The Avant Garden

... my hands are sandpaper, I am sore in most every joint and have a bit of wind and sunburn. It will be good to get back to work-work tomorrow so I can get some rest. 

Last Sunday as I awaited the kickoff of the Steelers/Broncos game, I decided I had time for one more ... something ... and I couldn't decide what it would be until I noticed the nice footprint of this big rock:
He led a short but impressive life ...

Thursday I went  over to Gash's Pond near the Nature Center and did this:
Another candidate for 'Urban Rockstacker' magazine ...

which makes a shadow on the urban landscape that looks like this:

Kinda cool in an Avant Garden kinda way ...

Saturday morning my wife and I set out for Skinny Dip Falls, but the BluRP was closed so we 'settled' on Bent Creek. She and the dog went for a run while I fixed up the four things in the Bent Creek Sculpture Walk, including a new Independence Circle, though I was thinking the interior of this one  looks more like a football that swallowed a hand grenade:
It gets bigger with each rendition, doesn't it?

and a new "Meditations on Thominator," the first one I have concocted while there were icicles hanging about:

Only the one on the far right was still standing ...

I also put the waders on yesterday and crossed the River behind the house to fix up the Migrating Arches. Last night I went to the GPI to see The Dave Brubeck Quartet, which was way cool. This morning I drove up the BluRP a ways until I got  to a place I call "The Gap." I decided to put some  lace around this craggy outcropping and dead tree:
That's seven arches in all ...

I did a series of balancing things, but the wind was howling across the ridgetop so fast that they had a short life expectancy until I hit on this combination:
Bad angle on the one in back ...

And then I left.

It was a good week, the past few days especially. January has been good to us. According to Rob, the temperature of the River this afternoon was 50F. I had to jump in with my boots on yesterday to save Joshua's light sabre from the rapids and it seemed a lot colder than that as I walked back up to the house.

It did indeed snow. All day Saturday, pretty much, though it never really accumulated that much:
"3-2-1-Arches" in the morning ...

I did "3-2-1-Arches" earlier in the week. If I had enough rocks, I'd make a fence of arches  like that all the way to Timbuktu. Or at least ar0und the Avant Garden in a snaky sort of way. Perhaps the rock fairy will come.

I'd bet these were the coldest breasts in North Carolina, probably colder than that witch's titty in that brass bra that construction workers are always talking about:
Tacky, but no one else has one ... or two

Rob and I went for a walk in his wood to take some photos of things stacked:
Were that a few notes of an instrumental, what would it sound like?

and came across a white lichen on the end of a downed tree. It stood out because no snow gathered on it or near it ... as if it were a heat-producing growth:
Perhaps it is a warm-blooded lichen ...

When I die and go to the Great Rockpile in the Sky I'll live in a log cabin with that species of lichen for wallpaper (and insulation).

Sunday evening, while preparing dinner for The5Russells plus Jill, I felt a tinge of Vertigo return for a visit. I made it through dinner, but as we walked the dog, began stumbling. It was worse Monday, and I basically stayed on the sofa with a bit of work-work mixed in between until yesterday. Yesterday, I finally made it to a rockpile. I fell three times on the way, the last one hurting me. Each time, I would fall and it was as if I didn't know what was happening -- I was just suddenly on the ground. I played a little but didn't really do any heavy lifting until this afternoon:
It looked really cool in lantern light tonight ...

The good folks over at the MountainXpress printed a photo of Rob's Arch:

My current favorite photo ...

as their "Hot Shot" feature this week. They even put my name in the paper. Ironically, on Wednesday, the very same day it saw print, the rains came and knocked it over. As a matter of fact, everything I had in the River is down, pretty much. A clean slate, a fresh palette ... let's hope for a warm, dry weekend. The forecast calls for rain, but the piles of playclothes in the DaveCave need washing anyway.

... it's odd, isn't it, that as long as I have been doing this nature-manipulation thing we have not had a decent snow? Is the universe such a tightly-wound place that the natural objects I have re-arranged have thrown Nature out of balance and we won't get snow until  I stop? Have I changed the order of the universe that much? Naaah...

On a gorgeous Saturday morning I went down to the Nature Center and played around a bit, and Neanderthal that I am, shiny moving objects caught my eye:
I like these patterns ...

then I built this:

It's four aches with four rocks on the ground ...

I fixed up the arches in the front yard Avant Garden, also known as the "No One Else Has One Garden." It's mostly rocks, driftwood and sedum, which is currently my favorite plant.  This one turned out even more betterly than expected:
Great rocks well organized ... if I say so myself...

And the rock to the right has worn to reveal some different colored layers ... I tried to get the kitty to stand in there for a photo, but she was too clever.

Wednesday I did a series of balances on an arch kinda thing, and that night I went out with the kerosene lantern and made some photos. This is a favorite:

The Four Horsewomen of the Apocalypse? I dunno, either ...

The next evening I went over to Rob's to make some photos in his yard. His Serpent-on-an-Arrette was almost hit by a meteorite, but it hit the birdhouse instead:
This may appear too dark on old monitors ...

Just upstream a bit, we staged a photo of this arch-on-a-pedestal, one of the more interesting of the eight or so I have standing.  After much re-arranging of light sources and cameras, this was the best of the lot, I think:
It's not something you'd find at Wal-Mart ...

I've always wanted to take pictures of rockstacks in the snow, so I am crossing my fingers that we will wake up to four inches tomorrow. Expect a heap of photos.

I hope. It's off to a good start. We've had a bout of decent weather lately that has allowed me to have some fun.

I fixed Rob's River Arch back:
Who's the shaggy guy?

just in time, as we had three-quarters of an inch of rain in one day and the North Fork Reservoir is getting full enough that the City will do a flashflood on us soon. Last time I saw it, the water was barely lapping the toes of the pedestal.

Come to think of it, I have been doing a lot of repairwork of late. Sunday I went to Bent Creek with my friend Jill and we (well, mostly I), repaired Meditations on Thominator:

We still miss ol' Thominator ... 
and the Roadside Serpent needed a head and tail repair.

There's a place in the French Broad River under the West Asheville Bridge where the county has a little park area. I call it "Drug Deal Park."  Anyway, the rock (of the granite variety) selection down there is awesome. I did this thing:
Do those jeans make my butt look big?

which I have done before when the water was quite a bit lower. This one I hoped would reveal itself slowly as the water level went down, but I think the rains came and knocked it over instead. I think that's a good enough Serpent for the cover of "Urban Rockstacker" magazine.

And last but not least is my new most favoritest thing. I mentioned the arches on the balancing beam last entry. I added this driftwood construction:

So much balance you can almost feel it ...

so they both are rocking in the spillway breeze. The beam rocks so slowly you have to watch closely to see it; the driftwood never stops visible movement.

Saturday morning, I went down to the Gashes Creek Pond to fix the three o'clock arch-on-a-pedestal:  
You can see the nine o'clock guy on the other side ...

As I packed up to leave, a guy came walking up to do some fishing. He asked me if I was the one who "...made them symbols?" I admitted I was and he said, "I came down here the other day and they spooked me." I explained to him that they are just things that I build and they do not have any meaning that I have assigned to them. I don't think they are even laid out in a north-south-east-west configuration or anything. They just are.