Fake Stone Troughs and Pots

Here are some of the fake stone planters I have made. My plans were to make more troughs and plant them with alpine plants from the different countries we have visited, but the plans have been altered slightly. Some of the larger pots I had made have been given away and I don't have photos of them.

The pots are made using portland cement and lightweight aggregates. Usually some combination of perlite, vermiculite, polystyrene, some peatmoss and sometimes sand. Usually about 1 part cement to 3 parts aggregate. I try to see how light I can get the planter to be without it being too weak. The less you pack the mixture into the mold the lighter it will be, but it would also be weaker. I had one trough that would have been just perfect, light and strong, but I disturbed it too soon and it was ruined. One of the pots I made using packing peanuts chopped into quite large pieces. After it had cured, I poured gasoline on it to dissolve the polystyrene, this left large voids. The plant in this pot tends to dry out quick, but the pot does look interesting.

This one has peatmoss in the mix and has wooly thyme planted in it. The mix also had green cement pigment added.

This pot has had brick red pigment added, there is a lot of vermiculite in the mix and there is also sand, I have tried to get coarser vermiculite, but the fine grade is all I have purchased so far. Shundler in NJ sells all kinds, but I haven't contacted them yet.

The 2 plants in this trough are Erinus Alpinus "Fairy Foxglove" and Alpine Campion. The trough looks very concretey, I tried smearing moss into the sides, but it has been too dry for them to take hold. I was going to say root, but they don't really have roots.

This trough has hardware cloth as a core, so the sides don't have to be as thick and has peatmoss included with the vermiculite. It contains Alpine Campion, rock cress, edelweiss and a gnome in a shallow grave.

I have used 12 AWG copper wire to keep this trough from falling apart. I tried to remove the inner form too quick and ruined the structural integrity of the trough. The campenula that calls this trough home has smaller leaves and flowers than the mother plant which is in the ground. This trough is really light, just perlite, vermiculite and portland cement, I like the patina it has acquired.

Green cement pigment, perlite and vermiculite as aggregate.

I tried lump charcoal as an aggregate in this small trough. While the charcoal is really light, I should have used more because it is mainly cement and quite heavy.

This is one of my favorites. No peatmoss, just perlite and vermiculite.

Another made over a hardware cloth form. I included sand in this one.

Another with green pigment, the Creeping Jenny plant is considered to be an invasive weed by some.

Creeping phlox, yellow cement pigment, vermiculite and pearlite.

Two bowl planters, one with black sand added (right), one I tried to polish (left), neither with peatmoss.

She's Lump

Gentlemen, meet Lump.

Lump is our 1963 Land Rover Series IIA, Long Wheel Base, 4 wheel drive, 5 door Station Wagon. Lump has a 2.25 L diesel engine (63HP) and can be a bit slow in a stiff headwind or up a steep hill, hence the name, but is fine around town.

 

We purchased Lump on December 08, 1995 from a guy who lived outside of Albany, NY. The 150 mile drive home was nerve wracking, the mantra all the way back was, "One more exit, Just one more exit". We arrived home about 4:30PM, made the rounds introducing Lump to family and friends and capped the day off by opening a bottle of 1963 Offley Boa Vista Vintage Port. Three days later and perhaps 8 more miles, Lump stopped due to a clutch issue. My first major repair. After that, all the other repairs were a breeze. Normally, we have the spare on the hood of the truck, but this photo makes it is easier to compare it to the Matchbox Land Rover below.

 

One day while the whole family was at the Bryson Homestead, some matchbox cars were found in the attic. I talked my nephew out of this small blue rover. That was before we had found our Rover, so when the seller told me his Rover was blue, I knew it was the one. Always wanted a Land Rover, they seemed rugged and adventurous and tough, nothing like me at all. I envisioned myself going on expeditions with my Land Rover or out into the wilds of Africa like on PBS nature shows or Daktari. Hunting for the rare perfect blue spruce was nearer to the truth.

In the Catskills with Lump, on one of our yearly camping trips.

 

Here is Lump on an RTV (Road Taxed Vehicle) trials course. An RTV trial consists of an off road course having 12 gates which you need to get through without touching either of the two poles that make up a gate. You hit a gate and you score that gate's number. Gates are scored from 12 down, a low score is what you want.

 

Lump in the wilds of Pennsynvania. Didn't get stuck all day, just at camp, should have had the chains on.

 

We have Lump configured to hold 6 people, 2 in front, three across the middle bench and one in a jump seat in the back. The station wagon can fit 2 folding bench seats in the back, but we were never going to transport 10 people. The leaf springs were changed over to softer riding medium duty parabolic springs in April 1998, it did help, but still rides like a truck. Other changes from standard on Lump are; spin on oil filter, spin on fuel filter, Fairey Overdrive, superwinch X9 on a separate bumper and an upgraded alternator/battery for the winch. Other than that, Lump is a basic vehicle. We have taken it on vacations, ROVERS club events, camping, moving appliances, taking junk to the dump and picking up building materials. Very useful indeed.

In May 1996, five months after changing the clutch in Lump, we added Ort to our stable. Ort was a 1971 Series IIA 88" wheelbase 3 door model with a petrol engine. Ort was the younger, peppier sibling of Lump. We put a forward facing Defender 90 bench seat in the back for the kids. Here is Ort with one of the neighborhood urchins. I think she has a brother Sean. We sold Ort in late 1999 for about double of what we paid. That even covered most of the parts we bought for it.

 

A few years later we purchased a 1988 Range Rover. Here it is high centered in the Pine Barrens, behind it is Ort and behind Ort is my Dad. That was a great day out. We had the Range Rover from February 2000 to March of 2007. We did not do as well when we sold the Range Rover.

 

Rovers can become a habit, at one point we had the 2 series Rovers, the Range Rover and a 1997 Land Rover Discovery and only 2 drivers. We've been cutting back lately, now we only have 3 vehicles and 2 full-time drivers.

Saw some recent Land Rover blog postings at The Sporting Life and A Trip Down South which prompted me to ramble on about our Land Rovers.

Travis #99

Travis Fourth of July Parade 2009, #99

Guys in dresses, a Priest in a trike, mounted police, musicians in sequins and feathers.

 

 

 

 

Old Brushfire truck, more pipers piping, Norwegians and Chinese Dragons.

The King, a moose, a goat, an old "T".

 

 

 

 

Peetah, Rolling thunda, Beatniks, and a Jeep.

 

 

 

 

This year the weather was mostly sunny with a cool breeze, high in the low 80s. The parade was quite long, with a lot of entries, but a little light on marching bands. There were also alot of gaps which was a bit annoying; one of the longest was caused by the Mayor and his entourage. Thanks Mike for ignoring the vote of the people.

Next year will be the 100th Fourth of July parade down in Travis. I think it will be quite a parade. If I hadn't already been in the parade and hated it (everyone is looking and pointing at you), I would have said "Hey let's be in the parade". Maybe, a family band on a flatbed?

I have only missed one parade since I can remember (Japan '03 DSL Beta Tour), but I don't know if I missed any as an infant. We used to start off at my Grandfather's house, on the lawn waiting for everyone in the family to show up. While waiting we would watch the pre-parade arrivals. For the longest time there was only one road into Travis, so we would see everything. In the late 1970s, they built an expressway with an exit into Travis and more of the entries took that route. We would wave at everyone and clap and I imagine from the view of the passers by we might have been a tad annoying. Gramps lived on the same street as the parade, but they didn't march past his house, so when everyone was ready we would walk down. We would occupy a section of the sidewalk in front of the house of the man who made my Grandfather's rocking chair, which is now mine. There were alot of us, but we were well behaved, no silly string or super soakers, the only miscreant was my Uncle Jack. He was very outgoing and would go out and shake people's hands and ask questions and create big gaps in the parade. Probably annoying for those downstream, but very entertaining for us. After the parade, we would go back to the family farm and get rides on a firetruck, then have a BBQ back at Gramp's. Now I no longer have to sit with the hoi polloi, one of the perks of having married into a family, one of whom has a house on the parade route.