I have no space, here, that is all me and mine and so I find a space and I make it so. I bought some pink shale for my flower garden area. I have wanted to upscale that little plot for a few years and now I have it. The Bee |Man’s daughter and the young man she caretakes came and hauled the shale from the back of the truck and dumped it in the area and then I raked it all to get good cover and immediately the area perked up.
I had put a calla lily pot in the garage, last fall, and promptly forgot all about it. When I went to the small freezer area, to my surprise, there was the calla lily, pale and reaching and I felt ashamed that I ha left it without water or care. But it was a danged determined plant and I found it a perfect spot outside. Because it still went down to freezing, I let it have sun during the day and wrapped it up in a warm fuzzy blanket for the nights.
I dream of poppies and this year I am going to have not only my California poppies that come u everywhere every year, I am going to try to cultivate some beautiful colored poppies. I babied the seeds in the house, by starting them in egg cartons that I fussed over every day, waiting for the little curl of green to come to be.
I fussed and made heavy tissue paper blossoms too put on the trellis below some pink and salmon-colored wire netting I turned into its own blossom. I sprayed the tissue with salmon-colored and pink-hued inks and sprayed some Mod Podge Matte to have the tissue-blossoms be able to withstand our Okanagan rains of spring. When it rains, I run out and put a plastic cover over them to save them from a drowning droop.
I put out my four gold pans used by miners that I picked up at garage sales, and organized my rocks into sies and colors to enhance the look of my rock-type garden. I used some of my larger rocks around the pots and fountain and bird bath. Each pan and a fluted blue bowl held stones and rocks I have reached and dug from Mother Nature in the mountains of Yuma and here. There is such satisfaction to be able to look out my patio door and see the abundance I have spent long hours digging and steep climbs climbed to get.
I unearthed the patio swing, put my birth mother’s crocheted blanket over it, and brushed the pine spills from beneath that had gathered in piles over the winter. I took down the fairy ights and put them on the trellis. I put fairy lights in my gazing ball. I set the swing back in its spot and sat down to perceive the ordinary beauty I had wrought.
The tall juniper pines behind the swing, I loaded with rock rain chains, with bird houses, with wind chimes of all kinds. I took down the fairy lights from there and let natural ordinary beauty of the hedge of trees be enough.
There are some things on the patio area that I have to wrok around; the stove for summer harvest canning, the BBQ, the electrical outlet are and I have yet to find a Value village boutique covering to prettify up the things that I cannot change.
The gazebo fell down into its skirts of canvas last winter. I will be working to bring that area back to some sort of shade area for hot Okanagan summer. When May comes, I will start thinking up ways to make it inviting and a place to cool down in. It has been my art studio for summers, but I might ot be able to enclose the area so it will be temporary art area for my private art children to work in. It will be a space for me to go out and do art, but I will have to haul my art supplies out and in but it will work.
I have spent many hours working on the patio. You see, I am an usurper here and the house is not mine nor me. But, outside, the patio is where \i can make it all me and mine. That is important. It does not matter that it is not sumptuously beautiful… it is ordinary beauty. To me, it is staking my claim, in a way. It is where I go to spend hours of creativity and peace and calm. The firepit in the middle of the swing area tops off what is beautiful to me. I can light beautiful fires there and can sit for hours watching the wood burn and to take in all the senses of what a fire can be to me.
It is my statement of I Am Here! Each little tableau around the pots tells a story. Around one are the garden gnomes and in the pot is a ceramic mushroom. It speaks to me and tells me and those who see it, a story. Around another are the statues from Mexico, the god and goddess and a faux clay vase that tells another story. Around another are the Mexican Parrots standing guard around the call lily pot. I have ordered a garden hare statue to wander around the garden area.
I have this thing about dark night and outside so I am always putting some kind of lights I can have on out there without having full light. My fairy lights help with that, but this Christmas I bought some tall twinkling silver birch trees. I have added some blooms on the branches and it stands over the buddha fountain that will have water that flows and twinkles.
I wait now, for blossoms to come, for the gazebo area to happen and already find repose in my ordinary beauty of my patio area. Few see this area as it is at the back of the house. Invited guests will come and partake of the solitude out there. Grandkids will come to visit and cook hot dogs over the fire pit. Students will come and find a space just for them to create in. It fills my soul to have this one holy spot of ordinary beauty.
What is some ordinary beauty around you and yours?
©Carol Desjarlais 4.19.22
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