It's our favorite time of year in the Avant Garden, and now that the days are longer and the weather warmer, good things are bound to happen. I just finished my most recent time-consuming sewing project, so now I can get outside more! 

This is my third-grade watercolor paint poncho:  

When I was a kid and we did watercolors in school, I would slop on a layer of Sun, a layer of Sky with white clouds, a layer of purple mountains majesty, a layer of green grass with a darker green mixed in to represent trees, and blue Water along the bottom. This is the sewing version, with my friend Nikki modeling.

Here's a pic of a heart-shaped leaf that I took just because: 

I snapped that out in Bent Creek, where I have decided to restack the Unphotographable Herd of Arches, starting with the leader, a female:

I am going to add one arch at a time until the whole herd is back and marching their way upstream. Speaking of upstream, my brain has really felt like it has been swimming upstream. Let's hope with the arrival of Spring it eases up on me and lets my creative energy surface again. Cheers!

It's almost March! How'd that happen? If you're a fan of a good snow, like we are in the Avant Garden, you've had a disappointing Winter in the Asheville area. I went hiking with my lil' sister, Donna, around the headwaters of the Mills River and found some snow while wearing my wool coat:

My sewing machine, Elsa (she's from Switzerland), and I made that traveler's cloak out of two wool army blankets a few years ago, and this past Winter, we rigged up a belt for it and I have been wearing it a lot more. I love the thing when the weather is really nasty. 

I went on a bit of a rockstacking binge over at good ol' Rob's house this past Sunday and fixed some old friends up, starting with Triple Arch:

It was a nice day and the energy was good. It went well, so I walked on down to the area Rob calls "The Coven" and did some mending there as well:

That's the PatStack, the stack I did in honor of my friend Pat Schissler. This is the biggest and best Arch-on-Pedestal I have standing at the mo. 

You know how I like the patterns water makes in the Swannanoa River ... well here's another video. I was intrigued by these bubbles on top of the water and how they made shadows moving upstream on the rocks. Check it out, and have a pleasant Spring! It's almost time for a "Harbingers of Spring" blog post! 

I just have not had blogging activity happening. I think I spend too much time on Reddit. And I've been busy and lazy. 

Remember last year when I came back from Tops'l Island with a camera full of designs-in-the-Sand pics? And I put them on the blog? That was one of my most favoritest blog entries, especially among blog entries that were not about rocks. 

Anyway, I went back to Tops'l back in October and my camera once again overfloweth upon my return. Let's take a look at a few of my favorites ...

This one is my favorite ...

This one is my favorite ...

 Topsail (the locals and all the cool bloggers call it "Tops'l") Isand is a barrier island just north of Wilmington, N.C. It's a   

This one is my favorite ...

This one is my favorite ...turtle preserve, home to nests and a turtle rehabilitation center. 

This one is my favorite ...

 This one is my favorite ...

None of these have been changed from color to B-n-W. 

This one is my favorite ...

This one is my favorite ...

 This one is my favorite ... These are just a few. If you're ever in the neighborhood, stop by and we'll have a cuppa and look at all 268 of them ....

Bent Creek has been beckoning me lately, and stacks are starting to pop up.

The Unphotographable Herd of Arches is slowly coming back to life.

I didn't stack at the place where the gods hang out for a long time. I left the not-so-thundering unphotographable herd of arches ashambles (it should be one word -- an adjective), in hopes that the vandals who kept returning to knock them over would visit and think they had won and that I would never stack again and so they needn't ever return. So last week I restacked the leader:  

The lead herder -- a female

The herd struggling to make a comeback

and did two of the herd.  Yesterday, I added more. I'll keep going until they are all back, and we'll see what happens. 

Maybe these vandals have moved onto new hobbies. 

Today I went back to Bent Creek, initially to work on the herd, but the weather was hot and I decided to find a spot where I could stack naked. 

This was the result:

While there, I found these two rhododendron leaves making love: 

That's really cool, and I didn't do it. I've always wondered how rhododendron spread so rapidly in Western North Carolina, and now I know. 

This pic I took of the surface of the Swannanoa River one morning around 09:00 is pretty cool, too:

I think I will use that as my computer's wallpaper. If you'd like a higher resolution file to install as your computer's wallpaper, e me at the address next door.

... but I am not dead, nor have I given up stacking or sewing, though I don't do either one as intensely as I used to. 

For one thing, I have had some vandalism. I can't keep the Uphotographable Herd of Arches:

standing, as someone just keeps knocking them over. They remained essentially intact for three years, but over the past year, they have been totally annihilated (stones thrown all over the place) twice and knocked over twice. The Unphotographable Herd was my place to go every Sunday morning, the place I got in touch with it all. 

Anyway, I've done a few things lately. I sewed myself this cool shirt: 

 It's very basic, but the fabric is cool and I really like it. So much so that I never wear it for fear of getting it dirty.

And I sewed this scarf for my friend Nikki:

I also sewed a buncha square-bottomed drawstring bags, but I gave them all away before taking pics. 

 Over in Rob's portion of the Avant Garden, I did Rob's Arch Number 31 back in March:

Lately the water has been too high to get Rob's Arch standing again, but I have done a few other things. 

Like this ZZ Top guy:

This is how he looks from the road in high water from a long way away:

Today (8 July, 2012), I went to Skinny Dip Falls with some fambly members to find that someone had stacked this fine piece:

On the next big boulder upstream, I added this little Arch-on-Pedestal:

That's some of the stuff I have been up to. There's more, somewhere, but it doesn't all come to mind right now. Anyone interested in coming out to Bent Creek to help me re-stack the Unphotographable Herd? I think that would lift my spirits a bit. Give a call or send me a message using the e-mail link to the right. enjoy your Summer, whatever you do!