The Avant Garden

Fish are jumpin'

and the stackin' is high.

Sorry. Back to our regularly scheduled programming ...

The stacks I did last week had a visitor from the Ardeidae family: The Heron appears perched on the arch, but no ...

Sorry about the horrendous photograph, but it was taken out the passenger window of a rolling Subaru while I drove by.

Just outside the frame of that pic is this cool rust-man that Rob created with things from the River:

It's actually much cooler than the photo.

Rob is in Michigan visiting fambly. Hope he is having fun.

I went to Bent Creek Sunday and immediately noted that visitors to the Unphotographable Herd of Arches had left a stack on my little bench:

To that stack, in my best Archie Bunker voice, I demanded, "Get your butt outta my chair." It refused to move, so I helped it and sat down to read the new entry in the logbook I left for people to sign: 

I am happy my creations added to someone's spiritual experience. I hope the story is one they tell for years to come.

A member of the group added some stones to the Unphotographable Herd, which was OK. But I did remove them, because the Herd is there and if you change the energy by adding pieces, it's no longer the Herd ... or at least, no longer my Herd, and realizing that Bent Creek Experimental Forest is public property and everyone has a right to arrange the Stones there as they please, I removed them with neither malice nor ill will. Likesay ... I am just glad the Stones and I could help.

For the past two days, I have stood in the River and bent wire:

I even made an aluminum wire cell phone holder so I could talk to my friend D-U-G while bending tonight. He found it annoying, but my hands just wouldn't stop. You know how it is in the Summertime.

The otter family -- at least the 4 kids -- swam across the River in front of me. I was caught so unawares I could not get my cell phone camera to work. But I saw four small ones. So cuuuuute. Even their poop is cute.

And then there is the new Rob's Arch ... number 25, I believe.

Remember a while back I mentioned having a party to mark the construction of Rob's Arch #25? Well, that never happened. I was so glad the rain stopped and the River level fell and I could get back to work, I hopped in Friday without fanfare, ha-ha.

I did this thing, also:

on the rock that started it all.

And I made this hairy guy:

on the same day. Rob serves as the photo backdrop on that one. He is multi-talented.

Today I went out to Bent Creek to find one of the herders of the Unphotographable Herd of Arches down, so I began repairing him. It started to rain, so I took off my clothes and put them in a dry place (the little red bucket turned on its side) and stacked naked. It was pouring and unlikely that Girl Scout Troop 456 from Bugfuzz, S.C. was going to hike through. I was nervous though, because were I hiking in the nice peaceful woods and came across the Avant Gardener naked and bent over a stack of rocks, I would toss up my trail mix. And I don't want to do that to anybody.

Anyway, this is the largest thing I have ever stacked naked:

And one of the few. It's not something I do often.

But it was good energy today, and it felt nice to put on semi-dry clothes when the rain stopped, too.

With my clothes on, I drove down to the Roadside Serpent and the rain stopped and it got steamy out:

I wasn't quite ready to leave, so I tossed up a quick Arch-on-Pedestal:

I was trying to think of some cool name I could give it to point out the halo thing, which reminds me of my Swedish friend Åsa, who is actually coming to visit the Avant Garden sometime this year. All the way from Sweden -- that's the longest distance anyone has traveled to see the AG. Maybe she will bring me one of those cuckoo clocks Sweden is famous for (haha- just kidding, Åsa, if you are reading this).

This afternoon I came home from work to find that the Avant Harp:

had fallen to time and gravity and now flashed a sorta car-sticker Jesus-fish to all who walked the paths of the Avant Garden:

No worries on my part. We certainly have a freedom of speech in the Avant Garden. It's written into the the Prime Directive, which is a lot like the U.S. Constitution except it is written only on tablets in my head. Anyway, a few minutes later, I looked and the symbol had changed to the Darwin-Fish:

We haven't had that much ideological activism in the whole history of the Avant Garden. What's next?

The Avant Son, the eldest one, graduated from high school this past weekend. Which, in and of itself, is not a big deal. Almost anyone (even I!) can graduate high school. But he did it with honors, both academically and as a musician and leader in the band. He was awarded the John Phillips Sousa Award, which "... recognizes superior musicianship, dependability, loyalty, and cooperation." I did what all proud dads do: I took off for the woods and stacked some rocks, in this case, the Congraduatalations Matt Stack:

The sky's the limit for that kid. He's a big, happy loving kid ... would make a good pediatrician or guidance counselor or therapist ... but I don't really care, as long as he is happy. He is surprisingly level-headed given his parentage. I'm very proud.

Anyway, remember that yucca plant that the River brot us in the Floods of '04? Here is a rather close-up of one of its blossoms:

That's the first of its blossoms ever to open.

I still have not gotten totally serious about the quilting. I need rain to help me stay indoors enough to get started on the quilting.

OK ... I have to go cook some dinner for the Avant Children. More madness later ....

and in between all the insects and sweat, the Avant Gardener has been busy busy busy. First, here is a (Why do crows exist?) jus' caws pic of the No One Arch:

so called because it was the the first arch to appear in the No One Else Has One Garden. I love daisies.

The talk of the Rockpile is of desertion, as I have been busy with that time-sucking quilt project. I did as much of the work as possible in the Avant Garden, and the quilt is loaded with Sunshine and various pieces of organic debris. The top is complete and so is the binding ... leaving only the quilting. Tomorrow. And a few more. Here is a pic of the Avant Children with the quilt:

This detail shows the way I did the top:

The River (blue) has an overlock stitch edging on it in bright, multi-colored thread, each layer of the "topo map" is that way, so it appears the energy emanates from the water and flies up the mountains into the sky blue sky. The binding is yarn sewn with more yarn on the edge, and the bottom panel is a polyester king-sized sheet. Just 854 more hours and it will be done. Then what?

I rebuilt 'em Sunday:

And here is a pic, for good measure:

The Creek is low enough to play in, the River not quite yet.

On Saturday, I mowed the lawn and got the Avant Garden Proper all spiffed up:

That yucca plant in the foreground washed ashore in the Avant Garden in the Flood of 2004. This is the first year it will bloom.

I have been trying to find some way to relay just how beautiful the Meditation Garden is right now. The ferns are all full and growing like crazy because of the rain:

and I almost never put pics of the HealthStack in the blog, but this thing has been standing for about two years:    

Originally, the plan was to build a stack that I called "HealthStack" and then when a friend became ill, I would build them a small totem near it and hope the healing vibes would help, or at least remind me to say a few words for my sick friends. But at my age, I know too many sick people and do not have enough rocks to build totems for all of them, so I just look at HealthStack and say a little prayer for the ill ones.

Go ahead and laugh, but it works better than your average Information Technologies Department does with healing computers. And I am not a condescending asshole, either.