T Stands for Spring Finally Arrives

   Hi everyone. Happy new week to you. And hello to everyone who stops by Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog for T day.

  Last week we had some cool rainy days, and then, when the sun finally came out, spring arrived. ❤ We've had a few lovely days, with sunshine and beautiful temperatures. The last few days I've been busy working  outside, and here's a few highlights.

   Some of you might have seen my post last week when a bear came to visit. He ruined part of the pole where I hang my bird feeders. Luckily it's one of those poles that come in pieces, so I could go get another base part and not replace the whole thing. And luckily none of my feeders were damaged.

    Now my pole  is back together  and ready for some birds.

   Ha ha.  I didn't expect this guy to wander in from the woods and be the first to check it out. 😉

    I later noticed there were 2 lady turkeys down below my gardens on the edge of the woods that he was trying to woo.

   I also built another raised bed for my veggies. The bad thing is that the soil I found on sale was in 50 pound (22.6 kg) bags. They were also damp, so they maybe weighed 60 pounds (about 27 kg), which was quite a chore for me to lift them into and out of my wagon. (Never mind they are almost as tall as me if you hold them up straight.) The good news is a 50 pound bag versus a 40 pound bag meant I could fill the bed with fewer bags. I did get the bed filled and then I planted some tomatoes in it. (And thank goodness for Aleve to help with those sore shoulders and upper arms afterwards from moving the soil. Ha ha!)

   Last week I received a new batch of bees and got my second hive up and going. So far, so good. I went back into the hive a couple days later to check on the queen. She is shipped in a little box that has a cork on one end. She needs to get out of the box so she can start laying brood. However, you have to leave her in the box for a few days for the  hive to really bond to her. Sometimes the bees will even eat the cork out, but if not, a safety pin will easily pull it out.

  There were several frames with this many bees on them. The comb you see behind them is from an earlier set of bees. If you have frames with comb already built on the frame it is good to leave it  since bees can recycle the comb. Plus the comb helps insulate the hive on cooler spring nights (and days).

   The open queen box is put back into the hive so the queen and  her attendants have some time to get out. But here's the cork that I pulled out.

  It's also amazing (as you probably already know) how in just a  couple of weeks everything can green up so much. You can see the difference in my rose garden  between  this past Saturday (May 15) and not quite 2 weeks ago (May4). Here's the now:

     

    And here's the then.

  You might remember I mentioned I've been putting clover seeds into my less than perfect lawn. (Well, it depends on your point of view if a lawn is actually less than perfect.) The clover is growing great and filling in some of the bare spots. One thing I didn't do but seemed to happen naturally is that hundreds of white violet plants have grown there, and it's really pretty right now.

  And here's one of the patches of clover.

   The other exciting thing that happened during our outside spring chore weekend is my husband took the plastic off the screen porch.  To do that he literally takes down some old doors which he covered in plastic and replaced them with the screen doors that make up the screens.

   Then it's my turn to clean it and set it up!  I still haven't moved my inside plants out onto the screen porch, and I still need to move a couple of chairs out into the yard, but that will all be coming.  For T day, you might be able to spot my drink which was a mug of some home brewed ice tea.

   You can see it better in this close up.

     This Tuesday/T Day it is supposed to be quite hot, and my plan is to bring a fresh mug of iced tea and a book out here for some hammock time.  I'll spend the afternoon relaxing and staying cool. Ha ha.

  I hope you didn't find my outdoor "fun" too boring. Wishing everyone a happy T day, and a great week ahead. 

  

Sunday Art-Pelicans and Hummingbirds

     Hi everyone. I hope your weekend is going well.   We're having some nice weekend weather and finally some beautiful May temperatures. ❤ It feels even better since we haven't had a lot of this weather so far this spring.👍

    Today I have some bird inspired art to share for a couple of challenges including Nicole's Sunday in the Art Room (Sitar) and Gillenas's Sunday Smiles. I'll also be linking a up to Art Journal Journey and  Tag Along (and ATCs too) It's a busy post for certain. 😉

    First, let me share this page for Mia's Birds challenge over at Art Journal Journey. It's part of a trip journal I just finished making, the trip being my weekend away in South Carolina. By the shore we saw lots of pelicans; they are always fun to watch. The big guy at the bottom (of my page) reminds me of one time when the hubby and I were somewhere (maybe coastal North Carolina) eating lunch on a dock and this one pelican flew in and landed on  piling. He kept watching us eat. As soon as we looked at him, he turned away like he didn't care we were there. But as soon as we went back to our lunch, his eyes were on us again. 😄

   I started with 2 pieces of paper. The base paper is covered with seagulls,  (more birds, right?), and then I cut part of this wave designed paper to put on the bottom. This paper was plain light blue wit the dark wavy lines, so I decided to add details using blue and white paint pens to color in some of the waves on the paper. 

  The tiny flying pelicans are stamped and then fussy cut before I glued them down. I created the large piling with some scrap paper, and then I stamped and fussy cut the big pelican. I lost some of the stamped details when I colored him in with the dark brown marker, so I added some white flecks to him to try to give him a few details.

   Finally I added a white cloth sticker sun that I painted yellow, and then stamped and added the quote (Impression Obsession).

    Here's one of the inspirations for my journal page today. I reminds me I should have added some white to the pelican's head. 😏

    You can see the punched holes and the metal binding rings on the right side of my page. This is the first time I made my own 2 ring binder journal cover. I hadn't known you could buy unattached binding rings up until recently.

  Here's the cover of that journal.

   I cut an old book apart and covered the actual covers with a recycled  Amazon bag and then I used cloth bookbinding tape to cover the edges of the cover and to make a spine. I used pink stencil paste and a stencil to add the texture to the cover. What I find really strange (but also interesting to look at) was how much lighter that pink stencil paste looked on the black binding tape than it did on the paper bag. That was true even when I rubbed some watery orange acrylic paint over it. Hmmm.  

 

   To finish the covers I used some chicken wire designed cloth tape along the edges and used some TH metal book corners. The Charleston stamp is something you can collect and should put into a special stamp collection book, but I usually buy them and put them in (or on) my travel journal. I use a TH metal frame that was in my stash around this travel stamp.

   And I definitely don't want to forget to share the tag I made today for Pinky's  Add Some Pink challenge at Tag Along (and ATCs too).

   I started with a brown paper bag colored tag that I rubbed some Versafine Claire Pink ink over.  Then I fussy cut the heart out of a sheet of paper, and I punched out the hummingbird (49 and Market) and the daisy  (Stamperia). I did use a light pink marker and colored in some of the daisy's petals. The quote is from a TH quote set, and I finished off my tag with some pink lace cloth trim.

   That's all for me today. Hope you have or are having a wonderful rest of your weekend and start to the new week.

More of Congaree National Park

    Hi everyone. Happy Friday. Today I am joining Nicole for her Friday Face Off and Gillena for her Friday Lunch Break.

   Thanks everyone for your wishes for success with the new batch of bees. And I love reading your bear comments too. 

     This past Sunday I shared some photos from my recent visit to Congaree National Park which is about a half an hour outside of Columbia, South Carolina or about 2 hours outside of Charleston. Here's the post if you're interested :   An Ode To Trees.   

    Today I'm back with the rest of the photos from the walk on the boardwalk that my husband and I took that day.  OK, these first couple of photos don't have any faces. It looks so peaceful and quiet, doesn't it?

   When we arrived at the park's visitor's center, we had a really hard time finding a space to park. One of the reasons it was so crowded that morning was that the park was celebrating. 2026 is the park's 50th anniversary. Since they are a National Park, run by the federal government, they were also celebrating the US's 250th anniversary. One thing they had going on was that at a few points along the boardwalk they had music students from the University of South Carolina playing music. 

   The music was great. Most of it was traditional American tunes.  The students were also very willing to answer questions and talk about the music. We even  later spoke with one woman who was a combined music and environmental science student. She was thrilled to be able to combine her 2 loves here at the park.

 These woodwind players had climbed down into a dry patch below the boardwalk.

I thought their music stands looked  lonely but also interesting in the woods.

 

    There was also a chorus singing in another spot just off the boardwalk, but I didn't get any photos of that. 😟

The further we walked, the sounds turned from human music to the songs and sounds of nature.
   

     You can really see the muddy forest floor in this next photo. This is the area where they were  constructing the new boardwalk.

    And there's more wet and muddy forest floor in this next view.

   We had a paper trail guide, and along the boardwalk there were marked spots.  One marked spot had an old still set up from Prohibition when bootleggers found this area to be a perfect hidden-away spot to produce their alcohol. FYI- Prohibition was mostly during the 1920's. You can tell in the photo that this still covering has been sitting in the forest for a long time.

   And here's South Carolina's state plant, the palmetto.

And of course these cypress trees with the cypress knees were quite interesting.

    And there was wildlife. I have never seen so many pileated woodpeckers in one day or in one area.  Can you see one in the next photo? They were hard to get a picture of because they hopped around the trees and flittered out of sight a lot.  I read they are the largest woodpecker in the US too. I didn't know that.

    There were also lots of grey squirrels too, including the one running along the boardwalk.

    The park is known for their Fox Squirrels, but other than this sign we only saw Gray Squirrels.

  But we did see quite a few reptiles, especially down at this pond.

   There were a whole lot of these snakes in the water. I think they are Brown Water Snakes, but I could never get a clear identification.

 And I'm not sure if this next creepy crawly is some kind of lizard or a salamander as it was below me (since I was up above it on the boardwalk). It was also near the snakes, and it's skin looks pretty smooth and not scaly. But of course, I wasn't close enough to see very well.  The blue on the tail makes me think it's a juvenile type of skink (Blue tailed skink-a type of lizard), as they have blue on their tails which disappears as they age. 

   And then we saw this turtle/ tortoise crawling around.

   I really don't know much about turtle/tortoise identification, and I couldn't find a picture online that helped me ID it.

  And ha ha how about this cute guy you could buy in the gift shop. I must say I thought about it because he looks like he could be fun to play with. 😉

   I'll leave you with that face. I hope everyone one has a wonderful rest of your Friday and start to the weekend ahead. 

    I'm adding that I'll also be linking a up to Mosaic Monday.