A Real Snake in the Garden

Imagine my surprise, that after posting about a handmade knitted snake and a real experience about a snake years ago, I go outside and mow a bit then come back inside.  Later, I go out again and find a snake about 4 feet long by the mower.   It allows me to go back into the house and get my camera to get some pictures.   When it starts to move away going down the hill, I go up on the deck to keep it moving in that direction. 

A real snake in the garden.  Not that it is so unusual  (mostly turtles are seen roaming) but to happen on the same day I posted about a knitted snake is interesting.  I took the pictures and made them into another 6×10 insert for my Project Life album along with a section relating the details of the story.   I enjoy using Project Life to combine journaling with pictures to tell a more complete story.

 

May 17, 2013

As I watched the snake, I was aware of how graceful it moved, like ripples in the water.  The scales barely moved yet there was a pattern of motion , and I wondered if the snake could feel that as they propelled him along.  Or was it all so natural and familiar that he didn’t notice at all, or appreciate his own grace and beauty. 

Often we are unaware of the impact we make on others and of our own type of beauty.

 

 

Snakes in the Garden

Recently I made a knitted striped snake for my granddaughter.  She loves the colors of purple and blue, so that is what I primarily used.  Then she seemed to want a hat - a decorated, fancy red hat.  Maybe an Easter bonnet.  And of course, I included the process pictures as a 6×12 insert in my Project Life album:

Knitted snake Project Life page

This was fun to knit and great for working on while watching TV.  And such a cute example of a snake, similar to some of the pretty green snakes in the garden hanging from a tree and even found in one of my shrubs.

I remember, when I lived on 25 acres out in the countryside here in the Ozarks, reaching in to pick green beans we had planted in 4-foot-wide double-dug French Intensive style garden beds.  Hard to do with all the rocks in the hillside ground.  (We wound up with a huge pile of rocks that we then used for building walls, etc..)   In using this intensive method, the beans were planted close together than ususal forming a thick layer of green bean leaves making it impossible to see beneath.  I reached in and… grabbed a snake!  I jumped back but managed to see what it looked like.  Ran inside and got out my snake book and there it was, a black king rat snake – totally harmless for humans and actually good to have around in one’s garden.

Snakes have their place, whether as a knitted play/display snake or in the garden.

Happiness is…

This weeks Top 10 on Tuesday link party list from Shabby Blogs presents the question of what makes us happy. 

ShabbyBlogs Tuesday Ten

It is hard to stop at only 10 items, but that is what was asked for.  Again, I was able to make it into a card that I can use for my Project Life album.

How lucky we are regardless of what our struggles may be.

Visual Nourishment

One of the reasons I so like Pinterest is the Visual Nourishment it provides me when I look at the pages of either my boards (here is a sample) 

or the boards of others.  It almost doesn’t matter what the topic is – the visuals are wonderful and are very important to a visual person such as myself.   So as you are looking at the pins others have put on their boards that you follow either because you are interested in the topic  or just like to look at a topic, you get to choose which pins you want to put onto your boards.

 One of the choices you make is what to name your boards.  Most do  it by nouns: turtles, gardens, dance,  flowers, labyrinths, mandalas, art journals, quotes, childhood memories, etc. 

For some reason I tend to think in patterns and so named many boards for a theme that occurs in many different areas but all sharing the same trait, so turtles and gardening are on my Healing Haven board, the wonders of people’s faces and diversity of cultures are on Faces of Wisdom and Faces of the World boards, Project Life pages people have completed or cards available for printing are included in the Project Life board, while mandalas, labyrinths and meditation/spiritual pins are all on my Journey to the Center board.  

I’ll be more specific about the boards on a follow-up post and also include how the pins assist me in doing my Project Life albums.

Link Party Lists combined with Project Life

I came across the Shabby Blogs site (http://shabbyblogsblog.blogspot.com) where she is conducting a Link Party List that comes out each Tuesday.   Check it out if you are interested in either participating or checking out the links: 

ShabbyBlogs Tuesday Ten

I thought this would be  great way to combine her project with my Project life album I have been keeping, so I made my list of 10 random facts about myself in the form of 4×6 cards I made that I can print out and insert  in my page protectors:

and the next 5 items on page 2:

This was a very interesting way of combining the two different projects.  I am looking forward to continuing creatively incorporating blogging and Project Life.

Project Life Beginnings

It was right after I made the previously mentioned Razorback Bear for my teenage grandson in December 2011 that I started investigating and then getting involved with Project life, so the Razorback Bear was a major part of one of the first pages to be included in this system designed to meld picture albums and journaling. 

Project Life page for Christmas 2012

Project Life is a system originated and developed by Becky Higgins that includes whatever components you want to use, but basically an album, divided pocket pages holding various size pictures or cards, the pictures you take, and other cards specially designed to fit into the 3×4 or 4×6 plastic page slots of the pocket pages.  I started with the Clementine set for 2012, and this year got the Cobolt set.  Love them both along with my own pictures and also images I get from Pinterest, another online networking site.    

Title page for 2012 album

This is the title page for my 2012 album using a store-bought album and background paper from Hobby Lobby while the cards are from the Becky Higgins Clementine set, available from Amazon.  The use of pocket pages makes the layouts easy as you can choose from many different layout presentations.  I tend to use Pocket Page D most of the time, but have been using inserts for special days, like for someone’s birthday or anniversary.

I’ve noticed that many people come from a scrapbooking background and so tend to embellish/scrapbook their Project Life inclusions.  And almost everyone does one week in a 2-page spread.  Right from the beginning I realized that, for less stress, I needed to include as many pictures and journaling cards as was needed and wanted, so many weeks spilled way over the 2 pages.  Also I prefer a simpler approach so color and visual enjoyment seem to predominate my layouts with lots of journaling on the backs of cards and pictures.  A lone dandelion in a flower-pot filled with chickweed is as worthy of a picture as well as the many pictures I take of people, the garden and its inhabitants,  like the many turtle visitors. 

And I do not keep track of where I got what embellishment from – this has been for my pleasure – and I am very pleased, with the process and the results.

Leaving the world of the 1928 treadle Singer sewing machine

My retirement has given me the opportunity to branch out in various creative endeavors, some of which I have done before but in a limited way, others I have never had the time to try, and still others whereby I expanded what I had been doing over the years.

My mother taught me how to sew and my grandmother taught me how to knit and crochet. Even in the early years of marriage, as we struggled with trying to make ends meet, we chose not to have me working but to be home with the children.  This made these handcrafts an imperative.  I sewed clothes for myself and for my children, drapes and slip-covers, all  on a 1928 treadle Singer sewing machine that only went forward (it was hard turning around all the material in a sofa slip-cover in order to get stitching backwards, but one could sew if the electricity went out.)  And I made numerous knitted things for my husband as well as the children and myself.   All very practical; all a part of ‘making do’.

But with retirement I started a quilt for my granddaughter which I had to stop because of problems with my eyes not seeing well enough on the dark-colored material of dolphins and whales in the ocean.  What could I still sew?

Then I remembered the Memory Bears made by a volunteer while I was working in hospice.  I used that pattern and made a University of Arkansas Razorback Bear for my teenage grandson. 

University of Arkansas Bear

The picture above is the Bear holding a baseball key chain.  The one below is the Bear wearing a University of Arkansas (hoghat) baseball cap on.

UofA Bear wearing a University baseball cap

Needless to say, he loved the Bear and its accessories, particularly the ferocious looking baseball cap. 

Time had moved on in many ways: one was I no longer had the 1928 treadle Singer sewing machine but did have one which sewed both forwards and backwards, which was a great help.    Another, I was sewing something for my grandson, not my children.  And yet another, I was doing this because I wanted to, not because I had to.  Time keeps moving on.

Slithering Through Changes

This last year has been one of slithering through many changes; experimenting with many art/writing forms; making a variety of projects with various art/word combinations.  It has been a wonderfully creative and explorative year as I shed one form of creativity to take on another, then shed that – or more accurately, merge that with all the others I’ve done and will do. 

One of my projects involved using 2 beautiful pages from an old garden calendar to make an accordion journal in which to keep seed packets, an assortment of pretty notes and cards to jot down ideas about the garden, etc. 

An Accordion Garden Journal

This easy to make and a delight to my eyes garden journal was a gift to a friend who appreciates her garden and loves to keep details of what happens when in her garden.   I found that I loved looking at it more than I could picture using it in any way other than for visual delight.  I’m too much the get-your-hands-dirty big picture person rather than the wear-gloves detail oriented person in the garden. 

I taped 2 calendar pages together, pasted 2 more taped pages turned upside down onto the first set.   Then I folded up one side about 1/3, taping edges to hold flap in place.  Then accordion pleat the entire length, cutting off wherever necessary to come out with evenly spaced pages/pockets.  Free-form cut the top of the pages and the pockets  in accordance with placement and design. Then I started adding various notes and cards I decorated with washi tape, stickers and drawings.

Accordion Garden Journal – front view

This was a fairly quick and easy project that was perfect for anticipating spring and working in the garden. And one I will probably do again for myself – for visual enjoyment and for - who knows what idea might spring up?

Slither Through

 

The sunshine draws me outdoors, to stand breathing deeply the fragrance of the enormous, newly flowering wild rose bush as I look around the back yard.  The rains and floods have gone, at least for a while, having taken lives and property even as they penetrated to feed the deepest roots of the trees.  Herbs and salad greens, tomatoes and peppers, leeks and cukes all flourishing on the deck.  The peonies have just opened providing what appears to be a delightful meal for ants. The sun shines through the Japanese maple leaves creating a stained glass glow to the now vivid-red translucent leaves against the green leaves of the Apache willow and the blue sky.

  

I long to be a part of the beauty and peace of the moment.  Birds call to one another and to me, in various voices.  Shades of green flicker as the air wafts through trees and birds zoom through the tiny openings.  A brown rabbit has been a statue, watching me as I watch it.  I step off the deck and walk toward the rose bush.  The cascading branches filled with flowers call me closer.  I see the gate just under the abundance of fragrant roses, calling me to what lies beyond.  Always a mystery; always something new.  The play of light and dark…

 

 Passing under the rose arch, I put my hand on the gate and ponder: is this the time to pass through or should I be doing my chores?  No real question there – it’s time.

 I take my hand off the gate, relax and focus… and slither through.

Garden Visitor

One of the joys of being home now that I am retired is to be available to greet visitors that may arrive unannounced, like this turtle.

She had wandered in to a garden area I was about to work in and, as most of the other turtles that I have encountered, looked up straight into my eyes – not at my feet.  Her back was scraped, as if a lawn mower had sliced her shell years ago since it was now well healed. I put her into a bucket and brought out some blueberries, a slice of banana and some tender lettuce – all of which I’ve found turtles like – but each with their preferences.

 

She went right for the blueberries and demolished them as you can see, as well as the scrapes on her back.  It was wonderful to once again watch and hold a sweet turtle, one of many who have more personality, preferences and awareness than most people would expect. And there is much to learn from them, like patience and pacing oneself one step at a time, but also keeping your eye on the goal and overcoming challenges and obstacles along the way.

So glad I was home to welcome this garden visitor.