Goodbye Trees, Hello New Fence

It has been a busy month since last I blogged.  This post is going to show some of what has been going on here, and mainly for my own records.

before

See those two towering fir trees at each corner of my house?  Every time the wind blows hard I fear they might blow down, especially that one on the left.   They were both small trees when I moved here, but this is perfect tree growing country, and grow they did.

after

It was a difficult decision but we finally decided to cut them down.  My peacocks used to sleep in those trees, and squirrels and birds made their homes in them.

Days before the trees were scheduled to come down I read this poem by Margaret Gibson titled Solitudes.  I wanted to memorize it, it begins: 

"For today, I will memorize the two trees, now in end of summer light".  Then I had to snap some photos showing them in end of summer light. 

They were beautiful trees and I cried to see them go.

We had to get a permit from the county road dept. to be able to drop the trees across the road, and had to wait until the power company could schedule a day that they could drop the power lines.  After waiting for about 3 years, all these things finally came together. 

Chris Davis and Steve

Steve (Chainsaw Man) traded this chain saw, (a Stil 66 with a 42 inch bar for those of you who are interested in that sort of thing) to the man, Chris Davis, for doing the cutting of the trees.  You can get an idea of the size of this tree and yet, it is only about 45 years old.  Yep, I'm older than the trees.

Chris had access to a skidder which he brought over to help with the tree removal.  The power company attached cables high in the trees and Steve and Chris attached the other end through a giant block to the skidder, insuring that the trees would fall where they were supposed to.

Giant block

Luckily all went exactly as planned and the trees fell where they were supposed to, and not on the house.  

 It was a big event and neighbors showed up to watch the trees come down.

 I don't know who enjoyed it more, the kids or the parents!

 Steve and Chris and the skidder (which Chris operated) quickly got the trees bucked up and out of the road.  One car came as all this was going on, and only had to wait about 5 minutes before the road was clear again.  The whole process took about two and a half hours from electric lines dropped to road cleared.  Of course there was still plenty of clean up to do.

Chris, Steve and neighbor Dan relaxing afterwards, plenty of time for clean up later!

old fence

The wood fence in front of my house has needed replacing for awhile but it was impractical to replace it until the trees came down.  So finally it was torn down but first we had to build a temporary fence to keep the dogs in.  I'm not showing photos of that.

entrance to the fenced yard before work began.

 Neighbor Dan came and helped with fence building

 

Entrance to the newly fenced yard after tree removal.  "Nice gate!" says Windy.

New aspect to the front of the house.  We used fir boards, stained before we put the fence up.  The gate is made from cedar.

Inside the yard looking out through the new gate.  It opens like French doors.

We can sit in the front yard again, it had become very weedy and overgrown before.

The yard seems twice as big now even though the fence is in the same place.  We took out a lot more than just the two big trees.  It was a long time coming but what a relief to have it finished!  Now when the wind blows I won't be worrying about a tree crushing me in my bed, or the fence blowing down either.

Now to bring in our firewood.  One of these days I hope to get back into the studio for serious work.  I've been puttering at odd moments, I'll show what I've done in another post.

Can't go without a gratuitous pet photo!

Hope you all are ready for winter storms or spring showers, depending where you live.  We are having some gorgeous Indian summer weather here right now, it has been in the low 80's.  I love it!  The leaves are so beautiful and everything is crisp and tangy.
So until next time,

Be well.

Significant Birthday

It seems like such a short time ago that I was a little girl, blowing out the candles on my cake.  That was quite a long time ago.   With apologies to Mary Oliver for unauthorized use of her poem Self Portrait:

 "I wish I was 20 and in love with life and still full of beans.

Onward, old legs!
There are the long, pale dunes; on the other side
the roses are blooming and finding their labor
no adversity to the spirit.

 Upward, old legs! There are the roses, and there is the sea
shining like a song, like a body
I want to touch

 though I’m not twenty
and won’t be again but ah! sixty. And still
in love with life. And still
full of beans."

Mary's poem reads "but ah! seventy."  Maybe I will use this poem again in another 10 years.
The group photo above shows me with members of my family earlier this month.  The two men on either side of me are my older brothers.  We are all in the 60's club now!  Everyone else in the photo is not yet in their 60's but give 'em time.

Yep, still in love with life and still full of beans.

Be well.

Family time

I've been enjoying lots of visits with my family this summer.

Nephew Nathan and his wife Becky and their 3 kids and 3 dogs came over.  They all enjoyed touring the yard while the dogs romped.

 Nathan's brother Justin and his wife Brittany also came with their dog. 

The dogs played and played and then they rested.  Mia took full advantage of the fact that we allow our dogs on the furniture.  Justin will have to retrain her after visiting Aunt Jan's!  It was funny because if Mia began to get too rough with Roscoe, Windy would step in and divert Mia.  Such a good big sister she is!!

It was good to see them all.  They might move out this way some day.  I'd like that.

 I gave Brittany this bracelet I made.  Looked good on her pretty arm.

We went to visit my cousins at their place near the beach at Pacific City, Oregon.  Most everyone camped on their property.

 Lots of cooking and telling stories around the campfire.  Plenty of dogs too, almost as many as there were people.

 Windy and Roscoe and I enjoyed walking in the old mossy spruce forest.

 Beautiful trails on the cousins property. 

Plenty of good eating too!

I used to call him Chainsaw man but maybe I should change Steve's name to the Chef because he sure seems to be the main cook at these events!  This is at my brother's.

Our next visit took us to my brother's where 4 of us siblings and our families spent a few days.  My nephew's are so athletic and spent hours jumping on the trampoline shooting hoops.

Of course then they needed their rest.  The little dog is Rosie.  She and Roscoe spent plenty of time playing too.

We managed to snap a group shot although not everyone got in it.  From left to right are Marshall (nephew), Debbie (my sister), Tyler (nephew), Beth (SIL),Rick (my eldest bro), me, Steve (my older bro whose home we were at), Robin (SIL), Dawson (nephew) and Riley (nephew) holding Debbie's dog Lucy.  I think there were 7 dogs altogether here.

So now I'm home again.  The hay got done in July and now we are beginning to put up veggies.  We canned 14 quarts of green beans from our garden yesterday.  The weather has been very summery, hot and dry.  The afternoons are spent being quiet.  I like hanging out in my studio then, it stays pretty cool in there.  

I hope you all are keeping safe and enjoying your summer, if indeed it is summer at your place.  Till next time,

Be well.

Fading

I made some plain fabric prayer flags and hung them across my yard a couple of years ago.  I thought I'd show you what has become of them.

 I used batik fabrics and hung them in the summer of 2012.  Interspersed between the flags were strips of sari silk.  They were lovely and colorful, blowing in the breeze.

Sun and rain seems to have done this to me, also.

 

 At least the flags aren't all wrinkled up.  The silk strips have mostly totally disintegrated and fallen off.  A few of the scraps got picked up and incorporated into dooleybobbers.

Life is fleeting.  Live it to the fullest.

Be well.

Progress

Progress is being made in a couple of areas.  Best of all, the progress between Charlie and Roscoe:

One might think such a large cat would have no fear in the first place of such a tiny dog but one would be wrong.  Charlie hid in the basement for more than two weeks after Roscoe arrived.  I finally began carrying Charlie into the house slowly when Roscoe was tired and calm.  The next thing I knew, Charlie followed me into the house on his own one evening and spent the night on the bed next to me and Roscoe and things have been just fine ever since.  Yay!!  It is so nice to have everyone getting along, no fears!

In the meantime, I have been stitching on my latest Ghost Dog series piece:

 This one represents the first dogs I had after moving out of my parents home.  Bilbo was part Collie, part German Shepherd and probably the smartest dog I have ever had.  Then I got Heidi and Gandalf, brother and sister, part Dachshund, part Beagle.  Oh I loved those dogs!  They were with me through many transitions in my life and all are buried here on this property.

I rummaged around in my "jewelry" box and found Bilbo's dog tag so I put that on there.  I also found some puppy teeth which you can see in the first photo, they are glued on the strip of red fabric.  I'm still putting some finishing touches on this, and when it is finished I'll hang it on the wall outside the studio.

Here is the studio wall so far.  I hung the small colorful quilt up there today.  I've had others up there before but only for a day or two at a time because I didn't want them to become weathered and faded.  This one I plan to leave in place.  Why not?  It has been aging in a box for years.  It is kind of a weird experiment that didn't really turn out that great, so now its colorfulness will slowly fade in the sun but I rather like it up there.  My other pieces of the Ghost Dog series are hanging to the far right of the door.

Just a quick post for today.  I wanted to share my excitement about Charlie and Roscoe.  Hope you all had a great Summer Solstice.  On that day I went to the wedding reception of my longest term friend, Larry.  We have been friends for 43 years!  Sheesh!  I really like his new wife and am glad I was able to attend this event.  Forgot my camera though dang it.  It was a grand way to celebrate the solstice.

Till next time, be well.

New news

Been busy with outdoor work and also finding time for some art.  One other thing has been grabbing my attention but I'll get to that later.  First, I'll show you my recently completed art work. 

 This is sort of a Dooleybobber.  Rather different from the others but then they are all different, aren't they.  I used some cut off pieces from another work and then needle felted, stitched and beaded it.  I had my embroidery stitch book open and was trying different stitches, it was fun. 

 Most of the threads I used were some that I got from Maggi.  The colors are gorgeous.

This is what it looked like in the beginning stages.  Sure looks a lot different after the stitching and working on it.

 I did a challenge/trade with my creative group after being inspired by an article in a recent Somerset Studio magazine article, the Jan/Feb 2014 issue.  These are ATC/Matchbox art.  Fun!

l

I used a paper napkin for the background of all mine.   I have a bazillion of them but did you know you can buy single napkins on ebay?   Who'd have guessed?  What a selection!  Now I have two bazillion.

 I decided to experiment with some non woven fabric stuff I had laying around after seeing something like it on a blog somewhere.  Sorry, I lost the link so can't share that.  I used different paints on pieces of this stuff, I don't know what it is but it starts out white.

 Then I rolled them up and hit them with the heat gun and they turned into these neat beads.

I found that if I painted different colors on either side, they looked cool on the edges with the reverse paint peeking through.  If anyone wants some of this stuff just ask and I'll mail you a piece.  I have a huge chunk of it.

Mike

I have begun a new series that relates to the dogs I've loved.   I started to say all the dogs but I can't quite say that, there are too many to make art about all of them.  Above you can see the first of the series, it shows a photo of my family and our first dog, Mike.  He was a German Shepherd mix.

 I love this photo.  It captures my love for dogs beautifully.  That is me, gazing into Mike's eyes with love.

Duke

 Our next dog was Duke, a German Shepherd.  Duke followed me everywhere through my growing up years, walking with me through the neighborhoods and to the store, waiting patiently outside, unleashed.  Can you imagine now, seeing a big German Shepherd dog sitting outside a big grocery store, not tied or muzzled or anything?  He used to get in ferocious fights with other neighborhood dogs.  I'm glad I know better not to allow anything like that to happen any more.

j

See the brown/orange plaid fabric at the back of the piece?  That was the scarf I wore when I was a teenager.  It is rather moth eaten now but I have held on to it and finally found a use for a piece of it.  I also still have Duke's collar, 40 some years later.  (No I'm not a hoarder!!) I am going to hang the collar from the wood hanging rod.  The plan is to display all these dog pieces outside and allow them to weather.  I might hang them out in the woods or maybe just on the wall outside the studio.  The coyotes (Trickster) tend to steal things I put out into the forest.

This is the next one of the series, I started stitching on it today.  It shows the first three dogs I got after I moved out of my parents home, Bilbo, Heidi and Gandalf.  Yes, combining my love of books and dogs with these names!  I'll show a better photo someday after it is finished.

Roscoe

Now, for my big news!  We got another dog!  Windy has been seeming lonely without a friend to play with so I got her a puppy;-)  Meet Roscoe, a 10 month old Chihuahua/Dachshund mix.  He is such a sweet boy and so playful and happy!  I call him Roscoe Bean, he has sure brightened up our lives around here.  He and Windy play and chase each other and the squirrels.  Charlie cat is not happy about it but he is beginning to venture out of the basement and testing the waters with a dog smaller than he is.  He'll come around, he always does.

Heidi from long ago

 Never before have I had such a little dog, I was wanting a bigger dog but this guy came along and I couldn't get him out of my mind.  Maybe because he reminds me so much of the first dogs I had on my own, Heidi and Gandalf were Dachshund/Beagle mix, brother and sister.  They were closer to Windy size though at around 30 pounds.  Roscoe is only maybe 10.  He is learning not to chase llamas or cows or horses or CATS!  Squirrels are okay, they never catch one.

 

 Here is Roscoe and Windy, snuggling in the bed together in the studio.  Oh, and Roscoe likes to sleep under the blankets with me at night!  I've never had a dog do that before.  Probably a good thing since most of my dogs have been rather large.  

Well, that is about it for now.  I'm sure I'll be sharing more about Roscoe in the future.  He is so stinkin' cute! He came with that name and I decided to keep it, it suits him.  Hope you all are well and enjoying your lives.  Till next time,

Be well.