Friday, June 20, 2014

CREATIVE TUESDAY

THEME:  I want to go to...
CONWY, North Wales

CONWY CASTLE
(Water color, pencil and Prisma color pencils)

Conwy, (known in English as Conway, rather than the Welsh version), is a small town located on the coast of North Wales at the estuary of the River Conwy.  It is a walled town with both trains and roads having to go through the walls to get to the town center. It is a quaint town of the middle ages with a large castle built by Edward 1 in the thirteenth century.  

The reason I would like to go back to Conwy is because I have happy memories of our time spent there as a family.  Our boys in their teens were able to scramble all over the castle, up and down towers and waving to me in a heart-stopping way from the top of of the unfenced towers.  We ate dinner at a wonderful fish and chip restaurant across the road from the castle.  In the narrow main street of the town there are some other tea shops where they serve absolutely delicious cream teas, some in Victorian style rooms and some located in small flower-filled cobbled gardens.  There are book shops, art galleries and gift shops full of Welsh crafts. Turn a corner off the main street and you are at the harbor.  There you can find the Smallest House in Great Britain which is approximately 9 x 3 feet with a ceiling height of less than six feet. To crown it all the harbor has enough boats to keep my husband happy and the boys too, for that matter.

One last thing.  I have been to Conwy numerous times and each time the sun was shining! 

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Do you wonder where other participants of Creative Tuesday decided they wanted to go? Go take a look and hop on over to the Creative Tuesday page by clicking  HERE

Saturday, June 14, 2014

MOVING FROM SPRING TO SUMMER

The bright lavenders and purples of the spring ice plant have all turned shrubby and woody looking  -- not very attractive.  But I don't mind because they remind me of the heather on the Yorkshire moors after it has bloomed.

So now color pots are our mainstay for the yard, apart from the shrubs which have still to bloom. The bouganvillea is still blooming, I don't think it ever stops.  It is a favorite spot for the birds to survey the scene before making for the feeders.

The beautiful oriole visits many times a day now, with his wife and young son taking their turns at the grape jelly.  I took this photo three days ago.  I was just sitting out on the porch and there he was -- what a picture!


The song sparrow is nesting in there somewhere ...

.....as well as house finches and wrens.

The lavenders and purples turn to red and yellow


A pot of lantana...


The New Zealand Christmas tree, though it looks  like a small bottle brush to me...

....the golden euonymous

There are still several other bushes set to bloom as the summer moves on.

No rain for the creek now -- probably not now until October.   Thankfully the park have released a little water so the ducks, egrets and heron are not totally without some to enjoy.

THANK YOU LORD
My step granddaughter is doing much better.  She is still very limited in her diet and tires quickly. But she is making great progress.  Thank you for your prayers.

Monday, June 9, 2014

CREATIVE TUESDAY, June 10

THEME  -- BIRD CAGE

I freely admit that the idea for this picture came from Tweetie Pie and Felix.  I was going to copy a picture of them from the web but it gave me the idea for this much milder version.


I thought this was going to be an easy theme, but it wasn't as easy as I expected.  However with all the "No-No's" going on with Scruffy, my cat, who is obsessed with escaping again, it soon came to me.  As my husband frequently quotes, "How are you going to keep them down on the farm once they've seen gay Paree (Paris)".

Please visit other participants in CREATIVE TUESDAY if you can.  After working on a piece of art for several hours -- or even days, everyone loves to have encouraging comments and most of
us will then visit your blog. 

To visit CREATIVE TUESDAY please click HERE

Saturday, June 7, 2014

PROGRESS EVERYWHERE

First Medical Transfusion.
I'm not quite sure what this entails, but I'm assuming it is some kind of blood transfusion to help heal the infection.  Our granddaughter has to have one every 8 weeks.  They are so busy taking care of Haley that I have hesitated to ask too many questions just yet. It all must be very overwhelming for them. The photo below was taken while Haley was in the hospital two weeks ago.  She is home now and getting antibiotics by IV and very small amounts of food of very limited variety.


This one is of Haley while she is sleeping during the transfusion.  It takes a while and they give her 
something to make her sleep.  She has another session in a couple of weeks.

 The doctors are pleased with her progress.  Mom is happy with her great attitude. Thank you for your prayers and good thoughts.  Please continue to pray.  It is going to be a long process but we know God is good!

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In the mean time summer is almost here and the Jacaranda trees are in full bloom.  They really must have liked that hot weather we had a couple of weeks ago because they are spectacular all over town.  They are my absolute favorite tree.  This one is in our park just a couple of streets over, but we can see it from the back of our house.


By the way, I've been told this week that we don't live in a park but a community, and the homes we live in are manufactured or modular homes! 

To me 'park' is the right word because it is a community located in what we Brits officially consider park land.  But I do understand the feelings of those who do not want us to be confused with a trailer park.  So... we are a 'senior community' with lakes, flowers, many trees, grassy stretches, beautiful front yards, (carefully administered and held to high standards by the HOA !) and my beloved creek, which is having a hard time to keep flowing in this our fourth year of drought.  

As for our house, this is the view from the back. If you compare the photo below with my blog banner photo above, you would think it could hardly be the same place.  But it is.  All the brightly glowing ice plant is over, and now we have what looks more like heather on the moors when it is not in bloom.  So bit by bit we are trying to add some color.  The small yellow euonymous bushes really help.  The empty pot of just soil in front of one of the bushes contains bulbs of the Lily of the Valley, so generously given to me by a friend at church, because she knows I like them. Unfortunately they will not bloom now until next spring. The creek is in the top left part of the photo.


Now that we are settled into the house and my husband is not doing all the traveling this year, we are putting a lot of effort into the yard, as small as it is.  A couple of days ago I took time to go to the other side of the creek to see what we looked like from there. 

 Hmm...not as good as I would like.  Got to get more creative for this view of the house.  

We have a wonderful back porch, verandah or deck, whichever you'd like to call it. We are able to sit out there probably two thirds of the year. It is protected from cold winds in the winter and spring and from hot sun in the summer and fall. Our actual property ends at the bird feeder. How nice of the bird to perch there for my photo! From there, the land slopes down to the creek. That is all park property, not ours. Officially we are not supposed to do anything with it. Behind the central large pine tree, actually on the left in this photo, on our land we have a couple of bird feeders, and two or three small trees/bushes that are now doing quite well with Moth's conscientious care. 

Between the ivy and the heather-like ice plant there is nothing much growing. We have planted four or five small jade plants that will in time grow enough to fill in like a low hedge.They are planted in a line from the bouganvillea to the little red stone Mexican man. On the right hand side of the pine tree the soil is poor and there are large roots from the trees. So I'm thinking something like a low picket fence or a line of fairly large, light colored rocks would help to delineate the boundary. Got to give it some more thought and then meander around the garden centers. Expense, minimum upkeep and little water will be our guidelines I'm thinking.

Well, I'll see you all on Creative Tuesday.  Have to get to work on that next.