2009 Lights

This year we went with an Aunt Grace Memorial tree again, a bit sparse with ornaments, but we were lucky to get it up at all.

I had hoped to get some nice night photos of Christmas lights, but most turned out blurry. This house also goes all out for Halloween.This is at the same house, the lights are programmed and are really niceThis house is on Dickie Avenue. The photo is blurry, but maybe it is better that way. Are they candles?Christmas Eve we were at my brother-in-laws, they had their fireplace lit and it smelled great. He said it was cherry wood. Reminded me of pipe tobacco smoke, maybe I‘ll start pipe smoking as a hobby. I should have taken a video and had a Yule Log entry.

Gymnosperms of Christmas Past

2008, Down one kid, though there was Christmas in February when we went over and visited her. This year was an Aunt Grace Memorial Tree. My Aunt Grace gave us some ornaments over the years for Christmas. After she passed away, her family brought tons of ornaments and other home decorations to a family gathering for who ever wanted them. So we have enough ornaments to decorate a whole tree thanks to Aunt Grace.

2007, Decorated with priceless hand-made one-of-a-kind ornaments that only a parent can love, can you find the Christmas Triangle? How about the Toilet Roll Santa?

2006 – Awfully sparse. Some years we try for a theme, I thought that this was a Gold year, but I see blues and purples. It might just be an Aunt Grace Lite tree.

2005 – Awfully straggly, but at least thar be gifts. Arrr look, there’s an Angel with a tree stuck up her bum.

2004 – No tree of our own. We were going away the day after, on Boxing Day, so decided not to set one up. Santa left us presents anyway.

Here are some of the Christmas trees we saw on our trip. Most places we stayed at had a tree in the lobby or hall, but we neglected to take pictures of those for some reason.

Trafalgar Square tree, it seemed like most of the tree lights we saw on our trip were strung vertically like this one for some reason.Lugano, Switzerland Tree

Milan, Italy Tree, outside the Duomo. We were in Milan for New Years and had dinner out at a local place. They were nice enough to squeeze us in before the diners with reservations showed up. Later that night we were awoken by fireworks. Another Milan tree, this one inside the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, a pricy indoor shopping arcade. It was weird not setting up a tree, though now without the kids around, I’m less excited about decorating the tree and house. I would easily go away around Christmas again, maybe next time we will go prior to Christmas and get to visit some Advent Markets. That I would like, market stalls, Christmas ornaments, handmade crafts, mulled wine, carols, hot holiday snacks. Vienna, Salzburg, Munich, Brussels, I don’t care I’d go anywhere.

Midway Gardens Sprite

I was fixing a stature for some friends and one of them mentioned how much the top half of the statue looked like a dead person lying on the porch. So while waiting for some epoxy to dry I wondered what else the poor little Sprite could look like. The original Sprite was designed for Frank Lloyd Wright’s Midway Gardens built in Chicago starting in 1913 and sculpted by Alphonso Lannelli.

The Big Sleep Sprite  Clown Sprite Hipster Sprite Grim Sprite, yes they get worse. S&M SpriteBondage Sprite 

The statue is made of cement and some soft aggregates and very fine fibers. It seems like the outer skin plays a large part of keeping the statue together, the mixture within is not all that hard. I used a masonry drill bit to drill holes for a strengthening rod, but I found that a regular drill bit worked as well. The following photo shows the fibers.

Some folks add fiberglass fibers to hypertuffa pots and troughs, but I don’t.

After the epoxy has dried I will fill the cracks with transparent  phenoseal caulk mixed with some of the dust created when drilling the holes for the strengthening rod. I tried mixing some of the dust with the epoxy, but it was too dark. I also tried mixing the statue dust with some Portland cement, but it was too green. The fuzzy photo below shows the cement mix on the right and a sample of the phenoseal mix on the left. Plus the phenoseal will do a better job of keeping out any moisture.

Here is the finished Sprite.

Fixed cracks.  Hopefully moss will grow on the upper part of the statue just as on the base and the cracks will become less noticeable.

I used cement caulk around the feet of the Sprite and dusted with Sprite guts dust. There was an uneven gap around the foot of the statue and the base, but I didn’t want to take a chance and try to separate the two and try to reattach. That would have been asking for trouble.

Advent Time is Here

Oh Happiness and Cheer, the Peanut’s Christmas tune compiled from multiple tabs and Youtube sources. My daughter’s guitar teacher plays this tune beautifully… and I always wanted to learn it, though I’m sure he plays it differently.

The lyrics sound happy, but the tune is so melancholy. Maybe it is just my association of the song with Charlie Brown’s poor Christmas spirit. The Peanut's Christmas specials were never my favorites. I much preferred “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” narrated by Fred Astaire as the Mailman and “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer”, narrated by Burl Ives. I loved the Mailman’s North Pole “half track” Mail truck and Fred is my favorite male dancer.

So Advent time is here, countdown to Christmas and a New Year, time to decorate and bake and cook and clean. Make travel arrangements and see family. When I was a kid and we decorated, I always liked advent wreaths, we had them at home, but we never lit the candles. I guess rambunctious kids and lit candles don’t mix. Bad enough I almost set the laundry room alight trying to distill alcohol. Three more Sundays.

Christmas Time is Here - Vince Guaraldi

             

V1 - Christmas time is here
Happiness and cheer

Fun for all that children call

Their favorite time of the year

V2 – same chords
Snowflakes in the air
Carols everywhere
Olden times and ancient rhymes
Of love and dreams to share

           
V3- Sleigh bells in the air
Beauty everywhere

Yuletide by the fireside

             
And joyful memories there

V4 – same chords as V1&2

Christmas time is here
We'll be drawing near
Oh, that we could always see
Such spirit through the year
Oh, that we could always see
Such spirit through the year...

November Diversion

Finished up the last of my pearlite and vermiculite this month and so moved onto other lightweight aggregates I had lying about the château(I’ve decided to learn French). Hopefully by spring I will be able to plant these troughs up with some Alpines

and add them to some of the others I have.

This trough contains small pieces of lump charcoal, peat moss, sand and Portland cement. The form was a square milk crate and I used ring binder covers around the inner perimeter to keep the mix in. The cement mix doesn’t stick to the plastic covers . (12”x12”x9”/7”x7”x7.5”) 11/16/09I might use it as a reservoir for a fountain I am working on. The water would come out the top of a large hollow ball I have and would trickle off and back into the reservoir. The ball will be held aloft by a 1” copper pipe supplying the water and be covered in flattened glass beads like the kind used in aquariums with grouting between. The water and pump in the center of the trough would be hidden by pea gravel held up by hardware cloth.

When I had run out of pearlite and vermiculite, I cut up some scrap expando foam insulation from scraps I had saved. Why did I save the scraps, were they all from my house, what ever would I do with them? Don’t know, no and something I’m sure. This trough is made of the foam(I honed my kitchen knife skills chopping the foam into little pieces), peat moss, Portland cement and black liquid cement coloring. (11”x9”x9”/8”x5.5”x8”) 11/16/09 I might try to remove the foam pieces by dissolving them. I have a smaller pot made from leftovers of the same mix that I will try it on and see how it looks.

This pot was made from a disposable cake cover and has just pearlite, vermiculite and Portland cement. It is very light for its size. I ground up lump charcoal and then greased and dusted the mold with the charcoal powder, just like baking a cake. I was hoping to get interesting texture and colors. I didn’t. (9.5” diameter x 4”/6” diameter x 2.5” deep) 11/09/09

I had run out of pearlite and vermiculite while making this next trough so it is not as tall as the mold it was made from. In addition, the mix also contains peat moss, brick red powered cement dye and Portland cement. Judging from the weight I think I must have added sand as well. (11”x9”x6”/8”x5.5”x5) 11/09/09This trough and the one made with foam and black dye were made from the same mold and the pink one even though shorter, weighs more then the taller one. The beauty of lightweight aggregates. This one also had a piece of hardware cloth sandwiched in the base.

Autumn 2009 Colors

No foliage trips this year, just some color from around the house. Still working on having something in bloom every month.

Leaves from saplings that sprouted in the yard, I stuck them in a flower box, but next year I may grow them in small pots.

Cyclamen, I missed photographing the flower. I used to hate them when we grew them at the farm, the corm and the stems were always slimy when you had to move the pots around. I really like them now, both for the foliage and the flowers which look like little butterflies floating above the plant.  Heuchera, this one has white flowers in late spring. I have to divide the coral bells next spring as they are taking over, so put in your orders now. One white, one hot pink with green foliage and one soft pink with green foliage.

Campanula SedumNot a sedum.Rose hip Dianthus family   Lavender Stragglers, I have a few blossoms here and there.I didn’t get around to taking pictures of the fall blooming crocus or the roses which were blooming longer than I expected. The dicentra blooms were still looking good until Saturday’s frost.