Mundane but necessary

I'm seriously big on recycle, reuse, and re-purpose. Just a bit, I confess, to the point where it would be safe to accuse me of a mild brand of insanity. My latest project involves bricks. Naturally I scrounge from any source that is free, which is surprisingly not that hard to find. But as we know, there is really nothing free, and brick is no exception. It's often covered in the mortar that needs to be removed before the brick can be used. This is a messy, dusty, hard job, but it has paid off. To give you an idea:

And here's all the dust from said bricks:

Now if you are curious why I need all this brick, it's to border the 3 mile long strip that runs along the street. OK - it's not really 3 miles - it just feels that way. This gives you an idea:

 

And of course you want to know WHY this needs to be done at all (other than it looks neat). It's all about water. We seriously cannot afford one drop of waste during this drought. To keep the water where it belongs and not spreading across the sidewalk, we needed a barrier. Hence the border of tree limbs and brick and whatever else I can recycle to not only make it look somewhat presentable, but eco-friendly as well. Depending on area and the number of bricks, logs or whatever, not to mention the amount of patience I have on any given day, I either go for fancy (on the right), or quick and plain. Saw-tooth borders are my favorite, but they take up so many bricks so quickly, I can only do small areas.

And to those of you who have sussed out that I'm using this never-ending project as an excuse to put off doing my mosaic wall -- well done.

A plea to stop Nestle from stealing more water...

Nestle is responsible for taking water from public land in California and then bottling it in plastic and SELLING it back to people. And they have permission from the State to do so. First of all -- who was the bright person who thought that was a great idea? And then, when Nestle took millions of gallons more than they were permitted to do, who was the bright person who said that was OK? Now Nestle wants another permit to raid the water supply under a new label.

Given our very serious, some might even say catastrophic, drought in the West right now, companies taking public water to make a profit has to stop.

Please consider adding your name to the petition to end this blatant form of wanton capitalism over the public good.

	https://act.couragecampaign.org/sign/no-new-water-permit-nestle/

Street of fairy gardens

On a street a mere two blocks away, the neighbors got together and decided to have fun making fairy house scenes. This is the same street that was highlighted in a previous post with the gnomes in a tree. At the time, I didn't realize the extent of the project. Some of the displays are not exactly in the true fairy house genre, but the decorations are fun nonetheless. Alas, the shadows from the trees made it difficult to get the kind of clear pictures to truly show off some of the work, but if you enlarge the photo by clicking on it, it will show you more detail.

These first two intrigued me because they are made from twigs and small pebbles: 

Apparently, even fairies shop at country stores:

I think the old man is a gnome, but don't quote me:

Gotta love the frogs:

A mushroom house is a wonderful idea:

Not sure what's supposed to be going on here, but it's colorful:

A charming fairy inn:

And last, but definitely going for the gold, an entire village:

Epic Fail

Naturally one prefers to note accomplishments over failures, but this is a real faux pas. Though I will add it was not for lack of sewing skills, but rather the nature of the material: screening I've used successfully on the exterior of windows to give shade during the summer heat. What I didn't take into account was the tendency to curl and twist and resist absolutely any remediation efforts to get it to behave. 

I was trying to replace a fly screen for our back door (which we leave open for the dogs). A kind neighbor had given me a roll of window screen material and I spent waaaay too long making the (in my mind at least) perfect fly screen. And it worked very well for a time. Unfortunately the screen is so stiff, it started to crack with repeated coming and going. Hence the new screen project. Arrrrgggghhhh.

The original:

The complete disaster:

Clearly the flies are laughing as they zoom through the huge gaps. I kinda don't blame them. Back to the drawing board. Sigh.

Riddle me this....

They can send people to the moon and send spacecraft to Mars. So why, with all this technical knowledge and scientific/engineering know how, is someone incapable of designing a hose that doesn't kink, is lightweight, tough enough to withstand yards with multiple surfaces, and, wait for it...has enough water pressure?!?

After spending almost 3 hours watering my getting-larger-every-day yard, and spending waaaaay too much time unkinking the hose simply because it doesn't like to go around corners or pots, my patience, short at the best of times, has worn to a nub.

Now before you mention all the as-seen-on-TV hoses that claim not to kink and are as tough as nails, don't bother. I'll grant you, they are amazingly lightweight and they don't kink -- hurray! But, and here's the thing, the water they dribble out does nothing for getting the spider mites out of the hedges or giving the carob trees a deep soaking. Sigh.

Okay - I'm done. Just had to throw that out there in the universe. Maybe someone, somewhere, will hear this plea and decide to engineer something that actually works on Earth instead of worrying about missions to Mars.

A girl can dream.

International Celebrate Yellow Day

If you've never heard of International Celebrate Yellow Day, there's a good reason -- I just made it up. It seems like we should celebrate colors though, because as Nellie and I make our rounds about the neighborhood, certain colors seem to dominate certain seasons. This time, everywhere we looked, (well, TBH, Nellie doesn't care) gardens are just popping with yellow. A tree that had no blossoms at all a week ago now shows an abundance of yellow blooms. And no, I haven't a clue what any of these beautiful flowers are, with the exception of the lantana, which, once again puts mine to shame. So raise a cup of the celebratory beverage of your choice to...yellow.