chickens

My definition of “luxury”!

September 25, 2017 By // by Penelope Bianchi 15 Comments

luxury

My friend who writes the blog “Splenderosa” asked us to

write about our “definition of luxury”!

Here is mine!!!

noun (pl) -ries

indulgence in and enjoyment of rich, comfortable, and sumptuous living

(sometimes pl) something that is considered an indulgence rather than a necessity

something pleasant and satisfying: the luxury of independence

This definition works for me!

Now; I will tell you what this means to me! And I suspect it will be quite different from others!

But maybe not!

I will start here! My picnic table my friend found in the nearby “collective antique store” for my 18 chairs I found in Paris

at the flea market 30 years ago! And my beloved bantam “mille fleurs Belgian chickens”! Every morning I let them out of their

coop! The joy of seeing them…indescribable!!!..the roosters, the chicks…and they change every day!

Not to mention their delicious eggs!

LUXURY! Not to most; but to me!!!

Meeting my friend Brooke for the first time! She and her husband Steve are two of my

most treasured luxuries! who could have known how close and

beloved we could become! When she called me her “mentor” and said that

our house had inspired “Patina Farm” (I get goosebumps typing this!!)

was one of the great “luxuries” of my entire life!!!

Honestly.

My family! Here is my darling husband and two grandchildren at

“Grandparents day” a few years ago!

Tremendous “luxury”!!!

5 out of our 7 grandchildren live within a mile of us! Lordy! LUXURY!!!

My Balinese chicken coop; designed and built by my beloved talented Radisha!

Every single day I see it; I think of him….and what a luxury! (as you can see the chickens love it too!!)

One of my greatest luxuries EVER were my parents! My Daddie died when I was 4;

and my Mommie when I was 33; but I had the luxury of the most loving

and supportive parents…in every way! And then I discovered this

amazing video a few years ago! (my cousin’s contractor discovered)!

the BIGGEST LUXURY OF THE LAST DECADE!

(see my blog about it if you are curious!)

An enormous luxury is our amazing house and garden we created

out of a “vacant lot”20 years ago! With more birds and creatures

than you can imagine! The quail running to their roosts; and their sounds

in the morning fill my heart with joy….and are a luxury far beyond!!!

My mother’s pink azalea in a pot…I’ve been dragging that thing around for

60 years…..(honestly, I have proof!) and every year when it blooms;

It is as though she is saying hello!

Our pond! (It was a luxury before when we dug it and it filled with water)

But then; with the drought…..it went away! (see previous blogs for story. SOB!!!!)

My husband Adam spent a fortune to line it. The minute it was lined and the water

trucked in; we set the duck houses in position; the

mother duck for the last 7 years showed up and claimed our pond and her house!

Hatched 7 ducklings the earliest ever in 17 years! March 6th!

My idea of Luxury!

More pictures of things I consider luxuries! Friends, places I have stayed,

things I love. Those are true luxuries to me!

My friend Renees house!

My friend James visit and his partner’s photo of us with dogs!

My husband and my visit to the Columbe d’Or 30 years ago or something!

My deer I bought from Nathan Turner when he was moving his shop! Above my living room window!

part of our garden!

My office!

my path to the pond!

My collection I discovered of china collected over 65 years!

My ducklings every single year! (this was last year….they narrowly escaped by walking a mile to my neighbor’s pond!!!

My collection of the artist Marcel Vertes started by my mother in 1961;

and greatly aided by eBay!!!

and I haven’t even started on my great luxury of true and talented friends.

I am a very rich woman; indeed!

So to wrap it up:

luxury

indulgence in and enjoyment of rich, comfortable, and sumptuous living

(sometimes pl) something that is considered an indulgence ratherthan a necessity

something pleasant and satisfying: the luxury of independence

All those things apply to what I consider “luxury”!!

Thank you Splenderosa for affording us the terrific opportunity to express our

different viewpoints on so many subjects!

BRAVA!!!!!

You are another of my Great Luxuries!!!!

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What was James Wearing in Santa Barbara?

September 16, 2013 By // by Penelope Bianchi 41 Comments

One of my very favorite bloggers is the elegant , handsome, and charming James Andrew of the

very popular blog, “What is James Wearing?”!!

He and his delightful partner Scott McBee planned a really fantastic “California Adventure” with help

from some very knowledgable and sophisticated advisors!!

One of their stops was the Bacara Hotel nearby; and I invited them to lunch with fellow

bloggers Brooke Giannetti of Velvet and Linen and Hollye Jacobs of the Silver Pen and

another of his admirers, Lola Miller and her darling daughter!! We lunched at the Coral Casino Club; California’s

version of “Eden Roc” in the South of France!

They came to our house after lunch!

We met James in New York a few years ago with our friend David Patrick Columbia of New York Social Diary fame!

here is the link!

You can read all about it!

Santa Barbara Friends and Estates

(dont miss the whole series on California! I think it would make a great book!!)

What a handsome devil!!!

The dogs agree!!

What was James Wearing in Santa Barbara?Read More

A lovely post by a friend and blogger!

March 28, 2013 By // by Penelope Bianchi 15 Comments

My friend and fellow blogger Tracey Jackson

came to Santa Barbara to visit her mother; and came over to visit!

(These pictures were taken last Spring! Not by Tracey)

Tracey is a screenwriter, and that is one reason she is such a good blog writer!

She has also published books!

Honestly, in about fifteen minutes, she took some wonderful pictures and posted them!

The title is “Penny Bianchi’s birds in Paradise”!!

Here is the link!

I think you’ll enjoy her blog!

http://www.traceyjacksononline.com/2013/03/penny-bianchis-birds-in-paradise/

I’ve been taking some “beginning of Spring” pictures which I will be posting soon!

Happy Easter!!!

A lovely post by a friend and blogger!Read More

Kitchen details! I was asked by one of my favorites to show my kitchen! Here it is!

August 22, 2012 By // by Penelope Bianchi 40 Comments

Hi there! One of my favorite bloggers and commenters asked to see more of my kitchen!

It was from those darling people at “Wilson Kelsey Design”!

Based in the next town to our daughter who lives in Marblehead, Massachusetts!

Another lucky couple who work together in this fun and wonderful profession.

(some people look at me as though I were insane when I say that! But; I mean it!)

And I have so loved the comments from people who

enjoy the “stories” behind my things. Lordy! There is a story for just about every single thing!I will try not to bore you!

We will start here: You come in one of two doors from our “big hall”; and here is one of the first things you see

I flew to New York to go to Sister Parish’s auction! One of the things I was dying for was this lantern that was in her entry

in her “maisonette” in Manhattan!It went “off the charts”!

Imagine my delight when John Rosselli copied it exactly; and I could buy four for my kitchen! Identical; no one could tell them apart!

Now the roller shade!

We copied most of the floor plan from our beloved house in Pasadena when we built this. We did eliminate the dining room!(It was between our “loggia and our kitchen”!

Our first party; we were on the “loggia”; and there was the cateress at the sink! OOPS!!

So I had some French fabric I had laminated (print on both sides) and a shade made with some divine old trim I found at an

antique show! (Scalamandre still makes this trim with little wooden apples!) This shade looks great from both sides up or down!

Next the antique toile behind the chicken wire!

I had artfully arranged glasses and things in this cupboard with only chicken wire! My housekeeper said;

Oh! This looks nice; but where does the food go? OOPS! Food! I forgot, this is a kitchen!

I had this antique toile I had bought at an antique show…..the images just fit the panes! I wish I could say I planned it! NOT!!

Lastly, the upper cupboards are the color of the trim in the whole house; the lower (including the two dishwasher drawers) are this dark red.

The painters thought I was on “hallucinogens ” You can see; the fabric on the skirt ties it all together; I invited them all back to see the kitchen finished! 5 different colors!

…

Kitchen details! I was asked by one of my favorites to show my kitchen! Here it is!Read More

Kitchen details! I was asked by one of my favorites to show my kitchen! Here it is!

August 22, 2012 By // by Penelope Bianchi 39 Comments

Hi there! One of my favorite bloggers and commenters asked to see more of my kitchen!

It was from those darling people at “Wilson Kelsey Design”!

Based in the next town to our daughter who lives in Marblehead, Massachusetts!

Another lucky couple who work together in this fun and wonderful profession.

(some people look at me as though I were insane when I say that! But; I mean it!)

And I have so loved the comments from people who

enjoy the “stories” behind my things. Lordy! There is a story for just about every single thing!I will try not to bore you!

We will start here: You come in one of two doors from our “big hall”; and here is one of the first things you see

I flew to New York to go to Sister Parish’s auction! One of the things I was dying for was this lantern that was in her entry

in her “maisonette” in Manhattan!It went “off the charts”!

Imagine my delight when John Rosselli copied it exactly; and I could buy four for my kitchen! Identical; no one could tell them apart!

Now the roller shade!

We copied most of the floor plan from our beloved house in Pasadena when we built this. We did eliminate the dining room!(It was between our “loggia and our kitchen”!

Our first party; we were on the “loggia”; and there was the cateress at the sink! OOPS!!

So I had some French fabric I had laminated (print on both sides) and a shade made with some divine old trim I found at an

antique show! (Scalamandre still makes this trim with little wooden apples!) This shade looks great from both sides up or down!

Next the antique toile behind the chicken wire!

I had artfully arranged glasses and things in this cupboard with only chicken wire! My housekeeper said;

Oh! This looks nice; but where does the food go? OOPS! Food! I forgot, this is a kitchen!

I had this antique toile I had bought at an antique show…..the images just fit the panes! I wish I could say I planned it! NOT!!

Lastly, the upper cupboards are the color of the trim in the whole house; the lower (including the two dishwasher drawers) are this dark red.

The painters thought I was on “hallucinogens ” You can see; the fabric on the skirt ties it all together; I invited them all back to see the kitchen finished! 5 different colors!

…

Kitchen details! I was asked by one of my favorites to show my kitchen! Here it is!Read More

Early Springtime in the garden 2012

March 30, 2012 By // by Penelope Bianchi 31 Comments

These pictures were taken two weeks ago, around the middle of March!

Many people think we don’t have seasons in Santa Barbara; but I am going to show you that we do!

You can see the wisteria; which not only looks beautiful, but smells sublime!

It creeps across the front of the garage, and around the side through the “sweet olive”!

This is pretty much its prime; no leaves yet!

The finial fell off the duck house; I am not replacing it until the end of the summer! The wood duck loves posing as the finial!

wood duck!

The juvenile black-crowned heron takes turns! And there is a mallard sitting on eggs in one of the nest boxes!

This heron won’t hurt the baby ducklings; but we chase the Great Blue Heron out of here when there are baby ducklings!

Our Boston ivy comes in red in the beginning; red leaves are not appealing to birds. The rooster is happy to have his tail feathers coming back!!

From the other side!

The real roosters didn’t lose their tail feathers!

This shows a glimpse of our mesquite front gate.

This shows the mesquite railing that goes across a small stream from the pond ! It is interwoven with willow; so it is a living railing! The willow loses its leaves in the winter.

Hardenbergia vine blooms in the winter (the purple one) and the white potato vine (a type of jasmine) blooms 12 months a year!

Chickens busy at bug finding and eating!

The crabapple fence just starting to leaf out in the herb garden!

These steps are petrified wood!

I love the rock edging on the herb garden; and the lavender planted in gravel.

This is our “Certified Backyard Habitat ” sign! My granddaughter was in the first grade when we went online; filled out the application, and sent it in with photographs.

It says “This property provides the four basic habitat elements needed for wildlife to thrive: food, water, cover, and places to raise young.

It has been certified by the National Wildlife Federation as an official Backyard Wildlife Habitat Site.”

We are very proud of that!!

Our gardener planted these native iris two years ago as a surprise; he didn’t think they “took”; but look at them now!!!!

When the gardeners on our lane “blow” (mercifully only once a week) , they leave the pile of oak leaves for us!! My favorite path material!

more iris!

More hardengerbia and potato vine and chickens!

In a week or so; I will post what it looks like further along in Spring!

Early Springtime in the garden 2012Read More

Another wonderful blog I love!!!

October 20, 2011 By // by Penelope Bianchi 7 Comments

Leta Austin Foster is a sensational decorator and has one of my very favorite shops in Palm Beach Florida.

In her blog, she shares all her amazing sources in Europe and other places!

This article has fabulous sources in Paris!

I also want to thank her for mentioning me in this post!

You can read the article here and know right where to go in Paris! It would take YEARS to discover all of these wonderful and unusual spots!

Another wonderful blog I love!!!Read More

Hatched in the wild!!

August 4, 2011 By // by Penelope Bianchi 11 Comments

Three weeks ago, a hen of ours went missing! I was afraid a coyote or hawk had taken her; but I couldn’t find feathers anywhere!

About ten days later, I found her outside the coop in the morning, and I knew she must have made a nest outside of the coop!

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Hatched in the wild!!Read More

Picks of the week

June 5, 2011 By // by Penelope Bianchi 17 Comments

While perusing the internet and visiting some of my favorite sites and blogs this week I decided to save the images that most inspired me. Please take a look to see what was on my “favorites” list this week. I am always so overwhelmed by the amount of imagery out there, now I have a good excuse to showcase the ones I like best: sharing them with you!

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Picks of the weekRead More