorting, and sunny cobwebbed house play. I guess.

Max To Tea

1. Sometimes it's good to just drive. We did. This is what we saw.
2.He was on his way to Mad Max's 30th in Broken Hill.
3.He reckoned it had cost him about 30 grand.
4.Driving it in public is a worry.
5.I saw Love The Beast the other day. Dr Phil descibed the importance of hobbies.
6.I wonder if artists need hobbies.
7.I am taking up the Way of Tea.

Pause

1. The posting deadline for entry to the Wangaratta textile comp is Wednesday.
2. The doctor said I am not to bend my finger.
3. All forty two half-done projects look at me like cattle that have been in the same paddock for too long.
4.Sweet peas are sprouting, even in my garden.
5.I spent a night out under the biggest moon in two decades and my thoughts were not hounded by poems. Not once.
6.I'm waiting for the mopoke that calls from the darkest hour.
7.Nothing doing but laundry.
8.And the love of gentle friends.

genius

1. Some weeks ago, I visited my friend, author Jane Downing.

2.She showed me her small collection of covered hangers - my favourite was a gift from an aboriginal women's collective. There were black, red, yellow and sparkly lace elements.

3.Everyone had been telling me how important is was to see The King's Speech. I went to see Black Swan instead. This was a mistake.

4."Based on a true story" quipped a long-suffering boyfriend from the row behind me, as Natalie Portman's legs buckled/metamorphosed.

5.Jane lent me a sweater to stave off the air-conditioning.  There was something eastern european about the sleeves.

6."I did this back in the 80's." she said.  "I knitted the black lines between the patches, I was so silly. I did the quadratic equations to get it right."

7.When I came out of the cinema, there was a locust plague. I went around and around a deserted carpark, taking video. Then I sat in my car and filmed other people going around and around the deserted carpark, taking video.  I think we were all hypnotised into moving like bugs.

8.I really didn't want to give the jumper back, but I did.