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...a glimpse into life on Vancouver Island, needle felting, photography, food, gardening, etcetera...etcetera
"Happiness always looks small when you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and at once you learn how big and precious it is."
Maxim Gorky

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Transformed...

Seems with all of this cold and snow, my latest creature has been influenced...
I was working on a baboon, native to a more warmer climate when it started to snow...
He was transformed...
Meet 'Yuki'.
Japanese for...you guessed it...Snow!
Have you ever seen these creatures in action?
They are easy to attribute to anthropomorphism!
Just have a look at this little BBC video...

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Song for Friday...song and dance...

Well, ladies and gentlemen....
It's Oscar weekend and once again, I don't think I've seen any of the nominees on time!
We don't have a theatre nearby so we end up watching flics after they've come out.
There's a few I would like to see in the theatre like 'Black Swan'...for the dancing.
For now I leave you with a classic from 'Chicago' which took home its share of awards...
Get out and dance this weekend and have a great one all!
 

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

SNOW DAY!!

Did somebody say the word 'Spring' the other day?
Ooops! I think that was me....
But I also said "Not quite."
It's funny to think that only yesterday, my girlfriends and I were on the beach collecting sea glass.
It was a mighty cold wind BUT the sun was out and the ground was green...I swear!
This morning when I woke at 7 I drew back the bedroom curtains to this...
Seems we've had a little late blast of winter here on the coast...
The walk out to the barn was quiet...
Not very many people out on the roads this morning...
I love being the first to walk in new fallen snow!
Ahead is a blanket of pure white...
 and behind, only tracks from myself and Griffin...
 For those of us in this temperate climate, there is a few things we tend to do when it snows like this.
A: Hope that we don't have to drive, because frankly, we're no good at it.
and
B: Get out the camera and head outside.
and 
C: Hopefully make it to the grocery and video store to stock up for the next few days.
I love that snow changes the look of everything.
It's work is magical.
Delicately sugar coating even the most mundane things...
Even the most ugliest of ducklings can become a thing of beauty and form...
And the most lovely things become even more precious...
I remember when the t.v signal would go out when I was a kid and we called the fuzz "bees in a snowstorm".
Well here's the real thing!
Trees are cloaked in white fur...
Turning some to remind me of Sesame Street's Snuffulupagus...
Down at the usually dark slough, the reflection took on a new light...
The hen house transformed into a future Christmas card...
And the field becomes a winter wonderland...
Snow...clean, quiet, peaceful snow...
 Our little resident Anna's hummingbird, still coming to the feeder between night time torpor...
...and Griffin, just like a kid, wants to play in it all day long!
The best part about snow around here is that it never lasts for long.
We enjoy it whilst we can, for, really...I think I saw some crocus' poking their little heads out just yesterday...

On plants...

I don't keep as many house plants as I used to.
Mostly because of space and the intensity of light here.
I know, most people wish they had more sunlight, but here our windows face south
and the windows are very large, so the sunlight can almost be too much.
In the colder months, we can, on sunny days, claim to have 'passive solar heating'.
All this means is that the heat of the sun coming through the windows, is enough to warm the house sufficiently.
So the few plants I do have must be kept out of this blistering light and since our space is limited, so are the amount of plants I grow indoors.
I have my 3 little cacti, which sit on the windowsill...
This one has needles that look suspiciously like a tiny house spider I've seen in the bathroom.
I have a few orchids, which I've learned, like neglect and just a tiny bit of water once a week...
Then there are the sometimes prickly and healing aloes, which seem to love the heat of the loft...
The ferns that I keep out of the direct sun seem to do really well here.
And I love ferns...
I have three strange ones.
One is dormant and not very photogenic right now.
The second is called a rabbits foot fern...for obvious reasons...
These are external roots that creep outside of the pot.
Some people think it looks like giant, furry spider legs.
It really is a lovely fern.
The third is called a Mother fern.
She is growing in a small pot set into a giant pot which holds my palm...and loves lots of moisture...
The lacy, fronds grow up to a meter long and the really interesting thing about this fern is how it reproduces...
Babies are growing right out of the bigger leaves...hence the name Mother fern...
So I have taken a bunch of these babies off of the mother plant and will try growing them in one of these little peat pot greenhouses...
Who knows...maybe I will go into the fern growing business if these little guys do well!