More Bird Inspiration - From Our Back Yard

Oh oh, not this gal. She chases the birds away. She had 5 babies this spring.

I have been noticing birds a lot since the spring. 

Birds have always featured prominently in most cultures - in myths and legends.

Birds are health indicators of our natural environment. 

We often first notice a change in the seasons when observing bird behaviour.

In my up coming work I want to explore the history and ideas associated with the birds I see outside my studio window. 

Desolation Sound Inspiration

Our summer holiday this year was spent sailing along the Pacific North West coast and on up into Desolation Sound

I saw lots of inspiring land-seascapes

But I think I feel a bird series coming on

Building a Lasagna Garden Bed

One of our new garden projects this summer was building a lasagna bed around the base of this Big-leaf Maple. It's roots are exposed in some places and the mower keeps cutting them. They need protection.

Also, this will be the comfrey plant supply bed. We will cultivate comfrey plants here then transplant them to other beds to do the job of building up the soil and providing nutrients for other plants in the bed.

A house down the street put lots of flattened cardboard out for the taking.

It is the perfect 1st layer. It kills off the grass below then breaks down, adding organic matter to the soil.

While building up the next layers we kept the hose running on the cardboard to thoroughly wet it.

In the compost area there are piles of paper, coffee grounds, grass clippings, horse manure and leaves.

All of these were added in thin layers with a sprinkle of glacial rock dust every so often. The rock dust provides minerals to soil organisms so they can do their job.

All of our household paper is recycled except for the shiny stuff  that has undesirable chemicals in the inks.We put that out in bags for the city's recycling program. 

We kept the hose running on the pile as we built up the layers to provide plenty of moisture for the chemical reactions that need to take place.

The pile was covered with cardboard and left to 'cook'. 

A compost thermometer monitors the temperature and a water reader monitors the moisture levels. The pile needs to pass through a number of different temperature zones for a wide variety of soil organisms to become active in breaking down the materials. If the pile gets too dry over these hot summer days we need to water it.

 We have run out mulch so used cardboard to cover the new bed until we get more. As unsightly as it looks, we have found the cardboard is doing a good job at conserving moisture.

We were careful to not build up the bed against the tree trunk. Any soil or other material piled up against a tree trunk will rot its bark and could cause its premature death.

Look out for this project's update.

Summer

I have finished my Christmas stocking knitting. Christmas 2013, that is.

Son William's scarf is blocked.

It is made from a lovely cotton and silk yarn.

It is winter in New Zealand so I mailed it straight away.

This was my newly planted Garden Tower back on 10th June.

To date I have harvested over 2kgs of swiss chard, arugula, celery, cilantro and basil.

Tonight we made a delicious vegetable curry.

The Wedding Shawls

The bride wanted to give her bridesmaids and brother's girlfriend shawls to wear in case things got a bit chilly standing on top of the mountain.

She asked me to make them. I was delighted.

First the sampling with white mohair.

Blocking the sample.

I knit a sample shawl on the bias using a Church Mouse pattern.

It was decided the pattern worked but the yarn was too woolly. 

So I had to go to the yarn store - oh dear.

We settled on a kid mohair/silk mix in colours matching the dresses.

Seven shawls, plus the sample one, were completed in good time. But I had to watch lots of movies on TV to get in the necessary number of knitting hours each week, to meet the deadline.

Here is Amber wearing her shawl.  Each time I saw her over the evening she was wearing it a different way. She made her dress too. She's such a clever girl.

The Wedding

We had a wedding. On top of Kicking Horse mountain in British Columbia.

Our older daughter, Katherine, married Sebastian on July 5th.

Many guests travelled great distances to get to the top of the mountain.

Our first family meal together. 

At this time some guests were wrestling with car troubles, flight delays and diversions, and lost luggage. They were still to join us.

Dirt Dyeing

While on a 'Girls' Weekend' at the ranch we did some Bengala dyeing.

Rose and Kerry tie stones into a tea towel.

Norma kneads a white t-shirt she is overdyeing.

Rose, Gail and Norma hard at work.

Rose taking out the stones.

The results

French Bucol Fabrics

A friend gave me 2 lengths of lame-type fabric. One had this label. A search of the name revealed Bucol has been a famous silk house in Lyon since 1920.

I needed to test the fabrics to find out if they were silk, or not. Out came the burn chart.

The silver one burned briefly then self extinguished. It melted giving off an odor of sweet chemicals and formed a hard black round bead.

It is polyester.

The gold one burned and melted. It was not self extinguishing. A hard black irregular bead formed. 

It is an Orlon or Acrilan acrylic.

I am a little disappointed they are not some vintage French silk from the 1920s but their melting properties will be something to take advantage of when working with them. And they are very pretty and shiny.

Projects' Progress

The Fairy Ring mushrooms, lichens and bark had been wrapped in a wool blanket for over month.

It was time to take the bundle down to the pond and unwrap it.

Looking good but rather smelly.

It needed a good wash.

Some interesting marks I could work with.

My Garden Tower after a week.

We will be eating the arugula and celery next week.

My garden partner planted his tower this week.

He opted to plant mostly seeds.

Garden Towers

Around our house the only place deer and rabbits can't reach is the balcony where we have taken off the stairs. 

We bought a Garden Tower, gardentowerproject.com, each, to grow edibles in.

It is like a large strawberry planter with a wormery/compost maker down the centre.

After a pleasant  morning at the nursery we each bought home our favourite edibles.

Ingredients for the soil mix.

A mix of the compost we made during our Organic Master Gardener class, Gaia College, info@gaiacollege.ca, and all the additives to make a rich growing medium.

It was getting dark by the time I had planted my tower.

Now to keep up the water and to enjoy watching it grow.

Andy Goldsworthy

Here is a Tate Studio Visit video of Andy Goldsworthy.
I found it on Rachel's great blog.
i.art.rachel: Andy Goldsworthy
Do visit her blog for lots of interesting posts about art, artists and music clips.

Pattern Design Course Progress

One of the morning exercises was to analyse different patterns and to find examples of different types of patterns to put in our Pattern Dictionaries.

Elisha is working out how this pattern was made.

Elisha working with a new stamp she carved.

See below the resulting pattern.

Charlotte's new carved stamp produces a number of appealing repeating patterns.

Another pattern Charlotte produced with her new stamp.

Connie made several stamps using hot glue. They make a distinctive mark.