Mt Garden Today

I keep losing my photos on Picasa, don't know why?

Here are some recent ones though.

Now the weather is cooling, it has been hot for May.

We are more "normal" forecast for the next ten days,

65F. during the day and 48 at night, and a little rain,

but not too much.

 Little Garden Pool, 8' x 15' x 3' deep, nice on a hot day!

  Area between Greenhouse and Garden

Blue Berries and Flowers and Jasmine

 The Bridge I Cross

Today is just a backyard picture kind of day. So I am showing you photos of my backyard, garden and the studio where I work.

 My Garden in progress

   I am lucky, I walk to work, about a hundred feet from my back door, across this little stone and steel bridge to the front entry to my studio.

This is my garden area next to the studio and a big area of concrete where I do my outside work and display my pieces.  This pair of benches have been sold and found a nice home but this reminds me that I should make some more.  They are steel framed with a concrete bench with slate veneer.

 Trumpet Vine in Bloom

The gated archway to my garden has a large trumpet vine, offering hundreds of beautiful orange blooms for all summer long.
    My garden is mostly Tomatoes and mostly heirloom varieties from seeds that I have saved over the years.
I made, years ago, perhaps the best food dehydrator in the world!  I have the plans for this if you want them!

 Little Garden Plunge Pool

I can dry about a five gallon bucket full of tomatoes at a time.  Dried like potato chips, they are great on a cracker with some cheese.

This is the little garden "Plunge Pool" I built with the help of my daughters when they were eight and eleven years old.  It is three feet deep and about 8' x 14', can be heated but I don't.
My daughters have moved on in life but I got to keep the pool!

There are hundreds more photos of my garden  HERE!

Installation Art

Like most artists most of my work is done by myself, alone in solitude, contemplating and creating. But I am also an "installation artist" and do really big projects and these require assistance. Truthfully, I love these the most. I like the educational opportunities, the shared laughter, the awe, and the tiredness at the end of a completed job well done.
I interested my daughters at an early age in "doing things around the house". When my wife said that it meant cleaning and laundry but when I said it they knew we were going to build something! We did this enough that they gained a lot of confidence over the years and now they are not afraid to tackle anything. When they were eight and eleven years old they decided they wanted a pool in the back yard. I told them that if they did the digging I would help them build the pool.
They dug a hole 3 feet deep (one meter) by 15 feet long and nine feet wide, all by themselves!
My wife helped and the four of us built this little plunge pool, using left over bits of tile and slate
to finish it off. This created memories I will never forget and how proud I was when they invited their friends over to the pool they built! And another nice thing! my daughters are grown and gone now but I still have the pool!