Geese in the Gorge

I think our eagles have left the Gorge.

I checked at all my usual haunts.

Not one did I see.

In their place I found geese!

They were fun to watch and I was the only one at the park.

Not one other hiker, biker, walker, birder or hunter.

Just me and my dog alone on the beach with geese.

Thanks for stopping by.

Magical Morning in January

This little chickadee drew me outside.

The wonder of hoarfrost kept me in my wintery garden for a bit.

My purple birdcage is only partially covered.

Our backyard fence, bent from heavy snowfall earlier this winter.

I counted six nuthatches at our feeders today along wit a multitude of chickadees.

When the sun appeared, the glistening hoarfrost was magical.

My garden ‘Buggettes’ prove to be colorful bright spots this time of year.

Hoarfrost looks downright prickly here!

Another nuthatch, ready for his turn at our feeders.

Trying to capture the glistening as hoarfrost is struck by sun’s warmth.

My glass Ladybug is another bright spot in my winter garden.

Clusters throughout my garden were covered with hoarfrost, but the sun was fading fast.

Joe Pye Weed covered with hoarfrost in front of my blue chairs.

For a minute I didn’t recognize this!  Metal obelisk waiting for spring plants to emerge.

As the sun disappeared, I snapped this last shot & faded into the warmth of my house.  Thanks for stopping by!  Especially in the depth of winter!!

Full Moon Rising

The last full moon of 2012 appeared tonight above my front porch.  I couldn’t resist grabbing my camera.

100 photos later, these are my favorites taken with my Nikon D5100.  I wanted to compare these to my old camera, but by the time I recharged the battery from lack of use we had cloud cover.

Thanks for stopping by & Happy New Year!

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays from my  heart to yours!

Why I say ‘Happy Holidays’:  Rest assured my Christian friends, to you I say ‘Merry Christmas’ and completely understand the concept in it’s entirety.  That is… from my failed Catholic, Lutheran perspective. I happen to have friends and relatives who are Jewish, Buddhist, Pagan, Atheist, Hindu, Wicca, Shintoist, Rastafari, Bahá’í, Jains, and more. Personally, I cherish these differences and choose a combination of them all to practice (except Atheist – I do believe there is a higher power & from personal experience know that we are not in control of everything). I say ‘Happy Holidays’ joyfully and wholeheartedly to encompass the entire range of religious, spiritual, giving season of peace toward all mankind. And womankind. Wishing you “Happy Holidays” is my way of saying ‘I love you all’, no matter your religious/spiritual preference.  From my heart to yours. xoxoxo

Storm Brewing

Storm brewing over the Columbia River and Columbia River Gorge in White Salmon WA.

After the Storm

I didn’t finish telling you about this January storm!   It left a huge mess to clean up!  Shady areas took the brunt of falling limbs. I lost many trees and will have to heavily prune a few shrubs, then hope for the best.  I was so sad the morning I discovered how much I’d lost.  For days all I could do was look out the windows at young trees snapped in half and old trees with branches barely hanging on that would need to be sawed off.

The weight of a couple feet of snow, topped with a few inches of freezing rain froze everything solid and spelled disaster when a wind storm came along the following day.  Debris is knee high along this path…or what WAS a path.  I lost a couple trees in this area too, but the shrubs should all be ok.

I think these trees along my driveway, next to the iris beds will be ok after some major pruning. They didn’t have any heavy limbs falling on them, but branches snapped from heavy ice.  Oh, and did I tell you our power went on and off the first two days, then went out completely for five days.  Amazing how dependent we are on electricity.  At least we stayed warm & were able to cook on our wood stove!

Today the sun came out and the wind stopped blowing, so I decided to tackle this section of my garden because I see it from my studio window every day.  I’m on the Gorge Artists Open Studio Tour again, so need to get my garden sorted out before April!  Maybe if I work on a different section each week I can have it ready in time.  Folks have to walk through my garden to get to my studio so I want it to look as nice as possible.

I have to share something wonderful that happened in the midst of my angst over this disaster in my garden.

I received a phone call from our local nursery, Vanguard, telling me they had something in their office for me & would I mind stopping in when I next came into town.  Well, not one that can hold my curiosity, I dashed into town to see what they had for me!

Someone had phoned in an order to replace my trees!  What??!!  One of my Facebook Friends, anonymously gave me the most amazing gift.  Beyond the trees, my “Facebook Forest Friend” as she/he prefers to be called gave me a sense of wonder.

An overwhelming and amazing gratitude is what I felt when given something valuable and unexpected without anything in return required…not even a ‘thank you note or phone call’…anonymously.  I don’t think these words are quite saying it.  Simply put I was blown away.  And still am!

Back to my clean-up, here’s the ‘after’ photo of the section shown above, with all the debris now raked up.  You can see where I piled the debris in the back left part of this photo, but you can see it better below.

For scale, I had my dog Treasure sit in front.  It’s about 2′ deep x 3′ tall by 8′ wide.  Just from one section!  The larger branches wait for me in the upper sections while my back recovers from today.  Some of those larger branches might be good for next year’s wood stove fires!

I can’t thank you enough, my Facebook Forest Friend!  I’ve been putting my list together and will be ordering my new trees very soon.

Thanks for stopping by and allowing me to share my gardening journey with you.

January Storm in the Columbia River Gorge

Icicles formed the first day of this January storm in the Columbia River Gorge and I realized I’d never tried to photograph one up close.

Looking through icicles hanging off our roof into the forest, I put on some rose colored glasses for my own amusement.

Then I got back to work, shoveling decks.  This side takes all my energy because snow falls here from the roof.

One side of our front deck before shoveling.  This is usually the last to get done because it’s a step down & if it doesn’t get shoveled, nothing is at risk.  My kilns are below the back deck, so I do that one first.

Heavy snowfall the first day, it was gray and dreary, but makes a pretty picture.

I needed a little color, so found my yellow glass garden fairy to photograph.  It was snowing hard, but you can still see her.

Day two of our January storm gave us 24″ of snow, overnight!  Treasure loved it!

Looking at the same half of my deck on day two, even my red glass ladybug is covered with snow.

My glass garden fairy is getting worried about the snow level rising!

Forging a path to the road where our cars are parked.  I throw snowballs, Treasure chases them.  All the way to the road.

From the front, my blue chairs are buried, but I can still see blue behind them.

Treasure chasing snowballs in the back yard.

Day two of the storm and I’m running out of shoveling steam.  Back to the rose colored glasses!

Everyone has a job to do during a snowstorm….well, except Critter.  “You can’t make me” is her mantra.

Thanks for stopping by.  Hope your winter is warm and toasty!!

 

A Working Girl’s Work

As an independant artist instead of taking advantage of Black Friday after the Thanksgiving holiday, I’ll be working.  Yes, working.  I love my job!  I’ll be in the studio stringing over 7 dozen bracelets on Friday, then selling them along with wall pocket vases, glass ladybugs, butterflies, garden art and more at the Soroptimist Shopping Extravaganza on Sunday in Hood River OR.

  After that I’ll be preparing ‘Small Works’ of glass art for Columbia Art Gallery‘s holiday show opening Dec 2 and running through the 29th.

You can find my holiday work already delivered at The Dalles Art Center and I’ll have a jewelry Trunk Show early in December at J D Smith Jewelers in The Dalles OR.  I’ll be posting the date at Steider Studios on Facebook & hope you can join us!

In the meantime, as a holiday ‘Thank You’ I’m offering complementary shipping for your on-line orders in the US -Steider Studios Shop on Zibbet!

What does this all have to do with gardening you ask?  Those bracelets I mentioned earlier were designed with you, my fellow gardeners in mind.  I signed up for the Portland Yard, Garden and Patio Show Feb. 17 – 19 2012, and have been designing specifically for gardeners just like you & me!  I think you’re going to LOVE my ladybug bracelets!

Thanking you with all my heart for continuing to follow my journey, I wish you love, light, and joy, along with family and friendship this week of giving Thanks.  Happy Thanksgiving!

You Rock my World

Yes, YOU rock my world!  In return I give you Pink Quartz, the rock of love.  When I brought this 85 pound symbol of love home to my garden my husband couldn’t believe I’d actually PAID for a rock!  Yep, I did!!  It was in February, I needed a lift and thought it a perfect Valentine’s gift.

As winter settles in, a blanket of snow usually covers my garden for months.  Not so this year!  We’ve had waves of snowfall then warm snow-melting temperatures, which means my garden is mostly brown with brief bouts of white blanket.  Without the snow I can see all the rocks in my garden, those I’ve dug up and those I’ve collected.  Yes, I collect rocks right along with plants for my garden.

If you’ve read some of my beginning blog posts you know my garden was hard earned via digging a lot of rocks out of the ground before anything could be planted.  Those rocks came in handy for many landscaping projects.

One of my spring projects will be renovating this terraced bed.  Now that I have a little more experience I can rebuild it much better than my original effort.  All last season as plants emerged I scooped them out so I wouldn’t lose any when I begin renovations.

I’ve always loved and collected rocks.  As kids, my cousins and I would walk the back alleys of our little town, picking up ‘pretty rocks’ that were white and sparkly from the gravel that was used in alleys back then.  I still pick up white sparkly rocks wherever I find them.

A friend gave me obsidian…. a truckload of it.  His dad was a rock hound and he has tons.

I use it to line paths, but it doesn’t show up as vividly as beach rocks do.

Another friend gave me rocks he collected for a patio.  After I built my patio I had enough leftover to build a small bench.  There’s still more waiting on inspiration for another project.

Yet another friend gave me river rocks when the floods of ’96 ravaged his part of Mosier Creek.  Rocks flew out of the rampaging creek, completely covering his property.  A few of his friends hauled out truckloads for our gardens.

I’ve received gifts of rocks and I’ve given gifts of rocks.  I love rock stores where you can buy shiny, smooth, colorful rocks.  I’ve given my grandson and nephew rock tumblers!

I have buckets of rocks waiting for homes.  Do you collect rocks?  Have a favorite?  Do share!

Thanks for stopping by, I truly appreciate your visits to my garden.  Especially this time of year when there’s not so much to see.  Until next time……

Avalanche

We had an avalanche of snowfall over the last 24 hours.  I went out this morning to catch a glimpse…trudging through knee high heavy snowman-building snow with camera in hand……..

The day before I noticed too many buds for January.  And little sprigs of green poking out of the ground.

Our daytime temperature had soared into the 40’s and some might have thought spring came early.  But I knew it was far to0 early to start thinking spring.

Alas, my beautiful blue chairs need some snowpeople to enjoy them.  Perhaps I’ll make that my plan for today.

‘Dawn’ is still showing color in her buds, that remain in spite of our last icy freeze.

My little glass garden fairy is usually pouty on a good day, but covered in snow…..

…she is downright annoyed!

Then I heard the crash of snow falling off tree limbs as the sun came out.  I was happy to have seen the action before dashing back inside lest it fall on me!

Thanks to the snow plow drivers for keeping our roads clear!

And thanks to you for stopping by!  Until next time…….