When it Rains, it Pours

After an extra long, extra hot, extra dry summer and a non existant (equally warm, etc.) autumn, we have now an ...

EXTRA WET WINTER. YAYY!!!

Yes, we are very happy with all this rain. Who could have thought when we lived in northern Europe that we would love rain so much?

Every thing is clean and luscious green.

We won't have water shortages this summer, I hope.

Yes, rain is precious, rain is ...life!

Friday Findings: Bamboo

Here some Etsy findings which are inspired by or made of Bamboo.

carpedraco

helenascloset

Mocahete

Ahpeele

decorette

akalinop

joanschaumburg49

yukijewelry

MashedPotatoMosaics

Tenderness

The big pointer in the picture is a girl called Zeyno. Zeyno is short for Zeynep, a turkish girls name that somehow gets asociated with wholesome, innocent village girls.

The name couldn't be more appropiate in this sense. Zeyno is 80 pounds of goodness. The small dogs use her as a matrass in winter, and despite her size, she waits patiently for all the others to feed before she takes a turn.

A friend of us found her, maybe six weeks old, trembling in terror on a night when a small earthquake ocurred here. She was tiny, I brought her home with her belly snuggly fitting the palm of my hand. She grew like overnight, we don't even have a picture of her puppy time, it happened so fast!
Big innocent Zeyno, the best natured friend, the true image of tenderness.

New Project

Estella and I are most of the time busy with projects larger than ourselves. Like two ants, by shear obstinacy and many little steps, we eventually reach our goal.

Do you remember our new work place? It was so neat in the beginning , but now, most of the time, it looks like this:

We simply have too much stuff and too much ungoing work for this little room, so it is time for the next project...

This is the veranda, beautiful, but we don't use it much. It is too hot in summer and in winter the rain comes in from all sides. It is 45 square meters and with great light, so, if we close it in with double glass, we will have a much larger studio...

Of course, nothing goes as planned, that's a law. When we removed the wood coverings of the poles that hold the roof, we discovered that they were not iron, as I supposed, but pine wood and totally rotten at that.

So, first the smith had to come and replace the wooden poles with iron ones.

That went surprisingly well. Each rotten pole was removed, the roof slighly elevated with a jack, and a new pole slided in place. Pheeeww, that was that...


Next month, the glassers will come with the PVC windows, than the electricity, than new tables, airco, etc. It will take several months to complete, but it will be great in the end, all that space...

To be continued...

Friday Findings: Globes

Globes make me drool... I love them and hope to have a big collection of them in some years...

briefmoments

jagosaurus

WalkingToJericho

eclecticeccentricity

thequeenofcups

sweetshorn

cozycottagecreations

Artsy

artandphilanthropy

TaylorSculpture

Stormy Weather

Winters are mild and stormy in South-West Turkey. Last weekend we had a seriously strong wind. Fortunately the roof didn't flew off, but a tree in the back yard broke in two and another in the front got partially uprooted, leaning precariously against the wall.

It is so sad to let go of a full grown, healthy tree, but this one had become a hazzard and had to be chopped off.

We hired three forest workers to do the job, that requires expertise in the matter.

It was scary to see, the big power saw in a hand, perched in the swaying tree and all the time a fag in the corner of the mouth, macho style.

First the branches were sawed off, to reduce the weight.

Two guys hold on to the rope that has to prevent the tree from falling on the neighbour's house.

And here it goes! Just where it's supposed to go.

The worst part over, a second chunk of the tree will be chopped.

And than it started to pour... as the weather didn't help it took them 3 hours to finish the job.

And by the time the sun returned, there was nothing left of the tree...

Etsy Maintenance

This blogpost is only understandable for the Etsy-addicts among us...
While Etsy is under maintance for a few hours (night time for the USA but monday morning for us in Europe), I have been playing around on the net.

First to this site, where you can play with ink, without getting dirty.

after playing for a while I discovered that you can change the color of the ink by clicking your mouse...

Then this site where you can make collages of words, fun fun....

Then I admired Frances J. Melhop's gorgeous Photography site...

And finally the amazing Paper sculptures of Su Blackwell...

And wanted to share you that I went to the movies yesterday, Burn after Reading. Terrific actors, but extremly weird movie. It was funny but totally not understandable...

I wonder if you have seen it, and am I the only one who found it weird??