My Birthday Present

Fairy Land! Little did I dream when I asked Bob to make me a gate for the "new" shade garden that he'd out-do himself and make this marvelous creation! What a great birthday gift! The gate leads from the path (that used to end abruptly at a section of non-descript fencing) to the greater wild woods beyond. Enchanting.
The new gate transformed the entire area. Bob maneuvered the elephant ears (Colocasia) closer to the base of the large pine tree (to the right) and he even installed a new drive-through gate farther to the right. That opened up the entire backside of my lilac area and gave us even more room to play in. I now feel inspired to "finish"* the Shade Garden, complete with a path up to a higher private area that affords a lovely little view down into the rest of the garden... Magic!!
Here's another, closer shot:

It's ethereal and sturdy at the same time. The quartz rocks float in such an enchanting way in front of the gate; Bob is so eager for the mesh fence to rust up so that you'll no longer see the grid lines. I kind of like them, but it will look even more delicate...
And here's a detail of the center top of the gate: Loads of tiny quartz rocks spiraling upwards...

The other morning, I walked down with Robin to check on the Shade Garden. I was delighted to see that a spider- no doubt inspired by Bob's gate- had constructed a web to the left of the gate. It was sparkling with dew and made a wonderful visual accompaniment!

Alas! I tried to take a picture that captured the beautiful rivalry of web and gate but didn't succeed! Could it get any better than this?!?
 *Is any garden ever really "finished"?!?!?

Candy Candy Nico Neko

 

 (Bear with me: I'm learning a "new blogger interface" and there are some glitchy things to sort out!

Above, is our new horse Nico. Or is that "Neko"? And as mentioned, her name was "Candy" so now I'm transitioning her my chanting "Candy Candy Nico Neko" to her as I ride... no wonder she looks confused! Everyone at the barn has been so complimentary about how pretty she is (and she is!)  So far, so good. She's had her feet and teeth attended to and I'm contemplating a saddle fitting as she's much broader around then Maggie or Crispin, my two previous mounts. 

The farm where she is temporarily residing is entertaining. They have (in no particular order), chickens, ducks, ferrets, sheep, goats, donkeys, and most entertaining of all, alpacas.

Several of these individuals reside in a stall near Nico/Neko and utter otherwordly space alien sound effects:  a cross between purring, humming and Chinese. They're friendly in an odd way, more like they're observing us to report back to that other planet.

The farm is a bizarre petting zoo. Sue, who is alpha-mare and Dr. Dolittle rolled into one crazy lady multi-tasker, keeps adopting animals from nasty circumstances. That's a good thing! Most of them are very sweet and have made the horses utterly bomb-proof around a menagerie But some of these animals are dodgy four-foot juvenile delinquents- the goats in particular. I have been warned that the goats will consume EVERYTHING including tack (saddles/bridles/straps and general horse-related gear for you non-horse individuals) and horse's tails. (There are several unfortunate equines sporting brutally chewed off stubby tails!) I warned Sue that if my horse's tail goes missing, there'll be goat stew. Never a dull moment!

Thus far the new horse- call her what you will!- is in general a good egg. I hacked her around the farm yesterday, after I had ridden in the outdoor arena and she was great. Didn't spook once, even though a trip around the farm passes not only the aforementioned mammal menagerie, but huge dumpsters, abandoned trucks, functional farm equipment, gargantuan piles of manure and spent bedding, random discarded tires, lawn furniture and general havoc. I'm having fun!

 

 

Storm A 'Comin! And A Goin'!

We are awaiting a Tropical Storm today (with a name that I seem unable to pronounce; maybe that's just as well as if you give things names, they gain power!). High winds, lots of rain (which we need!) and possible trees down, power outages etc etc- which we don't need! Last night we had an unexpected fore-taste of Isaias- sudden thunder, lightening, downpour and excitement out side the bedroom and then quiet. We were able to reopen the windows afterwards. This morning is drizzly but mostly quiet; the quiet before the storm.

And speaking of quite, check out my new piece, above: in this day and age if you're not paying attention or speaking out then you're part of the problem. Thank goddess that people ARE speaking out! And yes, I sewed around all of those little points...

***********************************************************************************

It is now a full 12 days later... where have we been??!?!

The electricity blinked off for a couple of minutes during the storm and then our Internet went down. I called Frontier (an altogether evil and ineffective company!) and received vague generalities as to "uncertain when Internet would e restored", "widespread problems" blah blah blah. I called and recalled Frontier (did I mention what a vile and totally useless company they are?); I must have phoned them up seven or eight times. Each time I encountered what could have been "humorous" had it not been so infuriating: they insisted that we only had a phone account through Frontier, not Internet- this with me staring at a screen that gave me the number to call to report problems with our FRONTIER Internet. Finally one semi-alert service representative figured that it was because our bills are not bundled and one is listed under Bob and the other is listed under Robert. With that cleared up, I was handed over to yet another representative who finally spewed some weird explanation about a cut wire on our road.highly technical explanation, that!

And I still have their inane and potentially mind-damaging muzak stuck in my head. I implored the last person I spoke to to please, please NOT put me on muzak; he demurred and said he couldn't do that. So I sat, and sat and sat... I finally hung up. (And need I mention that they requested a phone number in order to call us back should we be disconnected? This from the company that we have phone service with, which seems to suggest it's on the computer screen in front of them!??!? And did they call us back?!?!??!!? NO!!!) Have I suggested what a truly awful company Frontier is?!??!?

So later that morning, I called my riding instructor to just touch base. I mentioned that our Internet was till down. She was horrified and said, "Well, maybe try what my son does when our Internet is acting up. Just shut everything off and unplug the whole system. Let it sit for a few minutes and then re-boot it." I did just that and hey presto! My eighty year old riding instructor did what Frontier couldn't- she got our Internet back up and running!

So here we are, 12 days later and I have over 400 emails to delete in my inbox. Welcome to modern-day America!