The Ol' "Good Fences Make Good Neighbors" Tactic

We're so happy. We've started our equivalent of the Great Wall of China, albeit a stockade version that is probably not visible form the Moon. I adore fences as I confessed to Bob today. To state the obvious, they do all these amazing things: they cut down on noise and allow you to walk outside wearing terrible, dirty gardening clothing and not have to worry about an immediate critique from the neighbors. You can have coffee at your kitchen table and not feel like you're on display. It helps to keep varmints like deer and coyotes out and varmints like your dog in. The funny thing is that we like the people who live on this side of our house. They're really nice and their kids are great but Bob and I are sometimes in need of space. So we build a fence. We're trying to assure our neighbors that it's not because of them I think tehy understand!
The fence will be another ongoing project. We "inherited" almost 90 feet (of which you see only 32 feet in the photo) and will be adding to it as we can afford to purchase more. Today being a wonderful warm sunny day, we worked at putting up another four sections. We're already reveling in the privacy.

Picture of fence sections that we moved from near Bob's studio.

Fun with Bedding

What to do with that full sized mattress found festering behind the studio building? Jules and I wasted no time in turning it into an impromtu trampoline. It's a foam mattress so it proved especially springy and resilient. Of course, all mattresses when taken out of contrast will eternally remind me of my art installation "Be ReBorn Thru Art" which you may recall featured a mattress repurposed as a big vagina. What fun that was!
Discarded objects (and let's face it: we have a bumper crop of them!) keep appearing. Things like broken cinder blocks and bits of wood and other materials that will decompose are finding their way into the strip of land behind Bob's studio where they become fill. Bob wants to build up the ground level there and make an outside work area.
Other objects- like mattresses and plaid recliners- prove more problematic and have to be chopped up into smaller pieces and stuffed in (millions of) garbage bags and hauled to the dump. It's exhausting just how much stuff was left behind: piles and piles of roof shingles (all bearing exposed nails) and many square miles of carpeting that I offered in a previous posting. (No takers yet!)
I am constantly amazed at how terribly people use their land. Here we live on a truly beautiful piece of earth and essentially it has been treated like a waste heap. I can't help but feel the ground is heaving multiple sighs of relieve that we are cleaning up.

Velvet Rocks

This picture is from several weeks back, but it was so pretty (despite the remains of snow!) that I wanted to put it on our blog. Out behind Bob's studio is an especially broad stretch of our stream where the water slows down and interacts with the moss covered rocks. It feels private and very removed from suburbia. Bob is excited by the different qualities of the rocks; some have odd holes and depressions in them. I'm sure he'll find a beautiful way to use them in at least one sculpture.

Bob says "Looks Huge"

So looking back up at the house from the other side of the stream it really does seem as if we have about thirty acres. Our property continues to amaze me in all its variety. We have an "upland" dry area (where the house is sited), a meadow (or field depending on my mood), a swamp, a stream and the land across the stream that seems to be almost an island. This piece has such a different feel to it: removed, secret, distant. The previous owner left it quite a mess... lots of have sawn trees and sticks lying around. We've begun piling and stacking the downed trees and it will develop into quite a private sanctuary. We have plans to construct a rustic "tea house" in the grove of evergreens.

House Projects #1

Bob and I are starting a series of on-going House Projects. This serves double-duty in terms of simply sprucing up the house and yard, but it also establishes our entire property as an art project. I am thinking of places like the fabulous Watts Towers or the place in France that a former postal worker spent years creating a fantasy environment. (Does anyone out there happen to remember who or where this was?)
So in keeping with this theme, here is an inaugural project- mulching the strip of ground along side the house and driveway (where a few daffodils are appearing) with white quartz rocks. I collect these stones, both large and small, while on walks with Jules or at the horse farm where Crisco the Stallion lives. Bob uses the quartz in his sculpture and this provides him with an overflow bed of available stones. It will also serve to brighten that side of the house as the outdoor light is out and we're unsure of where exactly the switch for it is. But at least the door works better thanks to Bob's intervention!

Another Cute Gratuitous Dog Posting and a Prayer

Does this look comfortable?

Jules seems to think so. He likes to sleep on the bottom step, with his face all mashed up against the wall, and his right side legs collapsed onto the stair and his left legs dangling. To each his or her own! (Notice attractive stain to carpet above Jules' midsection. Additional note: Jules' nose is really black but he'd been digging a furious hole before nap time).
However, the real intention of this posting wasn't simply the charming shot of our sleeping prince.  It is to sneakily deliver my version of a prayer to the Gods/Goddesses/Powers/Spirits/Forces/Resident Deities- Whatever of New Neighbors:

Please be benevolent, oh Gods, Goddesses/Powers/Spirits/Forces/Resident Deities/Whatevers.
Grant us New Neighbors who are neither Intolerant
Nor Bigoted. Let them neither flyeth the flag of Confederacy nor Don't Tread on Me.
Leadeth them not down the path of Republicanism nor Tea Party affiliation.
Let them not belongeth to Religious Cults or Peculiar Engines of Proselytization.
Let them not spreadeth toxic Lawn Chemistry.
Let them not use an excess of Power Equipment in the form of humongous Lawn Tractors and
Blowers of Leaves, especially on a Saturday morning.
Keep them indoors, away from mine eyes until our Fence is constructed.
So be it.

Manure and Me

Here I am with our first deposit for the compost pile. The horse farm where Crisco the Stallion* lives has manure heaps to rival the mighty Himalayas. Trust me, I was told that horses produce something on the order of fifty pounds of manure a day so there's plenty to go around. (The horse farm has somewhere around fifty horse. Do the math!)

This pile is located directly next to where the vegetable garden is going. We've gotten smarter: we used to place things like wood piles and then move them eight or nine times. When the horse comes home to live (after we put up a fence) the manure situation will be that much easier. Shoveling shit is hard work and composting is a fine art.

*No, Crisco is not a stallion (he's a gelding) and his name is actually Crispin. But my mother (aka Mommy) couldn't remember his name but knew he was white (like shortening, I guess!) and told her neighbor that his name was Crisco. The neighbor inquired as to whether he was a stallion, so the name fit!