Agassiz BC Tulip Festival and Bison

My husband's parents recently moved out to Agassiz, BC, so we went to visit them on the weekend, and to check out the 2nd Annual Tulip Festival on Seabird Island, instead of venturing down to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. The unseasonably cold weather meant that only half the tulips were in bloom yet, but still there was much colour to enjoy, as the following pictures will indicate (click any photo for a larger image).



Mount Cheam makes a majestic backdrop to the spring colour:

But in some unexpected way, so do these power transmission lines:


We also checked out a nearby herd of bison (buffalo), again with Mount Cheam as a scenic backdrop:

Their faces look like something out of a Star Trek movie, except these are the girls! There seemed to be one male, and seven females.

Garden Glimpses : Late April 2008

It's about time for some more photos of the garden, which is starting to emerge very nicely in spite of the very cold spring. First of all, our surprise snowfall in April (seriously now, this is Vancouver, BC!!) (Click any of the photos for a much larger image):

I'd have to say, though, it adds a nice touch to our million dollar view of Burnaby Lake and the North Shore mountains (and yes, we have been very blessed to have such a wonderful house in such a lovely neighbourhood):

I love the colours - and textures - of this Pulsatilla:

This Epimedium is so delicate and graceful, I wish I had it in better focus...:

This is my Rainier cherry about a week ago, just starting to bloom... I need to snap another photo, it is fully covered in white blossoms now:

To end on a light note, I'm really enjoying these mushroom folk which I picked up at a dollar store:

Aiko Dragon Rider

Aiko's back, and this time she's riding a fiercesome dragon (click photo for larger image):

Okay, for all you non-believers, who think she should be sitting and holding the reigns:

Aiko Rediscovered

First chance in a long time to go to sleep early, and here I am playing with Aiko 3. I wanted to try on some new hair I had for her, and give her some boots. I think she will need to find some better boots one day, but the hair really suits her. What do you think?

Three More Fruit Trees Makes it a Dozen

Work and life may be pretty crazy lately, but this week has been a very hopeful one for me. Last weekend I convinced my husband to buy me three more fruit trees. I have been so delighted by my multi-graft espalier trees, that last year I decided to put in another post, and prepare for a third one. Here is my espalier apple (three varieties) (Click any photo for a larger image - but please don't look too carefully at my weeds ;-) ):

...and my espalier asian pear (three varieties):

..and my latest, a multigraft (3 varieties) European pear tree (Rescue pear, Red Bartlett, and Anjou):

I searched all around town this year, and couldn't find any garden centres which carried the pear in horizontal espalier form. Most of them carried a multigraft pear, but in the basic tree form. I ended up finding it at Triple Tree Nurseryland in Maple Ridge, BC, where my other espaliers came from also. Before we went, I prepared my husband that I was entertaining the thought of up to 3 more other fruit trees, and showed him the spots where we could plant them.

I already knew that I wanted a Morello sour cherry, and a Frost peach. For the peach, I don't have any expectation about getting any fruit, but I have heard that the blossoms rival those of a flowering cherry, so it would be worth it even for the blossoms. The fun part was loading the three trees into the minivan, along with 4 bags of 30L soil, and 2 bags of manure.

Happily, the weather, which has been schizophrenically alternating between sunny & pouring rain & hail, co-operated a couple of nights this week, for my husband to dig in the espalier pear, and prepare the hole for the Morello cherry (at the center of the photo. See the Frost peach waiting patiently to the right):

He did such a thorough job of preparing for the espalier pear, removing 2 full wheelbarrows of clay, that we used up 4 of the 6 bags already, and it was still a bit low. So we will need to make an outing to get more soil. He removed 4 wheelbarrows of soil for the Morello cherry. Under the couple of inches of topsoil which the landscapers laid down for the lawn, it is hard clay and rocks. He used a combination of pick axe and shovel to dig it out.

In these first few years, I can really see the fruit trees taking form, and getting stronger. My husband remarked about our italian plum (which has yet to set any fruit), "Where did that tree come from?". When we got it, it was so skinny, it was hardly noticeable. I used to laugh when I pointed to the back yard, telling people "We have 9 fruit trees up there, you just can't see them yet". Wait and see. Patience and pre-planning is the key to growing fruit trees.

I am so happy now. I have 12 fruit trees, with 18 varieties of fruit. Not counting the blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, and various other edibles. I can hardly wait. Maybe the birds will even leave a bit for us this year.

He is Risen

With His Stripes We Are Healed

3D Dinosaur Scene

I've been working long hours lately, with not even a chance of "spare" time to play with the DAZ Studio software. But when a free 3D Protoceratops arrived in my Inbox tonight, just before a long weekend, it was an offer I couldn't refuse.

Here is a little scene I put together, called "Keep Up Junior" (click photo for a larger image):

Fairy House - Part 3

I managed to find the time to put a roof on the fairy house, but then haven't squeezed any time these past couple of weeks to post photos of it, so even though it's midnight, I'm finally going to make time to post.


The grass roof is the faded straw from my blue oat grass, which I quite regularly pull handfuls from, to keep them looking fresh and greenish-blue. The decorative puff-balls are stems I dried from my bunny tail grass (Lagurus ovatus) at the end of last summer. I can't wait until I get the fairy house out into the garden. I'll be sure to post photos then, but I have a feeling it may be a few more weeks before I do that.

Fairy House - Part 2

I put in some more time on the fairy house project today, while watching a movie with the kids. Now the 4 walls are done, and a bit of the roof. I'm still thinking that if I get a shell of a roof together, then we should be able to collect enough grasses to cover it. That will look pretty cool, like a tropical hut. Here it is tonight:

Fairy House - Part 1

My daughter has been asking me to help her build a fairy house for a while now. I have resisted, feeling that I don't have the time or know-how to make anything worth cluttering the garden with. But today, while taking advantage of the absolutely gorgeous weather to clean up the garden, she noticed the butterfly bush (Buddleia Davidii) twigs I was tossing in the wheelbarrow, and asked for them, to make a fairy house.

Suddenly, I realized that this was our answer. The twigs from the butterfly bush are quite woody, and very plentiful. My bush was probably close to 10' tall & 8' wide, and I was cutting it back to about 6', so there were lots of twigs available.

We started by tying the branches with string, but I knew that wire was the real answer, so we made a quick run to Rona before it closed at 6PM, and picked up a reel of gauge 24 galvanized steel. This turned out to be the best lineal price of their various wire options (even better than the black steel wire), easy to bend (the gauge 20 would have been too much of a fight, and likely would have broken the twigs while tightening), but still quite strong, that I should hold up outdoors for quite a while.

Anyhow, here is the house (just the outline) after maybe an hour of work, just before the kids went to bed:
After that, I kept working for a couple more hours, and filled in two of the walls, one with a window:
The house will have a front door, two side windows, and solid back wall. Even though I've thinned my blue oat grasses a couple of times (now I wish I hadn't sent a large bag of it to the city compost last week), I think we can get enough grasses to even cover the roof.

Part of me is screaming that I really don't have time for this project. But the other part of me (which I'm glad I'm listening to this time) is calmly saying that if I don't have the time now, then when will I? After all, at 9 years old, and with 2 fairy birthday parties, dozens of fairy books, fairy toys, and a half dozen fairy movies behind her, how long will my daughter continue her interest in fairies? So if it isn't this summer, then when?

By the way, I had a perverse gardening thought... Since the buddleia branches were just clipped today, and knowing how reliably these grow from cuttings, if I pushed the house in the soil in the next couple days, there would be a good chance that some of the branches would take root. That would be a sight to behold, wouldn't it?

I've left the mess of branches and clippers and wire on the kitchen table, so we can hopefully continue again tomorrow evening. We'll eat at the island for now, if we have to, to keep our momentum on the project.

Pink Green Forest Fairies

I found this photo, I believe it was of a mountain azalea. Anyhow, it looked like a lovely spot for some flower fairies. First, a pink and a green one (click photo for larger image):

I think this looks even better, their dresses match the pink and green colours of the foliage:

Weird cakes and weird creatures

We are coming to the end of birthday season. My kids have birthdays 3 weeks apart, so for a period of about 4 weeks, it is birthday season.

My daughter had a fairy birthday with her friends, where they decorated fairy wings and wands, and gave themselves fairy names. Since she also had a fairy birthday last year, and the Fairytopia cake, we didn't want to choose the same cake, so I Photoshopped an image for her, and had it put on the cake. Save-On-Foods offers this service, using sugar paper to add the image to the cake. The result is pretty neat.

Here is the photo I altered (the original was lifted from the site fantasy-fairies.com), to insert my daughter's face:


I'll post the photo of the resulting cake once we develop it - I took it on the SLR camera.

On the weekend, we had the combined birthday party with the family, and a combined cake, too. Encouraged by my Photoshop experiment, I decided to try out my DAZ 3D skills, and create my own image, which I did, and then I Photoshopped the kids' faces onto it. Here is the image, which I entitled "Mythical Meeting in the Forest":


I'll try to post the resulting cake also, once the photo is ready.

Every week, DAZ seems to come out with another free item. Fortunately last week it was the dragon, just in time for the birthday cake. This week it is a weird looking creature called "Xerr". I think he's a little too scary for a birthday cake!:

5 Beautiful Fairies

Okay, I've learned a bit more.... How to duplicate objects, change colours... Now I've ended up with a set of 5 beautiful fairies (click for larger image):

Fun with 3D Textures - Not Pretty!

Tonight I found a tutorial on how to use textures to create outfits for the 3D characters. I tried to create a Waldo outfit for Aiko, but didn't have much luck. After 2 tries, I got the stripes in roughly the right places, but my white seemed to be translated as "skin", so I tried off-white, still no luck (click for closeup):

So then I then just experimented with some random textures, had a bit of fun, the result is definitely not pretty, but I can see there is some good potential here:

Dragonfly Fairy

Oh my, this one is gorgeous, and I love dragonflies. I think her pose/posture is not quite there yet, but I love it already... What do you think? How would you improve this image (click for a larger view):

What are Toadstools Anyhow?

Hmmm... Ever wonder why they are called "toadstools"? Because toads like to sit on them, of course! Enjoy my latest DAZ 3D creation (click photo for larger image of these lounging tree frogs):

Trio of Forest Fairies

It didn't take long tonight (less than an hour) to create a magical scene of a trio of beautiful fairies in the forest. Something to the right has captured their attention, and stopped them mid-flight (click the photo for a larger image).

What was that light? They had never seen one quite like it before....

Well Dressed Fairies

I got tired of the fairies being stuck in wet suits, and decided to buy them some dresses. What do you think (click photo for a larger image)?

Fairies and Toadstools

It was just over a year ago I was pleased to discover and take photos of some beautiful spotted red mushrooms (the classic toadstools from the childrens fairy tales - see mushroom photos post), and thought this may make a good setting for my fairies. What do you think? (Click the image for a larger view.)


Here it is, in a puzzle: