Happy Mother's Day!

Priority Mail

This is where I keep some of my hand tools and yard supplies.

After I took this picture I left and ran a few errands. When I came home I notice a couple of wren raising Cain on top of the mailbox.

Then it dawned on me...

Yikes!

Needless to say they have abandoned the nest. However they wanted to make sure I was fully aware of the inconvenience.

Colington Live Oak

I LOVE these trees! They have weathered so much.
I took this shot when we went to pick up one of my Mary's friends, after they went swimming in the creek.

Jasmine

This is growing up the side of our outdoor bathroom.

A Gift from Mary

Mary made this for me at one of her Girl Scout meetings.



A Gift from Bill

Some folks may not be too thrilled with this Mother's Day gift. But, this Mom is! Even though it isn't the super-sized umbrella clothesline that he PROMISES he will make for me, It is an improvement from the dangling remainders of several rope lines from days gone by. And check out the fancy pulley... washday goes uptown.

60 More Down, only 143 Left to Go

Bill and I worked on this together on Mother's Day. I can't even begin to say how much stress this fence will take away from my everyday life... the dogs are MIA... again. I might as well change their names to Harry and Mindfreak... I apologize if you are not familiar with these references to escape artists.



Relaxation, Meditation & Inspiration

This is definitely one of the most visited spaces in my yard.




Before

After

Do you see the curb appeal?


This is one of the birdhouses I painted in 2008.

I hung it up this spring and it has already gotten it's first residents.

If you only like to look at the pictures you can stop here.

OK... so I started a post a few days ago and I couldn't finished it.

I was struggling the day I started it because I had kept myself busy all day doing these things that are not fun to blog about, take pictures of or show to another human being and say... "LOOK WHAT I HAVE DONE, See... what I do IS important."

As if ...

When I thought ... who am I doing this for?

Am I blogging for me or do I have ulterior motives?

Do I want others to read this? Sure I do... do I want people to like what I say and do... of course... but is that my "purpose" for doing this?

Think Debbie,

...be honest...

No!

Old habits die hard, but this IS, ABSOLUTELY...

for me.

Reintroducing myself to me is one of the objectives...

One of my biggest struggles with starting Green Gourd Creations was simply putting "myself" out there.

Then I tried to create things that I thought I could sell, instead of making things that I was inspired to create. I tried to come up with something that I could make in quantity along with making in a reasonable amount of time. Sounded very business like of me, and it made sense at first. The only thing was... it wasn't comfortable. No wonder I found it difficult to motivate. I wasn't inspired. It felt like a lie. Like I was trying to sell an illusion of myself, a cheap knock off.

So, who am I? What do I "do"?

That is what I am trying to discover... It's exciting, it's frightening, it's ... ME! I want to know the evolved Debbie. I want to see who I have been, who I was born to be and who I am becoming.

Did I do every piece I have sold?

YES!

Do I want to give the money back?

NO!

I want to create because I am inspired to...

not because I "should"

but because I am not a whole person if I do not nurture the creative person that I am.

As an "artist", I will probably never be able to look at something I have created and " love it" or see past its multitudes of flaws and misspelled words. However, I should be able to look at a piece and say... "that's me, I did that"... It should reflect who I am or how I feel.

So here I am...

with my pants down and fully exposed...

the authentic me...

my blog...

In God's Time not Mine

So yesterday Bill goes out to the hen house to gather up some questionable eggs from some broody hens that he thought couldn't make up their mind...

He sticks his hand into a nesting box with 2 Golden Lace Wyandottes setting and they proceed to peck the daylights out of him...

He pokes his head out and says to me... "Debbie, you are not gonna believe this... I reached in to grab the eggs and these two hens started pecking me like crazy... there's 3 little peeps in there".

So we ended our evening pitching practice and proceeded to do some chicken wrangling. As much as those two hens protested, I picked them both up and placed them on the ground and started moving chicks to the floor level in the coop... and then we carefully started moving the remaining eggs down as well... 2 of which were already starting to hatch.

Let me tell you, there are more than 3 baby chicks.

So, this morning when I got up to let the chickens out... what do I have the opportunity to witness, yep...

A peep breaking through it's shell... Momma pecking at tiny bits to help it on it's arrival.

WOW!!!! It was awesome.. what a great way to start the morning.

Communal Hens

Get Off My Back, Buddy!

Look at this poor bitties back... that dang rooster wasn't going to leave her alone. No wonder she decided to go broody.

Time Share

Ok, there are so many of these peeps, I suppose it makes sense to do some community parenting. These little peeps keep going back and forth between these two ladies. Since I only put the eggs in one place I suppose they designated one for setting and the other to tend to the peeps once they have hatched... unless they divided the eggs up when I wasn't looking.

What's in a Name?

The Green Gourd

A North Carolina Folktale

C.W. Hunter ~ Tony Griego

So, this is where the name Green Gourd Creations originated. From a North Carolina Folk Tale. There are many versions and variations of this tale, however this is one of my favorites.

Now, most people think I came up with the name Green Gourd Creations because green is my favorite color (which it is) and because I "do" gourds. But to let the cat out of the bag, there is much more to it than that. Especially since I "do" much more than gourds.

Here is a brief snapshot of the book...

"One day while she was scoopin' water with her gourd dipper, she dropped it into the stream. Before she could yell 'Oh, law!' the current carried that dipper clean away."

"Now she needed a dipper awful bad. So directly she went to the gourd vine by her house"


"It was loaded with dipper gourds all green and glossy, like ornaments strung on a Christmas tree. But not a one was ripe."

"Now, thereabouts the saying went, 'Never pull a green gourd afore it's ripe, or it'll witch ye sure.' But the old woman paid that no mind a-tall. She needed a dipper awful bad."



Now this tale goes on to tell how this gourd begins to start a ruckus ... it comes to life and chases folks and "fumping" them on the head. She finally crosses the path of a young boy who helps her bring the chaos to a stop and does the green gourd in.

And...

This is how the story ends.

"Then the old woman waited a good spell to make herself a new gourd dipper. 'Cause she knew fer fact - Never pull a green gourd afore it's ripe, or it'll witch ye sure."


For me it was the perfect name and thus..

Green Gourd Creations

was conceived.



These are just a few of the items that I will be putting in my shop.

Ear-flap Hat

Don't be fooled... this is a hat for
an 18" doll.


My Gourd-jus Gals

Bad Kitty

The gourd gals and this cat are some of my older pieces that I had stored away. Thought it was time to dust them off and put them back out there.

Weekends are Good for the Soul

My weekend was full of all kinds of interesting tidbits. My weekend started on Friday with a good dose of humble pie accompanied with having my septic tank pumped out. I hope I do not need to explain the symbolism for either.

As much as I would like to say that my little patch of paradise, smack dab in the middle of an industrial park was completely with out its draw backs... I can not. It certainly has it's perks ... like being able to have certain pets that most folks can not have in the town of Kill Devil Hills because under certain guidelines, I have no "residents" within an allotted parameter.

In a light industrial zoned area, if a business abuts a residential property it is required to erect a privacy fence between the two property. However not all people follow the "rules" or they do the absolute minimum. Well, you know the expression... "Good fences make good neighbors" I am here to say... I agree 100%. Many years ago (about 7 ) our "neighbor" erected a "not so great fence", after cutting down the most beautiful live oak tree I have ever seen, it must have been over 300 years old. I have grown a few white hairs over this fence for one reason or another over the years. However mostly they were over loose critters or blowing trash. So, last week my husband and I asked ourselves if we would rather be "RIGHT" or "HAPPY". We chose "HAPPY"!

That's a Fence

45 down and only 203 to go

So we started building our own fence. Let's see Lexi and Roscoe get through this one.

Koi Bowl

This is made with a very small bushel gourd

Not to bad for a first attempt. It is going to definitely take some getting use to the speed and weight of the dremel. But I think it is going to look nice when I am finished with this piece.

Another Gourd Bowl

This gourd still has more work to be done. I sure do like when "work" is so much fun!


Relocation

We did some rearranging in the yard this weekend also. This gazing ball and hand-carved stand found a new home with Buddha on the other side of the pond. I rather like the shift.



Iris

This is the first time this Iris has ever bloomed. And I have had it for many years. It was worth the wait. this one stem, must have 6-7 blooms. Absolutely beautiful.

It definately is a reminder to me that all good things in all good time.

A Leasure Saturday Morning

It is the first morning that we did not have to jump out of bed and have some place to be. Of course I wasn't quiet sure what to do with myself...





so I fumbled around for a little while then committed to making a pot of coffee, grabbed my camera, went on a walkabout and then decided to go into my veggie patch and do some reading. Now there is something I don't get to do as often as I would like.

St. Francis

The new lattice work we put up sure makes those roses POP... I love it!




Nasturtium

My Little Chickadee

I love this birdhouse!

I had a painting project to work on when Mary was very young and I knew she wasn't going to let me get it finished if she didn't have something "important" to do. So, I went back to the shop and found as many scrap pieces of wood and an old shingle. And the only thing I could find at the time was and old hand drill (ya know the kind... no electric ... just hand crank) to make an entry way. It was so funny. At the time I thought it was the ugliest thing I had ever seen... craftsmanship that is.

Up til that time we had hung many fancy store bought and handmade birdhouses to bring birds to nest on our property... but no luck for years. However, as soon as we hung this rickety, leaky, non conventional birdhouse... we had a young chickadee move in within a days time.

Amazing...

And they come back every year!

And so do many other types of birds. Now everytime I put out a new birdhouse out, I get a new family of birds. Plus they make thier own.

Maters

Apple Gourds

These poor fellas are taking a beating from my chickens. Ugggh... they have dug them up twice now and I have replanted new seedlings . I have put this up for now in hopes to give them a chance to take root and get established. It certainly isn't the prettiest thing in the world but it will serve it's purpose.




More Apple Gourds

The chickens don't seem to want to mess with these guys for now, I better give them some protection as well before they fall victim as well.







My new toy

Yippie!!

My new cordless Dremel came in. I got to pull it out for a little while yesterday to play.

I couldn't even wait to get a full charge on the thing before I started playing. So, I didn't get as much play time as I would have liked but it sure has been fully charged and is ready to go now. I can't wait.



My "Burly" Brother

My brother Michael ... who celebrated his birthday yesterday, made this piece for me, the stand and all. It is a beautiful piece of burl wood... I am not exactly sure what kind of burl it is... oak, ash or what??? But what I do know is that, it is absolutely beautiful. It has made a home in my newly remodeled bedroom.

Thank you brother Mike...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!