A Garden Journal

A few years ago, I made my niece, Tiffany, a garden journal. Ever since, I have wanted to make myself one, too! Only problem was, I was not doing much in the way of gardening!

But two years ago, when I retired, I promised myself I would get my garden back into shape. Here where we live in rural Montana, we have voracious deer. I tried for years to grow flowers and vegetables, but no matter how many Anti-Deer Gimmicks I tried; no matter how many deer-resistant plants I bought and put in the ground; everything was decimated by those gentle-looking creatures. About 20 years ago, my dear husband, Larry, kindly built me a deer-proof garden by putting up a 7-foot fence around a 30' x 40' plot of ground. For years I grew raspberries, strawberries, flowers and herbs in my lovely garden spot. But life got crazy and I just let things go for some years.

Last year, I started experimenting with container planting. Because this was new to me, I wanted to document what worked, what did not, and how and when I planted things. It was now perfect timing for a Garden Journal!

I had this Kraft board journal in my Stash. I found some lovely paper that matched the dark pink fabric spine cover and lined the covers inside and out. The journal came with some pages and dividers. I made pockets on each side of the dividers with the leftover floral paper. I had some lined journaling paper in my stash, and glued that on both sides of cardstock pages I made to fit inside the dividers. There were only 4 heavy cardstock Kraft paper dividers, so right now, I only have enough for the next three years of journaling. But I can probably fit at least 6 years into this album, and I figure I can trace the dividers I have and make more.

When I cleaned up the garden, after the first hard frost, I retrieved all the tags from what I had planted, taped them to the pages of the journal, and documented what I though about them, how well they grew, and whether I felt they were worth bothering with again. I even graded the flowers from a 1 (least likely to purchase again) to a 10 (most likely to purchase again), taking all that into consideration. I am so pleased with my Journal!

My Mosaic Piggy

I am not tremendously artistic. I am more "crafty". A couple of years ago, a girlfriend introduced me to painting ceramics. It is completely out of my comfort zone, so I try to play around with it a few times every year. This was my big project last year. I thought this piggy bank was just lovely. Stephanie, at the ceramic shop is really wonderful at directing me....

I painted the cast piggy with two coats of the beige. Then, I dry-brushed all the "lace" with white to give it an antique look. And after that, I took about 10 days to paint each little pane of mosaic a different jewel tone. Then, I painted a glaze over everything, twice.

He is so pretty...I have no idea what to do with him now...And that is the #1 problem with making ceramics...My advice to you: If you are going to spend that kind of time and money on a hobby, you should probably know what you are going to do with what you make!

Dreamin'

I have very vivid and odd (mind you, not strange or weird...just odd) dreams. There are a couple of dreams that are even recurring. One in particular I have and, in my sleep, I say to myself.."Oh, I know this dream! I wonder if it will come out the same as it has before." And I always wake myself up before the dream resolves itself...so odd...

Last night I had a completely New To Me dream....

I was shopping in a gift shop set up in the foyer of a really big church where some kind of rally was being held. It was really fun looking at the different things being sold. (I love dreams about shopping, especially shopping in antique or vintage shops! LOL) I meandered in and out of the shelves and half-walls full of lots of artsy crafty things. Then, I found myself at the end of that church, went out the door, walked along a bit, and entered into another church. I was disappointed there was no gift shop, but a door opened to the interior where people were sitting on pews, and I saw there were more half-walls with things for sale at the back of the auditorium. So I wandered along looking at those things, and the aisle turned down a carpeted hallway. There was artwork hung on the walls and I was drawn to one of the pictures that was a wooded scene.

The picture was of a woodland lake with trees surrounding it, going up on all sides, like the little lake was in a bit of a hole. I saw that, across from the lake, at some distance, there was an old, derelict cabin. Suddenly, the picture became a moving picture and right in front of the cabin there was a grizzly bear standing on his hind legs, sniffing the air. He apparently caught a whiff of me, turned around and loped into the cabin.

And then I found myself in the picture! It came to my attention that I was not alone but with a couple of people I did not know. We were discussing the fact that, with the bear in the area we should get in our canoe and go back to our car. Turning around, I could see no canoe. None of use could figure out what had happened to (what I know in my head was green??) the canoe... One person said, "Sally must have taken it!"

While we were trying to decide what to do next, I looked up and saw a badger creeping towards us from the direction of the cabin. I pointed it out to the people I was with and, as none of us had ever seen a badger in the wild, we watched in fascination as it crawled on its belly toward us. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a chipmunk jumped out of a clump of weeds, right on top of the badger's head....and they started laughing and talking to each other--like cartoon characters, only they were wild animals! We backed away from them and let them be (like this was perfectly natural and as expected).

By this time, it was getting dark and we were really becoming uneasy because the canoe had not returned and we were all well-aware of the grizzly hanging out in the cabin. As we were discussing our dilemma, a small brown SUV (yes, my dreams are very vivid and memorable) came around a corner on a road up above us (that until that moment we had been completely unaware existed). The car stopped, they rolled down their windows and asked if we needed a ride to our car. We looked at each other, trying to decide if we should worry about Sally (mind you--I have never met a "Sally" in my entire life!) and the canoe, and knowing that we needed to take ourselves to safety.

And then I woke up.

No doubt a psychologist would just have a heyday inside my head!

That's it...just thought I would share that with you! Have a great day!