Spinning through 2012

Greetings All. Best wishes for a healthy, happy and safe 2013.

Ah, that quiet time between Christmas and New Year. The fireplace burns non stop, I read or play non stop - I hardly manage to get out of my pyjamas.  Anyone in the house gravitates to the fridge and the great assortment of left overs or baked Christmas goodies.

This morning two of the Grandchildren woke me to tell me they were going to play quietly and not wake me up!

The sun was an orange glow escaping between the skyline and a heavy blanket of grey cloud. That narrow skyline is still visable. Mount Baker and the surrounding ranges are magnificent in their winter coat of snow.  The bay still hosts migrating birds although many have wisely headed south. We will follow them in a couple of months.

We have not had snow, whereas Vancouver, just half an hour away, had quite a fall last week.

The year swirled past - or did I simply advance through time - not sure. Welcomed a precious gift of a new Granddaughter, worked on our garden and cruised the scenic seafood-filled waters of the Broughton Archipeligo with friends. Four of us onboard Nautica our 26' Nordic Tug.... and we are still friends!!

Home again to tame the prolific production of my vegetable garden - tomatoes, beets, greens, peas, beans, garlic, peppers.  Harvested blackberries and made jams and syrups, picked blueberries in the nearby fields - stacked jars of B.C. peaches and pears. Satisfaction personified as the leaves turned yellow, red and orange.

Then the winter storms, waves top dressing the lawn with seaweed, carex grasses and Tamarisk trees yielding to the wind. Snow geese and trumpeter swans from the Arctic descending exhausted like giant white kites onto green water-soaked fields, snowy owls fluffed, ever watchful, resting on silver grey driftwood trees.

Thoughts turn to Christmas, missives to old friends, crafts with excited youngsters, concerts and ice skating. Baking and eating shortbread, making leek soup - from garden to table in a few hours.

Christmas Day - deferred in its entirety to Boxing Day as we love to all be together but understand the out-laws love to do the same so we give them the gift of Christmas Day celebrations.

So another circle of time has brought me back - the clocks ticking, the fire burning, lights still glowing in the Christmas tree. Small remnants of Christmas ribbon, a corner of coloured paper and glitter in the carpet.  A quiet moment to be remorseful for time that passed without due attention, for friends not acknowledged and loved ones taken for granted.

Hope you enjoy this peek into my life in Canada.

A New Year, look forward.

All the best Janine

Walled Garden

So begins another challenge.  The garden needed to be laid out, and decisions be made about how this little garden would be used. I wanted to indicate a space for relaxing, flower and vegetable  gardens, utility area, paths and peek a boo views through gates and walls.

A centre circle for a fountain feature perhaps? Path edges built with stucco covered cardboard, textured and painted. Underpaint is where the gravel will be glued. I have already increased the amount of gravel as I was a bit daunted by producing foliage for the larger areas.

Gravel coloured and glued to board.

The stone-look walls were built using blocks cut from 1/2"/15 mm. acoustic ceiling tiles. I did one large section cutting them with a mat knife which took a long time but failed to keep the edges straight. Very discouraging.  Bruce thought we may be able to use the table saw to cut it.  Success and it only took a few minutes.
 I painted the blocks with colour appropriate latex paint then textured some of them with a wire brush and sealed them with acrylic matte paint.  I was worried that the drywall mortar would get into the layers of paper.
Bruce mortared  a section with drywall mortar but found some bricks were not stable. We needed to apply mortar or spacers to get some definition between each brick to show the mortar - otherwise they seemed too closely packed. I did consider rendering the bricks to give a finish similiar to the exerior of my mini house but wanted a different look for the walled courtyard. I'll save that technique for another time. Once the bricks were set with a combo of white glue/drywall mortar I scraped the mortar out in part to give more dimension to the stone-look slabs.

Gates looking satisfactorily rusty.

Birds-eye view of space taking shape.

Bruce, supportive husband and side-kick extraordinaire fabricated the two gates. He used solid brass wire stapled to a piece of plywood to hold the wire in place while he soldered them together. The centre is a decorative medallion.  He painted and used fine sand to texture and give a rusted appearance to the gates.

Here you see the staples holding the wire. Bruce says if you are soldering, the rod needs to be secure to prevent the heated rod from releasing the adjacent soldered joint. If you prestaple the whole frame it allows you to position each rod before soldering.

Perhaps a few brass beds are in our future!

Now I have come this far I had to play a little!  Garden tools, pots, seed packets and row markers in a basket. Ball of string in a clay pot and window box for the window sill. Already the space seems smaller.

Cushions and tray by Elizabeth. Lucky me! You can visit her blog by clicking the link: www.studioeminiatures.blogspot.ca

Leather diary and lavender plant in thimble pot made by J. The steamer chair was a Christmas decoration from the Restoration Hardware store a few years ago.

Soon to follow - experiments in landscaping. Thank you for visiting.

Regards Janine