Loves Me Like A Rock

My garden is a kitchy collection of mismatched pots and plants, placed willy-nilly based on inspiration and only occasional logic and never on the rules of gardening.  Not surprising if you know me at all.  There is no fancy statuary but, instead, there are old aggregate pier blocks and bowling balls.  I built a couple trellises from driftwood this year.  This old hand-truck was left behind from the rug-cleaning business that used to operate from our house decades ago.  I've moved it around the garden and finally decided it needed some transformed.  While confident I could do it, Mark was home and prefers to wield the power tools so he created, based on my brainstorm, another support for the tomatoes I hope will thrive there.

Artichokes and zucchini share space in my front garden with hollyhocks and hydrangeas.  Herbs are scattered up the driveway among the roses and glads. Fancy brass plant markers would clearly be out of their element. Years ago, I saw an picture in a magazine of painted rocks created to mark plants and I've been painting rocks ever since to identify the residents of my garden.  

The first step, and often the hardest, is to find the rocks, especially the larger ones.  The smaller ones I've found on the beach.  The larger ones are JUST like the ones you might see along a river...say...similar to the area near the Mad River pump station.  I'm not sure those particular stones would be okay to take since I'm sure they're hauled in but probably a landscape supply place would sell you a nice stone or two to paint.  I will tell you that rocks I once collected at Centerville Beach in Ferndale, eventually broke into pieces proving themselves to be sandstone.  Sadly, they already had my artwork when they disintegrated.  Don't use those. 

Once you've found your canvases, wash well and set in the sun to dry a bit while you ponder their shapes for inspiration.  Will you mark specific plants?  Does it look like a whale? Will you make a memorial to a beloved goldfish interred among the marigolds? What colors will you use? 

 I use simple acrylic paints.  If you don't have a stash, any craft store has them for less than a buck for a 2-ounce bottle. Grab a few colors.  Grab a few more. Except for a small enough brush for lettering (or use rubber stamp letters if you have them) and details, you can do with sponges for most of the base coating. You'll need a can of polyurethane spray; gloss is more impressive than matte but ... it's your garden and your choice.

 This is them in progress. Get fancy or not.  Add glitter or not.  Add dots and swirls and borders -  It's hard to see but the "cukes" rock looked like denim so I added yellow "stitches" around the edges. I even did some Mod-Podge with clock faces I've torn from magazines for just such a project.

 When you're done, let them dry then take them outside to spray with the polyurethane.  I like to do this outside on a sunny day and lay on a BUNCH of thin coats throughout the day.  Let them dry real well until they are no longer tacky...(OK, sticky...mine are ALWAYS tacky!) before placing them in the garden.  They make great gifts for gardening friends, too. 

Lights Will Guide You Home

... and I will try to fix you.

If you know me, you know I'm a fiend for storms. It happened when we were in Washington for Mark's brother's funeral so missed the tsunami. Yes, I'm a little disappointed but, unlike the fools seen walking on the beach as the reporters stood above them speaking of impending coastal doom, I would NOT have been on the sand. I would, however, have been on a precipice watching my world dance the Tsunami Surge. Long after we returned and the surge had come and gone, I was skittish to walk on the beach, leery of the aftershocks. but this week, it was time. I took a rare lunch break and headed to the South Spit and found that Eureka was not unscathed in the tidal aftermath.

I'm never more aware of the half-dozen times I enter and leave the Tsunami zone on Hookton Road as I am after a good quake but I was in search of driftwood for a project and the South Spit is the logical destination. I expected that I would collect a pocket-full of beach trash along the way, as always but, as I strolled along, dodging the water (was that a surge?!) and scanning for the perfect driftwood sticks for my project, among the razor-shell clam shells were flashes of color. As I stopped to pick up a bottle here, a plastic cap there, the obligatory pieces of nylon rope, I would also pick up what turned out to be small, colorful shards of plastic. The handful of trash became a pocketful. Became a bag full. The shards of plastic, like cheap imitations of beach glass, were scattered all around, brightly colored pieces of smoothly sanded blue and orange and green. Where did it come from? Was it stirred up out of the gyre? Carried from Hawaii churned inside the wave of the tsunami?
My favorite bit of jetsam? A flashcube. Remember flashcubes? Four flashbulbs mounted in a cube that was used on the Kodak Instamatic cameras from the 70's? This was crazy. How long had that durable little hunk of plastic been floating around? From where had it been flushed? Luckily, I took my big bag to carry wood and ended up filling it nearly halfway with caps, bottles and dozens of shotgun shells; washed down river from a target site perhaps? Has no one heard the term "police your brass"?

This is a beautiful stretch of relatively pristine beach normally carpeted with expanses of driftwood. Who knows where this stuff came from...maybe it actual made it to a recycling bin but blew off the truck, on to the street and into the storm drain, where it floated out to sea and broke into pieces.

It's sad that so many disposables have taken the place of things that would be easily washed or repaired or simply done without. Why can't we be bothered with washing and reusing instead of tossing items in favor of new versions of the same thing. Why don't we fix things instead of throwing them out and replacing them?Well, I fixed something. These lamps have been in the family and not really my style, though some would argue that I have no style. Chinese Ginger Jars (actually from China). Carved wooden bases. A patina that comes enlightening the life of a chain-smoker. Both cords had been repaired long ago in a way that made me nervous. Some may have slated them for the thrift store but these lamps are worth saving. How hard can it be - it always looks so simple when Martha does it? I hit Shafer's for new wire, plugs and sockets. Having them apart allowed me to clean the nicotine from the surfaces hidden nooks then oil the wooden bases before reassembly. Took me longer than it took Martha but, guess what? They work! And maybe they do fit my hippie-chic decor, after all.