A creative blog hop down on the farm

Hi All,

 

I have been asked to do the narf7 equivalent of free-form expressionist dance by Ms Pauline over at The Contented Crafter. Ms Pauline is a star. She shines like a star. Her words are wise; her comments enveloping and comfortable like a warm hug with an edge of humour like the sun coming out on a grey day. How could I resist when she asked (implored) me to take up the baton of this Blog Hop and do my bit? Well you see I was never very good at baton races at school. I was never very good at hopping or any kind of sport really. Ms Pauline is a natural born crafter. She is one of those amazing artistic types who can pull beauty out of a squeezy tube of tinted goo and something that was once on the nether regions of a horse, now glued to a twig…magic happens when she puts horse stick to paper and that has me a bit worried…

As you can see, I have problems keeping hold of anything that I create here on Serendipity Farm

I went hunting so that I could show you that I do have a teeny bit of creativity in my bones (and to make it so your journey over here was not entirely wasted)…I made these danglers and Steve made the bed that both he and Bezial are laying on

We made these insect hotels…

And this is Stevie-boys little Christmas rum-ball man…

You see Ms Pauline took the baton from Ms Boomdee who lives in Canada and who is ALSO a dab hand with the horse stick but takes it a step further and likes to take another preparation that used to be made of old horses (g.l.u.e. SHHH!) and sticks little things onto just about everything. I bet Ms Boomdee’s house is eclectic. I bet there are curlicues on the fridge and danglers from the ceiling and little rolled up pretty things on the dog door all in gorgeous shades of teal blue. This baton race has a stellar pedigree. It goes back into the eons of crafting and echoes through the echelons and great halls of crafting fame. You can almost feel the wondrous wafting’s of the act of creation every time you open up a crafty blog taking part. They are coaxed and buffeted along as if by coefficient drag and therein lays my problem…I am just not that crafty!

As penniless student type middle aged hippies (emphasis on the word “penniless”…) we tend to have to come up with ideas for how to create our own pretty much everything from scratch. Making things yourself usually costs you less. We made these gates using small saplings from Serendipity Farm when my dad was still alive. They served the purpose extremely well

I re-covered this book in leather from an old leather jacket that my daughter had given me after Earl ate the spine of it. Bad enough that he ate a book spine but it was a library book…a new library book…a most expensive library book…so I had to cover up the damage and his shame.

“So” (I hear you say) “Why would Ms Narf7 of Serendipity Farm join in on a crafty blog hop?” because Ms Pauline asked me of COURSE sillies! Now I just have to dredge the annuls of my abilities (such as they are) to find something worthy of your (brief) attention span…(I know…I will check Ms Pauline’s post and see what I am meant to do…Ok, so I missed the quote…I was supposed to make a quote!) “Err righteo folks, here is a wise piece of narf7 wisdom that echoes my ethos and runs parallel with who and what I am. It comes from a very wise sage Mr Monty Python, and goes something like this…

 

“Always look on the bright side of life…”

 

And that folks is my secret. That plus “42”. Don’t tell anyone! Now, back to brass tacks, what am I supposed to be doing? OH Answering questions. Right…I can do that…so here we go…

This is where Steve and I excelled “creatively” for a few years. Here are some of the plant babies that we brought with us from our last house in the city. We counted and worked out that we had just on 300 potted plants and at least half of them we grew from seed and cuttings.

Almost all of these plants were grown from cutting or seed. Its a great way to be both creative and save a lot of money at the same time

How does my creative process work?

Well…when I need to be creative I call on my inner muses. I need to point out here that my inner muses are all very much antisocial recluses, lushes to a tee and very bolshie. There is NO reasoning with them. If they want to create, they create. If they don’t want to create, good luck pulling a rabbit out of the creative top hat. Most of the time they play ball because I have learned to (plead pathetically) harness them to the wheel. I guess my creative strength is in the written word. Does anyone really write anymore? Maybe my strength is in the typed word? Whatever the medium, I am drawn to share my thoughts with others and learn from them as well. I studied horticulture so I can rattle a few sticks in a can of water and end up with the odd struck cutting to plant out. Stevie-boy and I are attempting to grow and plant out a food forest on Serendipity Farm but not sure that is all that creative…I might stick with the writing methinks…

These were my cactus and succulent babies. I say “were” because our ducks ate most of them. I used to be very creative about pots and little bits of washed beach glass and stones etc. but after the ducks plundered my spoils my creative muse flew the coop. I still have a few cacti and succulents but most of them are well and truly duck digested

I spread my “creativity” around…I might not stick with one thing and get really good at it but I like to dabble. Here’s a few loaves of bread that I “created” from scratch

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

Good question. Other writers take their craft very seriously. They hone their work. They spell check, they use the correct vernacular, they conjugate their verbs (they know what a verb actually IS)…you get the picture? They are the true craftsmen who harness those muses and make them work for them like a well-trained team of horses. I guess what I am trying to say here is that I am like a wild salmon. My writing doesn’t live inside a specific genre, it doesn’t have me chained to a desk or flicking through dictionaries (obviously 😉 ). Where people actually get paid to write, I prefer to splash around in the shallows where I can jump out if the sharks start to circle. One day I will write a book but that would make me the same as others in my genre so perhaps, for now, I will just splash.

This is Stevie-boy in his surfer phase. He is holding a large piece of wood that we sourced from the property and turned into a “Serendipity Farm” sign at the bottom of our property to announce to the world that we had arrived. We are still waiting for our key to the town…

Stevie-boy is a very handy lad. Especially with wood. Here are some of his gorgeous wooden creations that he made. He occasionally gets the desire to make more and you just never know when he will want to create some and I will have another blog giveaway, but I wouldn’t hold your breath at the moment 😉

What am I presently working on?

Well I am fulminating over my next blog post but I am also working on a secret project…I can’t tell you what it is because then, I would have to kill you and I don’t even know most of you so that would be a shame and if I am not mistaken, a crime. My adult daughters, sick of receiving the equivalent of a gift card at Christmas time have issued a challenge this year. It’s sort of like when the prince in the Cinderella story wanted to find a bride but in this case, it’s a Christmas present with thought. They are even offering a $50 voucher from a local purveyor of alcoholic beverages (that got Stevie-boys attention I can tell you!) as a delicious dangly carrot. I don’t need that to hook me, I am competitive by nature and this is a 4 way Christmas-gift-off and narferella wants to go to the ball! We have each been given one daughter to purchase/make something for and the winner will be drawn at Christmas time (natch). I was stumped…Moi, of little talent…what could “I” do that would land me that $50 glass slipper eh? Well suddenly it hit me! I knew what I could do! I felt like Mr Blackadder when he said “I have a plan SO cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel”…I can’t wait to share with you what I am working on but that is going to have to wait till after Christmas and if I play my cards right, I will be dead drunk for the entire month of January!

Bezial modelling some of my creative hooky genius

If I am not mistaken that should take me SO far into the realms of “real writer” that I should meet myself coming out the other side. Mr Hemmingway, Mr Tennessee Williams, Mr Dylan Thomas, Mr Edgar Allen Poe, Mr Oscar Wilde, Mr Noel Coward, Mr James Joyce and Mr Stephen King, all esteemed writers were also hopeless alcoholics.

Everyone is a critic…

So now that I have answered all of the questions asked of me, “are there any questions?” I didn’t think so! I am left to nominate a couple of other bloggers who have been unable to get me off their tail and who (finally gave in) have agreed most magnanimously to continue this Blog Hop of great esteem. That leaves me to contemplate my navel and bang my head on the table because I couldn’t come up with a delicious, wonderful, thought provoking quote like Ms Pauline or Ms Boomdee…but wait a minute…should my devious cunning succeed, I could adopt an entirely new quote to stick at the top of next year’s Blog Hop (because seriously, who is going to ask me to take part in another blog hop this year after this eh? 😉 )…

 

“An alcoholic is someone you don’t like, who drinks as much as you do.”

 

And therein…I rest my…hic…case!

Earl making snow at Christmas time out of someone’s creativity…

Evidence that it isn’t only Earl who is out to foil our creative urges…and now I think that you all know why I tend to reserve my creative energies for things that don’t interest our boys in the slightest

I managed to coerce Ms Jessie of “rabidlittlehippy” fame to do a blog hop post for me. I had approached a few other people but it just wasn’t the right time for them so I am hoping that you will all find something most interesting in Ms Jessies blog post all about how to create a rocket stove. I am SO excited about this post and can’t wait to see what she has come up with next Monday. I am assured that Ms Jessie is trying for a few more than “uno” follow on’s for the blog hop and that my serious lack of normalcy is just a hiccup in the fabric of the time space continuum…

Here are some images that I pinched from Ms Jessies blog. Hopefully she doesn’t mind…perhaps I should have asked her?

NAH! Live dangerously is my motto 😉

Ms Jessie is one of those amazing people who make soap AND cheese!

Check out this Mozzarella…

And this amazing hard cheese that Ms Jessie made from a kit…

And she is incredibly good at knitting…

AND she can even do cable! I bow to your creativity Ms Jessie, you are indeed a true crafter  and a most worthy person to carry the baton next 🙂

 

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