Plotting and planning - a garden, that is.

It's February 1st. I'm ready to get to work in the yard. I'm ready for lovely flowers ...

I'm ready for tasty heirloom vegetables and kitchen herbs ...

I'm ready to try new things like growing mushrooms ...

I'm ready for making some garden art ...

I'm ready.

The yard isn't. Nor is the weather. Frustrating, to say the least.

Technically, the past few days have been excellent weather-wise for getting outside and prepping. Unfortunately, I don't have many of the things I need to get started. Potting soil, seeds, containers ... well, pretty much everything.

The husband and I moved into our house about 12 years ago, and the landscaping has been kept to a fair minimum. Covering up all the red clay was priority #1. Gravel for the driveway #1.5. Mulch areas for eventual gardening #2. So forth and so on. And, unfortunately for my gardening efforts, it seems that every year around this time something always comes up and lays claim to our time and money.

Last year it was the husband's shed. And, disappointingly, that shed is still going to take a hunk of money and time to finish ... because it evolved from "shed" to "workshop" and thus needs insulation, sheet rock, painting, etc., etc., etc. to finish on the inside. Haven't yet gotten to building work tables and buying tools either.

We also have to re-gravel the driveway. With the big equipment that was brought in to level the spot for the shed, then more equipment to dig a huge trench for running the electric to the thing, all the gravel got mucked up. The red clay we'd finally covered up was pretty much in our faces again. Hence, more gravel. Another hit to the finances.

But I've waited so long. I've dreamed of a beautiful yard for almost 12 years.

Okay, technically speaking we don't have a traditional 'yard'. Part of our plan for the landscaping was/is to keep the land as natural as possible. There is the area where the house sits with a 15-ish foot perimeter of gravel around it, the driveway, and now the shed area. Beyond the gravel it is wooded. We have kept around 90% or more of the property undisturbed. We have deer, wild turkeys, fox, rabbits, squirrels, opossum, birds, and such other critters who share the property with us. I feel blessed to have them near. I don't want to spoil any more of their space than is necessary. Keeping the land natural is both ecologically sound, morally right, and just simply more attractive on all levels.

So, how do you garden with all that on one side of the scales? Much aforethought and planning. You balance it with maximizing the space you do have available. I can grow lots of vegetables and herbs in containers close to the house. Tomatoes in tubs! Pots of Rosemary and Basil! Everywhere else I can plant flowers for the bees (and me!), as well as foliage plants like Bleeding Heart (lovely blooms) and Fern for the shady areas. I can plant bushes such as Lilac, Flame Azalea, or Wild Hydrangea. I can even plant Blackberries and Blueberries and Muscadine Grapes! Options are surprisingly varied.

My ultimate vision is an "edible landscape", as well as a "native landscape". There are over 4,000 different indigenous kinds of trees, shrubs, flowers, vines, and such I can plant. Think of Carolina Jessamine, Trumpet Vine, Red Morning Glory, Carolina Phlox, Coral Honeysuckle ... and those are just a few of the beautiful blooming vines! Oh the list is glorious!

In keeping non-indigenous plants/herbs/flowers contained in tubs and pots I give myself room to make the greater area of landscaping a little bit of a natural paradise for me and the critters to enjoy.

Another upside is not having to fight with all those critters for the edibles. Rabbits love lettuce ... and strawberries, and carrots, and ... well, you get the idea. I'll let them have the wild blueberries which already grow at the end of the driveway.

For now though, I'm still in the planning & prepping stages. What best veggies & herbs to grow.? What kind of containers? How much potting soil will I need? Where to put the compost bin? A few of these questions have already been answered. Not to mention the weather is tricky here. It's been an extremely mild winter, but we can still have snow in April if Mother Nature takes a mind to dish it out. I have to be patient, use the time to plan and get prepared. Build the compost bin, put together the self-watering containers, and all those other necessary gardening things.

I'm already looking forward to a home-grown tomato sandwich.

Namaste, y'all ...

Acceptance

This morning, while 'talking' to a friend via facebook, a thought came to me in relation to our conversation. Why is it we strive so hard - to the point of distressing ourselves deeply - to demand others accept us for who we are, yet we find it equally hard (sometimes to the point we blind ourselves to even doing it) to accept those same people unreservedly in return?

Read this online ...

The Gift of Acceptance, by Robert Fagan.

Namaste, y'all ...

There's gold in them thar' hills ...

Well, there is in my living room. And, I do live in the foothills of western North Carolina. Was once a popular gold mining area. Bit of trivia.

Just finished a new abstract this morning and hung it up on the wall ...

Pockets Full Of Gold, acrylic on 1.5" gallery wrapped canvas / triptych of 18" x 48" panels.

I'm pleased with the painting. Hate the photo. Bad lighting in the living room for photo taking. Even zinging it through Photoshop didn't help much. Oh well.

Namaste', y'all ...

Triumph over turtle troubles!

Wow. Been away from here way too long.

I have excuses, but I won't bore you with those.

Instead, I shall share my newest painting! I do believe this is my second most favorite painting that I've ever done. Funny that. I really struggled with this one, thinking at one point I might even scrap the whole idea. It was frustrating. I knew I had to paint sea turtles. Couldn't get the little buggers out of my head. They wouldn't let me move on to something else. I just kept slinging paint, getting irritated, slinging more paint, irritated again ... roller coaster ride. I bet I started over at least five or six times.

Then one afternoon I was online, looking at photos of sea turtles and stumbled across Templeton Rye Blog and The Adventures of Templeton the Turtle ...

Sweet wee hatchling turtle. I melted. I also had an idea. I printed out that photo and was off to the studio!

I started with the background. Wave meeting sand ...

Added the turtle ...

Basic turtle close-up ...

Wave close-up ...

Turtle detail ...

Turtle with necklace chain ...

Finished painting ...

I have yet to come up with a good title for this one. I haven't even put wire on to hang it. Maybe I'll go do that now ...

Namaste', y'all ...

I want ...

It isn't too often I post stuff about knitting, which is surprising since I'm a knit-nut. Anyway, I was reading one of my fav blogs yesterday - Knitting In Color - and clicked on this link - Toe-up Entrelac Socks, by Natalia Vasilieva. Since not everyone is a Ravelry member, here is a picture ...

I fell madly in love. I want these socks. Only thing I would change about them would be make them longer. Not a big fan of short socks. Too bad I haven't gotten brave enough to begin the 'knitting my own socks' phase of knitterdom. Someday!

If I had these socks I would only take them off long enough to wash them, dry them, then put them right back on. They are awesome.

Bring it on, Baby!

Seems that every time I walk outside I discover yet another mini miracle of Spring ...

My Hostas are coming up. I love the way the leaves look in the sun ...

Don't have anything planted in my flower pots yet, but Mother Nature gave me these pretty Dandelions for now ...

One of my old fashioned Lilac bushes is blooming. This one is still kind of small. It blooms before the bigger one, isn't quite as fragrant, but it's still very nice ...

Namaste', y'all ...

Lovely little violets.

The first year the husband and I moved into our house I discovered these pretty violets growing in the yard ...

Commonly called "Bird's Foot" or "Crow's Foot" Violet.

I always look forward to seeing them come up in Spring. They are such a delicate shade of lavender and the leaves remind me of feathery fans. I wish they grew over every inch of the yard!

Deceptive.

People in the southern states know that deep underground there lurks a monster. It's name is Red Clay. It's beautiful in color, but don't let that fool you. This stuff is what nightmares are made of. It can destroy worlds. Let a tiny bit of this stuff loose and it spreads and multiplies faster than you can say 'rabbit'. It stains worse than food coloring, and sticks like Gorilla Glue. It's mean. It's nasty, and it's now all over my driveway.

The husband is finally getting a shed, a.k.a. 'workshop'. This is where it's going to be built next week ...

Will be nice to have this view of the neighbor's carports blocked ...

This is my friend, Chris, doing the leveling of the land with a back hoe ...

This is what is happening to my driveway as I sit here and type ...

Chris has only been working for a couple of hours. It's going to get a lot worse before it's done.

I think I need another pot of coffee, or two.

Namaste', y'all ...

The joys of home ownership.

It's 10:00am on Monday, and the plumbers are under my house replacing the bladder tank.

I didn't even get to make a pot of coffee before they shut the water off.

Great.

The upside is that hopefully we won't have troubles with the new tank for a long, long, long time.

I hate plumbing problems.

I really could use a cup of coffee.

Namate', y'all ...

Thursday. Rain. And more rain.

Rain Rain Go Away

I know a calender filled with nothing but sunshiny days isn't really very likely here in the foothills of western North Carolina. There are four seasons, and each one brings it's own kind of weather. It just seems like Mother Nature would be nice and give us a little break after all the cold and snow of Winter, rolling us right along into a lovely green Spring.

Nope.

In early March she teases you with some warm days. For a blissful few days you get to throw open your windows and let the warm air circulate through the house, pushing out all those closed-up Winter blahs. It's so nice ... and so deceiving.

Hot on the heels of those tricksy teaser days Mother N. likes giving all that impending green a good head start with a month of rain. Buckets of it. Good, old fashioned 'gully washer' downpours. She also likes to turn the temperature back down a bit so you have to shut all the windows again, and crank your heat back on. Not so nice.

Y'all, I can't begin to express just how ready I am for warm days and sunshine. Yeah, yeah ... I do love my fuzzy socks and my warm sweaters. I really do. But I really, really like sunshine. I hope it gets here soon.

Namaste', y'all ...

12 weeks with little green pills.

The mysterious Vitamin D ...

Picked up a prescription today for a mega, massive, OMG dose of Vitamin D, pretty green pills which look small and relatively harmless ...

Seems the blood/lab work I had done indicates I have a Vitamin D deficiency. Basically, I've felt like this ...

... for over a year now and it sucks in a major way. So much so that I finally caved and went to the doctor fully prepared to gobble down just about any medication he pimped out to me. All my symptoms seemed to fit Hypothyroidism, and I was expecting to end up having to take some kind of nasty drug, every day, for the rest of my natural life. Was a bit surprised by the Vitamin D diagnosis. Not happy about it, but honestly, I'm really glad it wasn't something "serious". Either way, I'm to the point that I'll do pretty much anything if it will just make me start feeling better, ya' know?

Hopefully, in a few weeks I'll start to feel like this ...

This would be even better ...

I'm aiming for this ...

Namaste', y'all ...

Troublesome turtle in my studio; turquoise with sparkles in my kitchen.

Shame on me for not posting for so long. I've been busy! Painting! Turtles! Turquoise! Fun!

Right off the bat I'm going to say that I'm well aware a sparkly turquoise kitchen isn't everyone's cup of tea. Kinda' like a '57 Chevy Bel Air, only without a set of wheels. This color has a bit of a retro vibe (which I love!) yet a dash of contemporary style, too.

The paint color is 'Water Lily' in Valspar Signature Colors semi-gloss paint Valspar Paint Crystals in silver, both from Lowe's. Personally, I think it's awesome. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a good photo with the sparkles. They are very subtle in daylight, but by golly they are absolutely gorgeous in the ambient light from the living room in the evening.

Every time I walk into the kitchen I see how this wall over the counter glitters like crazy and I can't help but giggle.

I actually have very little wall space in the kitchen. I think that's how I can get away with such an intense color without it being completely overwhelming. I really like the dramatic color play between the black tiles and appliances, the honey oak cabinetry and that screaming turquoise.

Of course, there's still work to do. Have to make curtains. Add (and remove) some accessories. I'm thinking about accent colors of lighter aqua, shades of lavender, maybe wee touches of butter yellow, and copper - which would match my kitchen faucet and cabinet handles. We will eventually replace the linoleum as well. My 'some day' vision with the room is a blend of the retro and the contemporary. I'd like to find old canisters to paint, or maybe a set in a bright copper. I really want everything to be streamlined and uncluttered. Less is more with this kind of paint job!

Speaking of paint jobs ...

My sea turtles looked like this the last time I posted their progress ...

They stayed in limbo for a couple of days. I looked at them, looked at them, and looked at them some more. I carried that canvas all over the house, propping it up in different places, evaluating it in different lighting and from different angles. Just so you know, the intention is for this painting to hang over the commode in the master bath ... yeah, I know.

I tried adding more white swirls. I tried adding more ... well, I tried a number of different things and it simply wasn't happening.

Yes, I started over.

I broke out the Golden Molding Medium, large palette knife, several colors of paint, and swished it all over the canvas ...

Got some great texture ...

I really like the swirls and mixes of color ...

I added one turtle back (instead of a herd!) ...

Slapped some color on it ...

Tried some spiral stuff ...

Hated that so I used a small palette knife to mush paint/molding medium on the turtle ...

Put some detail on the shell ...

Close up of detail ...

And that's were it is at this point. I'm still working, still looking, still pondering what I feel it needs. I want it 'calm', but not quite so plain. Today I intend to paint a white "waves" around the big gray circle. Have no idea where it will go from there. We'll see what happens!

Oh, yeah ... just for snorts and giggles ...

With wheels!

Namaste', y'all ...