The garden

I promised some pics of the “finished” garden, so here they are.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

The stairs. You can see there’s still a lot of work ahead. We need to terrace the left side and refill part of the right side. The left side will be the veggie garden, the right side left again to wild flowers and insects. We also need to put some slates on top of the wall. The wall at the top is open. It will be filled with ground and planted with herbs and flowers.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Upper terrace. This is our place for spring and autumn. It gets sun all afternoon, the stones heat up and store the warmth, while it’s sheltered from the wind.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Lower terrace. The place for barbecues and garden parties. It’s always cooler down there than anywhere else (though there are also always more mosquitoes). We wanted to replace the fence in case 30-50 feral hogs coming into the garden (more like 3-5 wild boars, but they can do a lot of damage), but I was in hospital. The area behind the missing fence is “ours” rented from the city at a pittance), but we haven’t done there much yet. I want to build a greenhouse using the old windows you can see in the pic. One day…

The Art of Book Design: The Sleeping Beauty Picture Book

Walter Crane. The Sleeping Beauty Picture Book, containing the Sleeping Beauty, The Baby’s Own Alphabet and Bluebeard. New York, Dodd, Mead and Co., 1911.

Sleeping Beauty is an old fairy tale that has had many incarnations. One of the best known, is this version by the prolific Children’s Book Illustrator, Walter Crane. Crane is an interesting artist who studied under William Morris, one of the founders and great artists of the Arts and Crafts movement. Crane is known for some fine art pieces, but his contributions to the nursery book arts are legendary, during its heyday at the end of the 1800’s and early 1900’s. This edition also has Bluebeard’s Story and Baby’s Own Alphabet. I’ve included all the plates for Sleeping Beauty, but only the first plates of the other 2 stories. The last plate of Sleeping Beauty is my favourite – I think she looks rather stunned to find herself so suddenly awake and rapidly married. If you’re interested you can see the entire book at the Internet Archive, where you can always read the whole book.

via: The Internet Archive [Read more…]

Jack’s Walk

The Armada Arrives ©voyager, all rights reserved

The swans stop by to say hello ©voyager, all rights reserved

Well, for once, the universe listened to me. Late yesterday we had a small dusting of snow that decided to stick around. It’s just enough to make things pretty, but not enough to need shovelling or make walking difficult. It’s perfect. I can see Jack at night again, and sure enough, it was easy to find his poop, even in the dark. It’s cold anyway, so there might as well be a bit of the white stuff around.
Jack and I decided to go to the park this morning, and it was reasonably quiet when we arrived, but we hadn’t been there long when we hear a loud, sustained honking overhead and looked up to see an entire Armada of geese flying in. A hundred or more birds were circling the pond. They finally landed in teams, and it took several minutes for them all to get down. Once they were all on the water, they continued to make noise for several more minutes, and boy howdy was it loud. It seemed to upset the swans who managed to get away from the crowd to come and say hi. Jack was quite rude and barked at them, but they didn’t care at all. The geese are permanent residents at our park – they don’t fly south because the living is comfortable here. The swans have an even easier winter ahead – they live in an indoor pond and have a keeper. Once the weather is warmer again in the spring, they’re driven back to the outdoor pond, happy, healthy and ready to have a new family.

More Barcelona

It seems that Giliell’s photos of Barcelona have inspired Opus to share a few pictures of his own.

I was struck by the Sagrada Familia pictures and dove back into my picture files. These are from long before I purchased my first ‘real’ camera, but the nighttime shots of Casa Batlio are still among my favorites. If you need one for the front page I’d suggest Casa Batlio 2, but I’m biased: too much time with this as a child:

Reptiles and Amphibians Familiar American Species

Casa Batlio 2 ©Opus, all rights reserved

[Read more…]

Tummy Thursday: You gotta celebrate them all!

As promised: cake. Or at least pictures of cake. The kids get to ask for a special cake each year, a chimaera born of my love to bake and the working mun’s eternal bad conscience. As a result, my cakes are legendary, at least among people under 15.

This year the little one asked for a Pokemon party and so she go a Pokeball cake.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

It’s a tad egg shaped. I underestimated the volume of the metal bowls I used as baking tins and as a result I was short on cake and since I didn’t weigh the batter, one was bigger than the other. To fill in the middle I baked another cake and cut out circles. As things weren’t 100% even, the bottom is a bit larger than the top, though I must say that on the inside the two cakes together really worked out well:

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Chocolate and vanilla cake with Italian meringue chocolate buttercream.

And, what’s inside a Pokeball?

Pokemon!

©Giliell, all rights reserved

I had ordered small Pokemon toys and hid them inside the Pokeball to the surprise and amazement of the kids.

©Giliell, all rights reserved Some of the cut off cake tops were turned into Pokeball cake pops

And to have something a bit lighter:

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Powder Puffs. With lemon curd buttercream. You may notice a few repeating themes: the leftover lemon curd got combined with some of the Italian meringue that I didn’t need for the cake.

I actually had to bake them twice because the first time i fucked up the sponge, which is why you should never laugh at people failing at baking shows.

Jack’s Walk

Hosta La Vista ©voyager, all rights reserved

We had a lovely bit of sunshine this afternoon, but it didn’t warm things up one little bit. Except perhaps inside the car where I started to sweat underneath all of my layers, which today included a pair of silk long johns and undershirt, a sweater and yoga pants topped off with a puffy winter coat, tuque, scarf and mittens, but not yet double socks. I really dislike feeling cold and have a tendency to overdress. Jack wondered what the heck was going on when I pulled over to take off my coat and then put it on again once we stopped. Jack thinks clothing is a human vanity, which is true, but clothing is also a necessity for a naked Canadian ape like me and he doesn’t get that part. He says silly things like “you’d stay warmer if you didn’t shave your legs” or “you need a little more fat to insulate.” Bubba, if I never shaved again and gained a hundred pounds I’d still want the long johns and winter gear. “Bah,” he says. “Humans are soft.”

Jack’s Walk

©voyager, all rights reserved

It’s time to check-in and see how much hair Bubba has grown since our last photo on October 3/19. Hmm… doesn’t look like much yet, does it? This is really unusual for Jack. Normally his neck ruff would be filling in by now, along with a thick all-over undercoat. This year he’s without both, and the weather is getting colder. At the moment, he’s relying on his fat pad (shhh… he’s sensitive about it), but’s that’s not going to be enough for much longer. He does have a stylish red coat to wear if it gets super cold, but he doesn’t like it, and we’ve only used it a few times in his life. Hopefully, he’ll get growing soon, and once it starts, it should fill in fast. I’ll update you in another few weeks.

I think that Jack looks puppyish without his neck ruff, probably because he didn’t grow his first one until he was about 3 years old.

Tree Tuesday

Tree Tuesday went missing while my mother was sick, but it’s time to get things back to normal, so we’re back. This week’s tree was sent in by Avalus, and it’s a beauty. I absolutely love the light and the perspective in the first photo. It seems to capture a bit of the tree’s personality. The second photo of the bark of the tree was surprising to me. Thanks for sharing, Avalus.

This is a 135 year old redwood tree planted in a park near the town of Dörrenbach in the palatinate. What an amazing tree! I found the bark especially peculiar with all these tiny ripples.

©Avalus, all rights reserved

©Avalus, all rights reserved