Monday, May 16, 2011

Art of a Different Sort....with Rocks!

We have finally been blessed with some decent weather, which instantly takes me outside into the yard.  Being a yard we've only lived in for one year, there is lots to do!  The house was neglected and deserted for about five years before we bought it at a bargain price.  The yard was a disaster.  It is a conglomeration of buttercups, dandelions, moss, fuzzy fernlike ground cover and one really obnoxious weed I can't identify but let me tell you it STINKS when I pull it out!  But this is a picture of our "Pink Champagne" clematis in bloom already!


I've been mowing, weeding, shaping beds, planting, moving dirt to fill low spots and pruning.  But there came a point where one bed is almost complete, which brings me to the point where I absolutely HAVE to embellish it with some of my rock and pebble collection.  So.....having reached this point, I had to get the buckets and bags of rocks that I moved with us (yes, I move my favorite rocks from house to house, and I know where I got them all!....call it an obsession!).  I think it interesting that this one looks like a paw print, but I didn't realize it until I photographed it!  Remembering my special dog, Buddy, subconsciounsly. 


But my collection was in a state of disarray having been left in storage over the winter in their various containers.  There was nothing to do but pour a glass of wine, sit down in the sun, and sort my collection.  My husband thought I was nuts.  Of course I had to have some water to wash them off and new containers to sort them according to my plan....the really black ones will go in the bird bath, the olive green ones (quite rare) will be in a bowl that is featured in the garden, the red ones we got in Montana , on a very special vacation, will be kept separate, the weird shaped ones will be used as features, also in the garden, and the flat ones I can't resist picking up will be little "cairns" dotting the landscaping!  I've sprinkled this post with photos of my afternoon of sorting and organizing.....if there's a rock lover out there that sees this post, I know they'll understand!  And here's a photo of my collection of heart shaped rocks, begun when I lost my dear friend "Buddy".  A Rottweiller who wanted to be a lap dog!