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On my walk early this morning I photographed these peony buds. These images express the concept of expectancy as well as anything I know.

And in the now; the tender edges, pink veins and revealed folds of deep pink petals have no equal in beauty. It is possible to miss them, but we discover them in the careful focus and attention to detail.

I wanted to share with you how the recent introduction of the 2012 Hannah Necklace came about in our jewelry line.

Actually the idea of updating a cameo and producing it in porcelain was my daughter, Caitlin’s idea. I have several beautiful old cameos and Caitlin grew up with me wearing these. Right away, I loved Caitlin’s idea and couldn’t wait to finish the first design, the Cameo Bella so I could start wearing it.

I combined the Cameo Bella Charm and the Porcelain Pearl Charm in the Hannah Necklace and named it after our darling neighbor girl, Hannah who grew up with Caitlin and is now a beautiful grown up woman.

I have a new oval cameo charm and necklace in the works. Look for it later this spring.

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Just in time for Easter I wanted to share my delicious egg recipe. This is a favorite for our Easter dinner! I also like to serve this all year round – it’s great for a cold summer lunches, with dinner, and for brunch.

Ingredients

6 Large Organic Free Range Eggs
Gray Celtic Sea Salt & Fresh Ground Pepper
Crème Fraiche
3 Spring Onions, sliced very thin
¼ cup chopped Fresh Dill
Grated fresh Horseradish Root – fresh is milder than prepared

Directions

This is such a simple recipe so it is important to have the best ingredients and not over cook the boiled eggs.

1. Bring refrigerator-cold eggs to a boil, immediately turn off the heat and let them cook for 8 minutes in the hot water. The yolks will be cooked but still very moist. After the eggs are cool cut in half and arrange on a serving plate.
2. Salt and pepper the eggs.
3. Add a small dollop of Crème Fraiche to each egg half.
4. Sprinkle the sliced Spring Onions on top.
5. Sprinkle the Fresh Dill.
6. Grate the fresh Horseradish to taste directly on the eggs as the final layer – I use a micro plane.

Enjoy!
Margaret

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Last Saturday morning, my friend Jody and I went up to Wilsonville, Oregon to visit Boxwood Gardens, a grower and wholesaler of evergreens, primarily boxwoods and Irish Yews. The majority of boxwoods were trained and trimmed into topiary forms.

It was more boxwoods and more varieties of boxwood than I have ever seen in one place in my entire life. I have been training boxwood topiaries in my own garden for over 20 years, but this was a stunning display of mature topiaries of many classic and whimsical forms covering acres of land. There were some boxwoods simply trimmed into squares so that they were ready for an instant hedge.

Boxwoods and Irish Yews are two of my favorite varieties of evergreen hedge and boxwood is also my favorite for topiaries. Yews and boxwood are the bones and main interest in my own garden.

Even though it was a rainy, gray day, Jody and I were both smiling and planning for the next green “sculptures” for our gardens.

Because this is a wholesale operation, they are not open to the public, but they supply a retail outlet in Portland called Bentley A Classic Garden Place at 5529 SW Hood Avenue.

This pear image was a card sent to me by a friend in its first life. I thought the bosc pear was so elegant that I framed it. This is not the end of the story because I had to add several embellishments:

• • An old piece of gingerbread in the shape of an arrow that my brother, John, gave me. He broke it off the porch of his old house that he demolished in a little town in Nebraska. I gold leafed this to match the frame and added a cloud of gold strands pulled from antique gold bullion fringe.
• • A tiny watercolor of a pear that I painted.
• • Finally, a price tag with the printed words “bosc pear”.