Bits and Pieces

Today, Marie and I did our last jigsaw puzzle for a while. This one is called Morning Stop, and it was a lot of fun. Also 300 pieces, and it took 1 hr and 15 min. Tomorrow we head for the Adirondacks!

I'm going to fill in with a few odds and ends from the week here that I wanted to show you, but they didn't make the cut on their own day.

This is part of Ellen's fairy garden. She has a big round space in her yard filled with white gravel and fairy scenes.

The Rondout Harbor, where we saw the Trinidad, also has a maritime museum. We'll save that for another trip since it won't sail away. One of their displays is the steam tugboat, Mathilda. This was built in Quebec in 1898 and is one of the few surviving steam tugboats, although it is no longer in the water.

We got a big kick out of it for reasons other than historical. The name is spelled the same as our friend, Mathilda, with an h.

Two more shots of the Trinidad. I love the high stern with the windows in the captain's cabin. The captain always occupied the stern because in sailing vessels the wind comes from behind, so all the bad smells are carried forward.

The recreated ship sails under the current Spanish flag.

Finally, I can't resist sharing this shark sign.

I also edited today, and we did errands and visited Selma again. It's been a great week here. We don't have to say goodbye yet, but the focus will change.

See Food for Thoughts

Fairy House- Must Be the "Thing"

 
I'm beginning to sense that fairy houses are the new iteration of miniature fads. This is the third one I've encountered in two months. This one is on display at the local bookstore, BookMark.


This one is handmade of birch bark and moss. I know you can't tell much from the overview picture, but I wanted to give a sense of the size. Here's the rooftop garden. Sorry about the busy background, but that's just the way it is.



The middle floor



And lower



Lots of good detail work there. Of course, my passion in miniature displays is model trains, but I can appreciate the techniques and attention to detail.

This was lots more fun to share than the joke the weather is playing. Snow. Snow, blizzard, snow. Sun. Whatever.



And, the bookstore took six sets of the children's books.

Work again tonight, but only three more Friday nights!

	See Stumped- Think Fairy House
if you like this blog, click the +1   or

Stumped? Think Fairy House

 
I came home from work today thinking I was going to un-trash my house a little bit. Instead, I spent a long time writing an obituary for a good trail friend. He had moved on to other things in recent years, but over the 15 or so years of his involvement with the North Country Trail he made a significant impact on its growth. The house will wait... it always does.

My great find on the walk from the other day was a wonderful solution for what to do with the big ugly stump right in your front yard!



It's cute and creative, and a lot less trouble than having the stump ground down or pulled out.



Don't you just want to go inside?



Told you the other news first... except for one more thing I'm posting on the author blog.

	See Fairy Garden
if you like this blog, click the +1   or

Fort Wayne Home and Garden Show - Fairy Garden

 
This, again, was a totally commercial display. All the pieces were for sale, and there's not a thing "real" about it. Even the grass was fake. But it's cute.



Personally, I thought the carrot on the stick to lead the bunny was cutest, even if he does have a price tag on his butt!



Here is the other side of the exhibit.



In other news: Work, working on taxes, working on book formatting. Too many looming deadlines!!!! I paid money to get my scanner to speak to my computer again. Well worth it. It's a good scanner and I hated to see it become a useless lump of plastic.

	See Fort Wayne Show- Succulents
if you like this blog, click the +1   or

Where does Fairy Dust come from?

Fairy dust, pixie dust, Tinkerbell’s flying dust... We’ve known about that sparkling magic stuff almost since the crib. Few grown-ups understand: Sir James Barrie seems to be the first to have recorded the phenomenon, Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths saw the fairies as children (but, of course, denied it as adults).



But did you ever think about where fairy dust comes from? It’s quite a hard-to-find resource. It can only be mined on the coldest of days in winter, and is protected by the evil forest of Su-mac.



It must be devined by a red-dog, she who wields the mystic rod and chases dust-bunnies to their lairs.



Beyond the reaches of the shadows of the forest, where windows open in the rarest of winter suns, where no creature has even softly trod, lie the precious crystals.



Shhh! The fairy miners must not be disturbed or they won’t be able to gather enough to last until next year.

I Caught a Fairy!

What an amazing piece of luck! With the help of Maggie to rustle the grasses, I transformed a praying mantis into a fairy while I had the camera turned on and pointed in the right place.



Now, this is not a great picture, but it's a little better than snaps of the Loch Ness Monster or Sasquatch.

Do you see it? I'll help you a little bit.

OK, I know it's lousy photography, but at least you know I didn't make up the entire fairy story!

See Monsters and Fairies
See A Fairy Tale in Green and White

A Fairy Tale in Green and White

Four days ago I was using the riding lawnmower to mow my walking trails through the fields near my house. As I stirred up the tall grasses many insects were flying around and trying to get out of the way. Suddenly, a large, slim fairy, pale and illuminated, as if it somehow was able to surround itself with moonlight even in mid-afternoon, fluttered away. Its wings were long, and it scurried through the warm air, then dropped into the grass, disappearing.

As I continued mowing, more and more fairies sprang away from my noisy and disturbing activity. Each was that eerie pale white, occasionally flashing gold edges from their backs and wings, as if they flickered between sunlight and moonlight. Who were these mystical, enchanting visitors to my field? I'd never seen them before.

The next day I went walking with my camera, thinking that I would capture a fairy in pixel dust. Wrong! You already knew that you can't capture fairies, right? Well, I did see several of them, but when I took a picture, this is what showed up.



So, I found out that you can't take a picture of a fairy! The next day I saw more fairies, and the next day too. Today I saw one more.

I did manage to follow several of the little teasers to where they had alighted. But each time I found the landing place, I discovered that the white fairy had disappeared and left a green monster in its place.

Which green monster do you think the fairy became? Tomorrow I'll tell all!

Philadelphia Flower Show 2009 - V

 
This will be the last day to focus on the flower show because other things are showing up that I also want to share. Below is a collage of three rather odd looking plants, balanced on the bottom by some colorful and common spring flowers



Next is a dining room that was part of a group of displays of three rooms each on the theme of Italian Villas. I just liked the way the colors and shapes worked in this one.



One of the things I like about the big shows is how they bring whole landscapes indoors and take you to different places. Here is an Irish cottage.



Although there are a whole lot more succulents that I want to show you there may be some future chances to sneak some of those in, so I will close with a sculpture that everyone thought was pretty strange. Are these evil fairies, or just plain ugly? It was certain that anyone who saw them had an opinion! Happy Flower Show 2009.

	See Philadelphia Flower Show IV See Philadelphia Flower Show III See Philadelphia Flower Show II See Philadelphia Flower Show I
if you like this blog, click the +1   or

Fairyland Morning

I wasn't going to post anything since I'm getting ready to go out the door, but I just have to show you what I awoke to this morning! The hoarfrost was thick on everything. Just putting up some pix from the morning dog walk- a few hours after the pink picture, and then I have to scoot!