The Avant Garden

it's pre-mosquito season and it stays light out until 20:30 (that's 8:30 p.m. to you and me). Most of my time lately has been taken up by the Expansion Garden, which now has a circular flat spot for my wife to practice yoga and a bench and a driftwood forest and most importantly -- less poison ivy. I have been at war with poison ivy (and oriental bittersweet and rosa japonica and ...) lately, and have won a few key battles.

My friend Joe came up from Atlanta and we went back to Skinny Dip Falls. He did this Balance above our favorite skinny dipping pool:
Purty as a picture, as they say ...

He took this photo of me and the Skinny Serpent as I was working on her baby Serpent:

The creek, the name of which I don't know except the part about Skinny Dip Falls, got deeper there in the middle, so the middle hump is a bit low in the water. Why do I keep doing this big-Serpent-with-baby Serpent theme? Have I seen too many Madonna-n-Child paintings?

Speaking of church, in which I haven't set foot since my brother was married, on Easter morning I did this: 
The one in the center is still standing...

Later a storm came and washed away the two smaller crosses, and a piece of driftwood got stuck to the big one in the center, as if I created lyrics for a gospel song out of stone.

The absolute coolest thing I have going right now is the "No-One-Else-Has-One-Garden" in the front yard of my house:
Another hard thing to photograph ... 

Few of the things I have ever done turn out better than I expected, but in some ways, this section of garden (primarily stone and sedum with a few other plants) has turned out far better than I schemed. Partly because I have planted sedum, one ofthe most difficult to kill, yet most rewarding plants available. Weeding is still a problem for me.

I spent two hours mowing the Avant Garden today. My seven-year-old mower beats the grass into submission instead of actually cutting it, but overall the stones look neater in a park setting than in weeds.

I leave you with this thought ... you know that old cliche about "Good friends help you move, best friends help you move bodies?" Well, how about this update: "Good friends come over and help you pull poison ivy by hand, best friends convince you to use a systemic weedkiller."

Last entry I mentioned the Mother Serpent in Bent Creek with her baby. I did take a few photos of her with my other camera and now that I have the film developed, have discovered something in the photograph that is very interesting. Her tail:
We're so lucky -- a rare sighting!

is much bigger around than the rest of her. Many leading serpentologists believe the engorged tail is a sign warning of impending danger. Indeed, as she watches her baby:

play, her tail is raised high and engorged with energy. She sees danger on the horizon, as a herd of seven arches, driven like cattle by three arches with riders, approaches:
I swear I could hear "Rawhide" in the background ...

Will she and her young disappear back into the Creek, or will the herders drive their arches a different way? I am not sure how this drama will unfold, but will let you know next time I go to Bent Creek.

One of my neighbours bought some scrap metal a long time ago to use as borders in her garden, but after eight years of not being able to do anything with it, she asked me to try. So I stood it up and called it "T4Texas," and now every time I see it think of Bob Weir and the Grateful Dead:
The Allies won't land in Judy's yard now ...

I think it looks like one of those things the Germans put on Omaha Beach to thwart the Allied landing on D-Day, but the space in between as the "T" splits is a pretty cool moment.

What's next? Only the rocks know ...

Spring daylight makes it hard to stay indoors for very long. I have been doing a lot of repairwork lately. The question, "Why do you keep taking time to rebuild the same things over and over when there could be new things you might discover to build?" came up around the rockpile the other day. I answered, "Because one of these days, the Queen herself might ask me to build something and I want to be able to go to her garden and build it while she watches and have it work." So please, if you know the Queen, tell her I am available and well-practiced.

Anyway, my favorite thing I have done lately was another trip to Skinny Dip Falls. I took the whole family this time, and while they hiked about and the dog sniffed other dog's butts, I did this:
I'll try for some nudity next time ... 

Last time we went to Atlanta, I went to visit my friend D-U-G. He is a farrier (that's a horse-shoer) who also has a blacksmith shop. He gave me some steel and an anvil and a hammer and built a fire. I heated the steel until it was red and then I beat the devil out of it:
It ain't like rocks, but it ain't bad fun ...

I made some hanging basket hooks and some other things just to sorta get the feel for shaping the stuff.

This past Sunday, friend Jill and I went to Bent Creek and she studied some kinda grad school stuff while I built a mom and a baby serpent:

I wanted to hear "cute," so I asked Jill what she thought. She delivered.

The mother serpent is in a place where she cannot be photographed.