Lorelei's Enchanted Forest

Today, I wanted to show you my garden/forest/trail, and tell you a little bit about it, and how much work I've done on it for the past 2 years. This year especially I've spent a lot of hours on this woods and expansion of the trail.

This shows the entrance from our yard. It's deeply wooded with mostly black walnut trees, but many other shrubs and trees intermingle.

Two years ago, my husband simply mowed around the tree, which you see behind that brown door, it's nice, up until the mosquitoes emerge later in spring. I like to watch birds from the bench you see in front. Gradually, that first year, I began working on a winding pathway through brush and black raspberry bushes, in order to come out the other side where the forest preserve drive is, and where the property ends.

This is the beginning of a meandering, winding trail that I can only guess as being about 100 or so feet in length. The path is done in wood chips. I, myself, hauled dozens of wheelbarrows of wood chips from at least 100 yards away, doing maybe 4 to 6 loads in a day. In some cases I had a larger wheelbarrow, but I found that even though I could get more mulch into this, it was heavier. It wasn't so much about hauling it, as it was doing it all myself, building up muscles after a long winter, and exercise--which I never like to do, except when I see something as ends to a means. In other words, I don't want to get on a treadmill and go nowhere and have nothing to show for my time invested. I'd rather take a walk in the park and see nature.

I'm not only a writer, but I was always an artist. When growing up my mother must have had a conniption with me, as I drew on walls. I have to laugh. If only she'd have gotten me some paper, I would have been happy with drawing on it.

Anyway, to give you a little taste of my inventiveness, I'll show you some of my art work below.

"MORNING AFTER THE NIGHT BEFORE"

I love glass especially old glass, which I'll show you in just a moment. The twisted tree which I used to place the bottles on, is actually the root end of a tree. I saw it in a pile of debris, and told my husband I needed it for my garden. I sawed off, by hand, the other end of it, placed it where I wanted, and began adding old, or new bottles. The wine bottle you'll note has an interesting picture on it. "Morning After The Night Before" is the title. If you think about it, you'll get the joke, because mostly these are beer bottles.

I have done crafts in one form or another over the years, and if I ever find another craft store nearby, I'll be working on getting my things into one soon. Below is an old shovel that I salvaged. Anyone else would toss such things. Me, I see potential.

I chose to paint a little sign for the garden section, and tried to think of something that would be an interesting twist of the line "Herein lies the rub", and so "Here In Lies The Grub" worked.

As you can see my old glass canning jar is suspended from a band that went around a whiskey barrel once upon a time. On either side of this are antique blue insulators--you remember when these were on electric and telephone poles? I'm also a rock hound. In front, below the glass jar is a rock that is almost perfectly round. I find such treasures and put them in my garden where I like to display them as a focal point.
If you look behind these things, you'll see an old garden tiller. Believe it or not, I used to use this way back when I was younger, and it still worked, but at that time was probably an antique. Now it is so rusted the wheel won't turn. I'm a collector of the unusual, my tastes run eclectic.

This is a view to the left side of the entrance. Where the photographer stands (and I'll give my sister-in-law, Kathy Bell, the credit for these photos, since I had no way of taking and sharing them myself), behind her is a stand of 4 or 5 mature white pines, which Dennis put into the ground about 20 years ago. Their needles fall every fall, and layer the area. Some needles coat the beginning of this entrance. To the left, further in, grows moss, and I've spent hours pulling the weeds out of the moss in order to encourage its growth as a lovely, spongy walk way.

That's me behind the door, which I also salvaged from a burn pile. The two signs here I also made. The wooden one I used a wood burner and my carving set to make and it reads: "Lorelei's Enchanted Forest". Makes for an interesting focal point, don't you think?

Another shovel below reads "When Life gives you Weeds Pull 'Em!"  A lot of the rocks you see around my garden either I collected myself from either the field across the road, or they were ones I already had. The larger ones, my husband hauled up with a small tractor. I also dug up old bricks in a different area the year before and have used them in various places for my gardens.

This sign is from the park's very beginnings, and they used to have bison - not buffalo - in the park. The story goes that one winter we had something like 70" to 80" of snow (I want to say this was the 79/80 blizzard, and I remember it), and the bison were able to escape their fence. So, they were never put back. I have no idea what was done with the animals.

Anyway, Dennis, as a joke, put this sign up in the back part of the entrance.

Well, I hope you've all enjoyed this tour of my forest/garden, and artwork. I've wanted to share with you what I've been working on during the spring. At this time of summer, when it's too hot and muggy out, I don't do much outdoor work. That's when I like to write. And, looks like I've spent enough time on this, so, I'll leave you all for time being. Have a good rest of the week!

Vacation Time

Not everyone gets one, I realize, so I feel grateful for getting one. Especially in my job, when I take time off I don't get paid, so there will be no money coming in for these two weeks I'm off. And this is a stay-at-home vacation. Vacation is vacation, no matter if you go anywhere or not.

I'm taking time off to regroup, relax, and get a few things done I might otherwise never get to. The things I plan on doing may not get done, but I have a mental list, and some of it involves a real mop and soap *wink*. Since my flowers are all in, I only need to keep them watered in this terrible drought we are having. Weeds seem to take off in this sort of weather, too, so there will be some kneeling on the ground to pull the pesky things out of my flowerbeds. I can't wait to see the flowers flourish and fill in. I use Miracle Grow on anything I plant. It really helps make them grow better.

But my husband needs time off too, and he's going to take some days off--he is able to be paid, up to the hours he's earned. There will be shopping on some of those days we're together--for clothes, and I need new glasses. We need to hit a few antique shops in the area, too. Oh, and some places for lunch that we have not tried. We want to go shopping in a nearby town (Sycamore), and want to pop in and see what's new. There's a new wine shop that opened up, and an antiques shop, as well. I don't know about you, but I love to look at old stuff and old photographs.

I've been working on short stories lately, and since one was not picked up, I'm going to self publish it (which makes me happier than you can imagine!) It will be my very first attempt at this, and I'll certainly post about that when the story is up. More on that in another blog post.

My current WIP: Well, it was number 4 book, but lately number 5 book wants to come out of me. I've got scenes in my head. I see this one individual who gets on my bus everyday, and thought he would make an interesting character, and I had to write a scene, and figure out how adding him would be beneficial to the story. I don't like to write too much on something that I'm not sure about. And then, this guy wrote himself in. He's American/Japanese, and his name is Cho. To quote another new character, "He's lethal". And I'm working on how Sabrina sees something from the guy's past where he has killed an opponent during a Martial Arts tournament--by accident, of course--at age 15. Well, naturally, I need him for the book! Sabrina could use a human to protect her during the day, when the vampires are away.

A lot of holes to fill in it, and so I'm writing scene descriptions on note cards and pondering where they will be placed. That's the only "outlining" I will do. It's actually called "story board", and it works for me. I've got the plot-planner taped on my wall. Looks like an odd M, with an extension going up in front of the M. If anyone needs this, send me an e-mail (loreleibell4[at]gmail[dot]com). I'll gladly send it to you. It's really good for plotting a novel. I've drawn mine large so that I can tape it on my wall, and tape my post-it notes, or note cards to it, so that I can see how I want things to progress. It's the handiest thing I've ever found for plotting.

So, for my very first day of my vacation, although I have been busy, I'm enjoying the thought of not getting up early--unless I have a scene slam into my head and I have to get it down. Happy Dance!