Sustainable Me - Space for Creativity and Backyard Bunnies

I just have to post again about my Mission Fig tree.  I just can't believe that it is really going to make it.  The top pictures show how bad and hopeless that it looked this winter.  And how dead everything was.  I was afraid that the transplanting had totally done it in.  I waited until the first hard freeze to prune the large dead branches.  The bottom photo shows the new leaves and new life that is coming back for the tree.  I took the bottom photo yesterday.  It will take several years of growth before it produces figs again, but I'm so very happy that it is on it's way back to Life!  And I'm hoping that it gets a lot of growth in for this season.  

 Well - Amazon and FedEx pulled through and this was sitting on my porch when I arrived home today!  It is pretty heavy!  I managed to drag it carefully into the house, but will have to have some help taking it to the studio and setting it up!  I may can get it down there by using the dolly - but it would be wise to have help.  I don't want to damage it just trying to get it in there, and I think I want to wait until the work on the walls and ceiling is finished.  Installing this can be the piece de resistance! Best gift of the day!!  There is hope and new life from death!  The Mission Fig tree was not looking good this winter, and I thought maybe all was lost, but I see new growth!  I hope that it grows tall and strong this season.  it will be several years, before figs are produced again - but I love this tree, and am hopeful that we will have figs again someday.  And the bunnies are happy today as well.  I saw two of t...

After a comment on my Backyard Bunnies post, I have been thinking more about the Animal spirit of the Rabbit, and the medicine that is associated with this animal in the Native American tradition.  Fear, abundance and creativity are the words that are associated most with this animal.  I have been thinking about these words in terms of myself, being an artist and also being an art educator. Today I was confronted with a photo on the front page of our local paper, and also an email request at work.  The photo shows an animated teacher and engaged learners, and the caption reads, "Preparing Future Teachers".  My email work request was to capture our GT students at work in our respective classrooms using photography.  These photos will be used somehow in a video that will be produced showing - what does our GT program look like at High school? and what are our GT students doing and how are they engaged in learning?  We are to take these photos of our GT s...

This is the A/C, Heater, Dehumidifier unit that I have ordered from Amazon.  I don't like wasting my personal time and gas on shopping in person - it is very exhausting to me, and the many choices overwhelm me.  I also like Amazon because as a graduate student, I get a really good deal on Amazon Prime, and some money back on purchases.  This unit was supposed to be delivered to me on Saturday, but it didn't arrive.  I do have a tracking number for FedEx, and will be calling them today when I have a chance.  Hopefully, there won't be a problem with this purchase and delivery.   My $20 extension cord also purchased from Amazon, and due to arrive in the next couple of days.  The next challenge for this will be finding someone, that can help me bury the cord in my backyard from the patio down to the studio.  My friend Sue, says that she did this in her yard, and that it doesn't have to be buried very deep,. just deep enough, so that t...

Today, my good friend Sue came over wearing her overalls, and ready to help in the studio!  I didn't have all of my supplies together yet - so she walked out to the backyard, and gave me some great suggestions!  And we have a plan!  We are going to staple the rest of the insulation that we have into place on the walls and ceiling. Then we will reclaim some cardboard, and staple that on top of the insulation.  To finish things off - I will then staple muslin or canvas fabric to the walls and ceiling.  If I desired to - I could gesso and then paint these "walls".  But we decided that this is using what I already have, and what I can recycle.  This will give enough insulation for the building for me to be comfortable, and be inexpensive and practical.  My AC/Heater/Dehumidifier unit is supposed to be arriving today!  So I just have to gather up my supplies and staple guns, and have a day when friends can come over and help me do one wall at a ti...

I will always think  of this gorgeous husky as Sasha.  And we got to enjoy him for a little while.  My daughter Jennifer was walking our dog, Sir Winston, a cocker spaniel, when this gorgeous lost boy decided to follow them home.  He made himself  right at home in our backyard, and looked very lovely there.  A collar, but no tags.  My friend Missy came by since she is a dog expert, and helped me take him to the emergency animal clinic to check to see if he had been chipped.  The vet weighed him at 54 pounds, said he was about a year old and in great health.  Sasha was very verbal with us and really "talked" and tried to tell us all about his adventure.  We reassured him that we were looking for his family, and he seemed to really love me, as he would lay his head on my shoulder several times and give me a doggie caress.  He totally melted my heart. No chip was found, and so we posted all over social media and our local FB page for...

Moving Day for house contents was May 1st of 2017.  I hired some movers, and they did an awesome job of moving the large things.  My daughter and I did the rest with carload after carload.  The garage filled up fast with boxes, and I had to put what I thought I wanted in the studio and just get it in there however we could.  The movers were super nice to move things into this space into the backyard along with everything in the house and garage.  They earned every penny that I paid them!  My daughter Jennifer and I worked super hard too!  As soon as school let out for summer break, I managed to get the inside of the house mainly organized by July.  The rest of the summer and part of the fall was unpacking and organizing what was in the garage and moving things around this space.  Some things were moved to the garage, and some things in the garage came to the studio.  I still have a lot to go through in the garage - and some of it rela...

I have always loved bunnies.  And they have shown up every place that I have lived.  As an adult, I discovered just a couple of years ago that I do have Native American heritage from a South Texas tribe.  But even before that discovery, my aunt told me about Animal spirits and Animal medicine, and encouraged me to become more aware of my interactions with nature.  So over the years, I have paid attention, and I do believe that bunnies are strong medicine for me.  At this particular house, the bunnies are abundant!  Tonight I saw three of them enjoying and playing in the back yard.  I love to watch them, and am so happy that they like it here.  I think they really love the studio and have made a home in the spaces underneath.  We have an older dog named Winston, and even he lets them be.  He just watches them and seems to co-exist peacefully with them.  When he was younger, he would have chased them down.  But now he just wat...

Our baby Mission Fig tree.  Bought at an Austin Farmer's Market while visiting friends in 2014.  We were living in our "industrial area" duplex, and I was trying to bring life to the backyard that we had at that time.  I have very fond memories of fig trees and childhood.  My Nannie had a fig tree in her luscious back yard in San Antonio.  She had a gorgeous garden and beautiful roses too.  But I loved her figs and fig preserves.  I cannot remember eating a breakfast at her home without a jar of fig preserves on the table.  And I loved them and it was such a treat to have on toast, served up with her love.  I can also remember eating them right off the tree, and it was like a "candy tree" to me.  So I wanted my son Michael to experience some of this with a mission fig tree of our own.  Over the years it grew to be a large and fruitful tree, and yes, I did make preserves.  I made the decision to move it with us and try to tra...

Places to sit and reflect I'm so proud that this she shed has found a home and will become a space for me to create! Picnic area.  We love picnics in our family.   The Mission Fig tree transplant.  I am hoping that it lives! I would love to have an area like this to the left of the studio.  This would be into the future  But I really like Adirondack chairs and fire pits.  A place to chill and relax with friends would be really nice.  

This is one side of the house.  I was thrilled to see that we have some bluebonnets.  This is last spring, and I haven't seen any come up this year.  I hope that the mowers didn't cut them too soon last year.  And I'm hoping that they will come back. This is the back porch and the fence closest to the side road.  I had to hire someone to take down a portion of the fence so that the storage building company could move the building into the back yard.  And then of course, have the fence placed back up after the moving was done.  So there was a lot of coordination involved and I was lucky to have a friend's husband that was willing to help with the fence part of the job. Photo Credit:  Ashley Vera The day that the storage building was moved on to the property was very exciting for me!  I was so glad that everything went smoothly.  This photo shows the back of my house, and how the yard slopes down towards the studio.

So this is what the inside looked like when I purchased the shed.  A 10'x12'space with a loft on each end.  Some insulation had been placed on the walls, but not stapled in.  That is something that I still need to accomplish.  There is some extra insulation on the floor that came with it, but I'm sure it is not enough to do all of the walls and the ceiling.  So I am sure that I will need to purchase more in order to fully insulate it.  I purchased this last March, just exactly a year ago, and I want to show the process and efforts that will be taken in order to turn this into a space for creativity.  I did search high and low on the internet and by going to Home Depot and other supply companies before deciding on this one.  I liked the look of it and the fact that it does have two windows.  And it was something that I could afford and pay cash for.  

To begin at the beginning!  Last spring our family decided to make a move to a different home.  We are still renting, but this new place has more room and is surrounded by a greener environment.  There is a park near by - one street over, and a privacy fence and not in an industrial area like our last home.  So we don't have to listen to the steel plant banging and screeching noise at night, and we see more green instead of an ugly beige industrial building in our backyard.  It is very much an improvement from where we were living. When this move was in the process - I decided that I needed a back yard art studio.  And after looking at Pinterest  and researching the internet, I realized that I could make do with a small storage building.  My grown daughter and almost grown son live with me in our three bedroom two bath duplex, and there is no room in the house for creating art.  The kitchen table stays pretty occupied with us gathering a...