Well, lots of new goodies today. For the blog, anyway - they're mostly about a week and a half old for me and the novelty is starting to wear off. Which I suppose is a good thing - it's not very becoming of a hobbit in his tweens to be running back and forth across a ten foot plank bridge and giggling madly. Just for the record, the said bridge was an unsuspecting young ladder approximately twenty minutes before it began to serve in its new role.

It fits remarkably well, actually - it took two thin planks and seven nails to transform it and it's probably had about twice as much traffic since it got there than in the whole of its existence before. For anyone who's curious, it used to be the third-string means of getting into the tree forts we built a few years ago, after the monkey bar ladder and the climbing ropes. Needless to say, it didn't get used much. The others don't either.

Most of this work took place on a very productive day known far and wide as June 2nd. The bridge was one of the morning tasks, along with finishing the garden beds.

I decided to go with the whole round hobbity architecture thing and made the beds round. In the closest one there are beans, peas, and carrots, which are all starting to come up now; in the next one over are potatoes, which have accomplished nothing remarkable just yet; and in the one hidden in the tree shadow (don't worry, this only occurs in the morning) are corn and sunflowers.

corn :)

Both of these are germinating far better than I expected, and will need to be thinned drastically before long. It must the 'grandpa' karma lingering around the place - it's been about three years since I managed to grow anything past two inches tall, and those promptly got eaten by a small furry demon commonly known as a pet rabbit. I would have exorcised the miscreant on the spot if it hadn't already cast a spell over other members of the family. As it was, he still left my room at an altitude of four feet, which had an effect on everyone in the house except the rabbit.
Which reminds me, I'd better get onto building that fence.

As to the actual hobbit house, this is what the site looks like as of an hour ago:

Hmm, that post doesn't look very straight. Maybe I'd better have another look at that. I already dug it up once cause it was a bit too wobbly. But don't worry, it's all under control...
You can't really see much of what's changed in this picture, but there's quite a bit. The planter on the left is now home to four very potent marigold plants, and there are two other planters nearby, also housing marigolds. This was in response to the not-so-sneaky ambush of a few dozen mosquitoes every time I got to work. For anyone who isn't familiar with marigolds, they are probably about the most powerful natural pesticide in existence, at least to my knowledge. They seem to work rather well on many human pests as well - Benita, for example. I quite enjoy the smell, myself.
So did they do the job? Kind of. While it's not perfect, it's a huge improvement. Mosquitoes will still come after me while I'm there, but they're never waiting around for me like before. I've also taken to rubbing my face and arms in the leaves, which deters them even more - of the ones that do land on me, only about half stick around for more than half a second. All in all, I declare myself pleased.

The other invisible project is hidden under the log that's protruding into the house. A french ditch, as Uncle Allan called it. It's essentially a trench for drainage filled with gravel. Very necessary since the whole floor is clay. After a bit of tinkering and a good rain or two, it works very well.

Taking a translation class brings up all sorts of interesting sayings between french and english. It's usually not very hard to tell they didn't like each other much - for example, the expression 'to take french leave' means to sneak away. In french, 'partir à l'anglaise' (leaving english-style) means the same thing.

This is my latest attempt at artwork. Although it probably doesn't look like much to my more artistically skilled cousins (ie all of them) I'm really happy with it. It's legible, the letters all line up, and the last letters aren't crammed together to make everything fit. Far above my usual ability. I did it with a hydrangea twig and acrylic paint sitting by the fire one night. It's a good thing I like the rustic style, cause that's all I'm capable of. :)

Welcome to Hobbitvale

Not too much more to say - just a few more random pictures that you might enjoy.

Most of the poplar are fully leafed out and they're hushing like water in the breeze the way I love.

Mum has taken to drying our clothes using wind power. I have absolutely no problem with this - though I might if we lived right in front of a Tim Horton's drive-thru like some poor kid in BC. I'd never seen some of the things flying on that line.

:( The pancake lichen on the stump is no longer attached. It got removed during an unfortunate wheelbarrow racing accident.

This one was a job for Mike and his pringle tube. This is about as macro as my photography gets. My one regret with the camera I have. I didn't actually notice the lily-of-the-valley under the bluebells until I looked at this picture. Erin will be pleased - it's her favourite flower, and now that I can match the leaves to the flower there are a lot of them around.

And this is just a generic picture of the ferns along my path. There's lots of them too. I've also discovered a lot of potential edibles-to-come - hazelnuts (of course), raspberries, elderberries, saskatoons, cranberries, wild strawberries, rosehips, and something else I'm forgetting. There's also a trillium or two and a few wild roses - some of which are smack in the middle of the path.

I think that's everything. Don't expect to hear too much until July - the garden center is very busy and I probably won't get much done until it slows down there a bit. I've certainly been getting my share of sunlight.

cheers :)