MY WATER FEATURE IS FINALLY IN!!!!

(pics: 1-design trial 2:Epoxyed rocks for edging, 3: reservoir is in, 4: Finished product!)

Well, it's FINALLY in!! After literally about 2 years of planning for and acquiring things for it, my water feature is finally in! I wanted a bubbling pot of some kind - something quiet and simple sounding. I love watching waterfalls and all, but for my garden I wanted that bubbling sound. I searched for 2 years until I found the perfect pot. I loved the design of them - ceramic with a gorgeous blue-ish, teal glaze and they were 50% off - how much more perfect could it be? I didn't even know it was the perfect one for this project until I was staring at it one day wondering how in the heck I was going to fill this really tall, kinda unsturdy pot up with soil - it's 3.5 feet tall - that's a lot of money in dirt! Then the idea hit me - fill it up with water instead! My brother and I messed around with some ideas about the style of the feature, but we never came up with anything solid. I had a design finally settle into my head that I really liked and decided that was the way to go - and it was the easiest way to put it together as well - what a bonus!

I bought a shallow barrel liner & set the pot upside down in the tub (shimmed up with some leftover broken stepping stones to set it straight and allow for water flow to the pump). We added a long length of 1/2" pvc pipe onto the output valve of the pump and threaded it right up through the already provided drainage hole at the bottom of the pot. To cover that up, I 2 part epoxied a boundary layer of stones around the outside of the base. These were taller cobblestones that would provide a "pen" to just lay and stack the other rocks inside of. I built up a small pyramid like base of rocks around the exposed PVC (which I'm planning to sheath with copper just for looks). I plan to add some of my marbles to this pile as I make them for the feature. I will probably end up replacing most of those rocks with glass pieces slowly. Who knows. Either way, I love how it turned out.

Hubby is running underground electricity to it tomorrow, so to test it out, we just have an ugly orange extention cord going to it.

I went outside after my daughter went to bed to listen to it and take some of the pictures - it sounds SO wonderfully soothing at night when everything is quiet. It truly now is a refuge and is already my new favorite part of my garden.

Thanks for coming and checking it out!!

I'm just THRILLED!!!

Well, I'm an idiot.....

Yesterday, I began my grand plans for adding a water feature into the back shade garden of my house. The beginning of this plan included removing a spindly old lilac bush that has resided in the corner of my yard since before we moved here. It was placed there by someone who had no idea of what kind of light a lilac bush needs, so it grew tall and woody - spindly with more branches than leaves. My brother and I decided that it was time to get rid of it.
So, after a few errands out (one of which I bought a new anvil pruner to help with my task), I headed out to the back garden to bring this poor thing down.
As I'm happily chopping away at the undergrowth, I grabbed a branch and proceeded to cut at a 45 degree angle. Well, I didn't pay much attention to the fact that my hand was in the cutting path and I sliced the fatty part of my palm right open with my brand new, extra sharp pruners.
So we all piled into the car and took me over to the hospital for a fix up. Which consisted only of super gluing my cut back together. It hasn't held together too well and it's still swollen and very tender which meant I couldn't torch today, but better things came of it anyway.
Hubby finished digging out the lilac and put in my water feature!!!! I"M SO THRILLED!!!! It turned out just how I wanted it to!! Now I have the center feature for my Zen garden and I can start to work around that. The corner already looks so different and I can't wait to plant my hostas and ferns and moss around to complete the whole thing!
I have pictures that I still have to edit, but will post a short blog about it later tonight.
Right now, gotta put the little one to bed....
back soon!

Well, well.....I finally get back on here!

I think I posted here last fall and that was the last time I was able to access this account. Things have changed on here a bit now and I was thrilled to get back to this blog!

I've had some fun things happen this month for me and am really exited to share them with all of ya.... I know I won't have time to write everything I want to due to the fact that I have to leave for my daughter's soccer game in about 20 minutes, but I'll write a small overview and expand on it later I guess.

May is an insane month for my family. It has been for a long time and I dread it and love it all at the same time. My mother, husband, and daughter have birthdays within a week of each other, there's Mother's Day and usually 2 parties for my daugther (the family one and the friend one if her big day doesn't land on a weekend).

We're through all of that now except for a family get-together this Wednesday to have her party for her real birthday - THANK GOD! Now I don't feel like I'm running around with my head cut off. We are just doing a small family out to dinner thing, so that's easy.

I also am working outside of the home again! I'm really happy about that. There's a place down the street from me that I worked at about 9 years ago and quit because I was stupid. I had my daughter, and a few years after that, they started asking me to come in during holidays and while people were on vacation to help out - and then they asked me back this spring when a valuable employee got a great job offer and couldn't pass it up. It's this great place called the "Miner's Den". They started out decades ago as a rock shop and branched into fine jewelry. Over many years, they've added a bead room and many other jewelry lines to 3 large rooms of the store. It's a family owned business and they treat you like family even if you're not. I really love the environment and I get to get out a few times a week and talk with adults and create stuff for the store and get paid for it! That's a big change for me who's been literally stuck in my house for my beadmaking and motherhood for 6 years now. I welcome the change and the fact that they are all very happy I decided to come back to work for them.

Also, this weekend, I was fortunate enough to have my bud, JC Herrell come to stay with me for 3 days while she taught classes only a few miles from my house. It was so fun having her here! If you're not familiar with her work, be sure to click on her name to check out her website. She makes the most amazing beads - and they're HUGE!! I'm fortunate to have quite a large collection of her work that I get to admire every day. She was a wonderful guest and took my 6 year old's affections with great stride as sometimes she can be a bit overbearing trying to show a guest everything she can and telling every story she can remember. She also thinks that JC is "So COOL!"(since she's met her once before), so she was all over her most of the time. Thanks for humoring her, JC :) She's still talking about you and wanted me to write "Thank YOu for the birthday present!!!. Anytime you're around here, you're more than welcome here.

I'll be sure to post a picture of the bead I was gifted from her this time that I saw her. One of her new rainbow beads - so gorgeous!!! And I must point out - a whole spectrum on one bead! ;)

Oh, gotta run, but I have to write about my hubby, daughter, and Ben (the boy in her class who has a HUGE crush on her.) They went out to the movies and there's a heck of a story that I have to post about next blog........ I about died when I heard the story. SHE"S NOT READY FOR THIS!!!!!