Earthquake.... Eclipse.....

 

 It's Been a Busy Week....

I Hope you will Understand, Dear Readers, that the 4.8 magnitude earthquake that rumbled through our region last Friday has been completely Overshadowed by the solar Eclipse of Yesterday! Earthquake...? WHAT Earthquake?? It only shook the ground for about 20 seconds and then was gone. Nothing in my house fell or broke, although it rattled and shook quite alarmingly! The Little People also seemed to have fared well as no-one fell over! But Really....! An Earthquake!! These are not often felt around here! It was centered in New Jersey, about 200 miles from here... but it was felt all the way to Boston and Cape Cod as well as points North. And this just when the Whole World, it seemed, was preparing for the Possibility of seeing a Total or near total Eclipse.... Weather depending, of course! And that weather had just dumped fresh snow all over northern New England... and plenty of rain and sleet and ice in our neighborhood! Take your pick... Nor'easter, Tremblor or Solar Phenomenon... life has been Exciting! So Preparations were in order for the Eclipse, and the Rhododendron Factory temporarily suspended activity in order to produce Safety Glasses for viewing the Eclipse...(weather depending, of course!) You can see above the small run of safety glasses produced....

The work of a few moments, but much appreciated by the Little People!

Will and Gabrielle had decided to invite Arthur and Pollyanna

 over for an Eclipse viewing party at The Folly.

The weather was forecast to be mild and mostly sunny at eclipse time...

roughly 3:30 in the afternoon!

Arthur and Pollyanna were delighted to join them...

 but Arthur decided to bring his laptop too,

 because he was following the excitement as the Moon's Shadow

crossed the continent on its way to New England!

Meanwhile over at The Lovely Old Dollhouse...

Charles didn't want Helen to miss this spectacle... 

a Once in a lifetime view!

The New Moon was expected to cover 95% of the sun.

They were set up and waiting quite a bit early, 

because Helen doesn't like to be late...

But it was a lovely warm spring afternoon. 

What better activity was there than sitting outside in the sunshine?

Victor and Joanna joined them with plenty of time to spare.

"How dark will it get...?" asked Victor.

"It won't get completely dark..." replied Charles

 who was interested in these arcane topics...

"But it might start to feel and look as if evening is coming.... 

or so they say!" he replied.

"Oh look Charles!" said Helen excitedly... 

"I think I can see the corner of the sun disappearing...!"

"Is that the Eclipse...?" she added wonderingly.

"That is the beginning, Darling..." said Charles happily.

"You do have very good eyesight, My Dear" he added.

And over at The Folly it was the same story...

"Oh look, Will....!" exclaimed Gabrielle excitedly... 

"I can see a bite taken out of the Sun!"

"And I can see it growing as we watch...!" declared Will.

Arthur had decided to leave off the computer

 since the Real Show was getting under way.

"How much of the sun will be covered...?" asked Pollyanna.

"They say about 95% in this area..." replied Arthur.

"Maybe we should have tried to go north for the Total Eclipse..." he added.

"Well, we couldn't be sure of the weather...!" said Pollyanna.

"It did snow just the other day!" she added.... 

"Even though you'd never believe it today!"

"Very True!" said Arthur.... 

"but Next time.... 

maybe we should plan to go for Total" he added wistfully.

And as the "bite" out of the sun got bigger and bigger....

The sky dimmed a bit... in an eerie sort of half light...

"Oh, Wow!" Said Arthur.... "Would you look at that now!" he declared.

"I think that's about it!" He added... 

"Heavens!" cried Gabrielle....

 "That is just Beautiful!" she added in awe.

Well, Dear Readers, my son and I did 

drive North to catch the Total Solar Eclipse!

The nearest "Totality" was about 150 miles due north from my home...

 an "easy drive" of a couple of hours in good conditions...

 one highway all the way.

And the weather forecast was for clear skies...

 not that normal for April in these parts.... 

(and it had just snowed the other day....!)

 

 

But Oh my Heavens.... 

it was a Magnificent Unforgettable sight!

At totality, around 3:30 in the afternoon,

 it rather suddenly became dark.... 

the street lights turned on...!

And you could take off the glasses and look straight at the sun...

 now a black disc with a thin silver halo in a dusky blue sky....!

I took one photo with my old camera, no filters...

I was too busy exclaiming "Oh my God" to do anything else!

(We only had about a minute and a half of totality.)

Please forgive the unprofessional quality of the picture.... 

unedited, unfiltered...

The view to the naked eye was the black disc of the moon

 covering the sun entirely with a sliver of halo around it.... 

But the camera magnifies the halo of light around the sun....

 so you can't quite see the black disc...

Keep in mind this picture is staring straight at the sun

 in mid afternoon with no filters!

The light in the lower portion is the street light...

And if you look very carefully just above the wires to the right

 there is a dot of light...

Venus shining brightly in the afternoon sky!

Just Unbelievable!

Unforgettable!

Un-describeable!

I am still in Awe!!!

Oh, Yes, Dear Readers, between the Nor'easter, 

the Earthquake and the Total Solar Eclipse...

It's been a Very Busy week in these parts!

Rhododendron Shrubs....

 

 Roots and Trunks.....

Well, Dear Readers, I apologize for the dark and gloomy picture of the Rhododendron Shrub Skeleton, the weather has been dark and gloomy again, and this is the only picture I have showing the "before" scene for the shrub roots! As you know, I am making three of these Shrub Skeletons, as identical as I can so that I can have "seasonally changeable" Rhododendrons in The Folly Garden. I was eager to get the skeletons moved on to the next stage of construction and didn't pay much attention to the photography as I went along. This is to show the Roots of the shrub... the main trunk is old and the roots are showing partly at the top of the soil. This is partly for stability (the branches spread quite far) and partly because my  RL Rhododendron shrub has a long root that snakes off to the side and sprouts a new trunk at the edge of the garden bed. I am copying this detail for The Folly Garden shrubs.

Here you can see I have removed the pod from the Garden... 

and it is really hard to see, but I traced the roots positions on the pod

 so I could know where to poke the holes for the roots to go into.

(That nail poking up through the pod is the temporary "handle"

 for lifting the pod in and out of the Garden spot.)

Here you can see I have bent the ends

 of the three major roots downward

 (this is the view from underneath)

And here you can see the holes I have poked into the foam ....

And here is Shrub#1 with the ends of the roots

 poked into the holes and glued in place!

This leaves a part of the roots "above ground",

 and the long side root in particular just runs along the surface.

I plan to build the "ground" up a bit to cover this part way.

And since Shrub#1 glued into the pod #1 with the greatest of ease,

 I went onward with Shrub#2...

Here the ends of the Roots are bent downward....

And the locations traced on the pod #2 and the holes poked...

And the roots glued into the holes of Pod#2!

Two pods done... only one to go...!

But imagine my Surprise, Dear Readers,

 when I grabbed Shrub#3 for Pod #3, 

only to discover that it would not fit right on the Pod!

What????

The position of the nail in the pods is not identical........ 

so as I have "shaped" these shrub skeletons,

 I have worked around the nail position to the best of my ability

 to keep the shrubs centrally positioned in the pod.

Shrub#3 was not fitting right ....

Then I checked to see if it WAS Shrub#3....

only to discover it was Shrub#2!!!....?

I had accidentally used Shrub#3 for the Pod#2

 (These pods are marked on the underside

 with bold magic marker to keep them sorted out....!)

I needed to move the nail to a different spot

 to fit the Shrub#2 onto the Pod#3...

Lest you worry... at This stage of the construction process,

 it doesn't matter if Shrub#2 or Shrub#3 

is the one on Pod#2 or Pod #3....

But the poor Shrubs might now have an Identity Crisis... 

One is Shrub#2-3... and the Other is Shrub#3-2 

and I am not sure which is which!

Shrub#1 is securely just #1 and will be the blossoming Shrub....

 the other two will have to slug it out between

 Winter with snowy Leaves

 or Year-round just plain green!

 But once I had adjusted the nail... 

things moved along and I got Shrub#2 attached to Pod#3...

Here they are all three lined up and letting the glue dry thoroughly.

 The following day, I began to add the "Acrylic Modeling Paste" to the trunks and roots.

And to Shrub#2.... (or is it 2-3?)

And Shrub#3... (or #3-2)....

 

And Shrub#1 in the Folly Garden...

(Dark and gloomy again......)

 

Here you can see clearly just how "textured" 

this made the Roots and Trunk of the Shrub.

But Rhododendrons have quite smooth bark....

 they don't need a textured surface...

The modeling past was to help me smooth out

 all those bumps and twists and glued spots

 on the paper wire stems. 

It also gives added strength to the joined areas.

Fortunately it is made to be carved and sanded fairly easily...

 

This is what it looks like 

after I have begun the "carving and sanding"......

Hmmmm.... this is going to take a while!

It is challenging to get the exacto knife in among the branches....

 and the sandpaper is only a little easier to wield....

And I get to do this for all three shrubs!

 

Well, Dear Readers, the Rhododendron Shrubs

 are taking Shape; Roots, Trunks,

 Leaves and Blossoms...

Spring is Sprung in my Neck 'o the Woods

(Even though we got snow the other night....)

And I have almost 100 Blossom clusters done!

Leaves...

 

And More Leaves....

I Hope you will not be Surprised, Dear Readers, to learn that I have been making lots and lots of leaves! I really need to get ahead of the blossoms with the leaf construction, and finally decided that the best way to tackle the project was with small batches. Lots of small batches! It feels so much less daunting to start a batch of forty leaves (20 stems worth) and know that in about an hour and a half, or less if all goes well, I will have a completed batch. I had tried an eighty leaf batch.... which would be enough leaves for the ten blossom clusters per week that I am making.... but completing the eighty leaves took Hours and hours. I can usually fit a batch of forty leaves into my daily blossom routine too. This is piling up the leaves at a great rate! I am using regular copier paper and the "leaf punch" I bought years ago at Michael's. You can see it in the picture above.

And I am cutting the leaves from the stem, 

but am maximizing the length of each leaf

 by cutting diagonally across the stem.

 One of the great things about this leaf punch is

 that the leaves are not all exactly the same size,

 which is how they are naturally on my RL shrub.

I get five leaves per punch, eight punches per batch.

I glue a leaf on one end of the stems

 (using the cut-off wires from the blossom making)

 and once I have glued twenty stems,

 I add the leaf to the other end.

This might seem silly since the leaves will be cut apart

 before attaching to the blossom clusters,

 but it really makes handling the leaves for painting much easier.

 The wire is long enough to hold and not get paint on your hands

 as would happen if I tried to make the stems short first.

I paint the undersides of one leaf, 

(using a mixture of chromium green, cadmium yellow

 and white artist's acrylic paint)

 and by the time I have done all twenty on one end of the stems,

 the first is dry and ready to be held while I paint the other end.

And by the time all the undersides are painted, 

the first is dry enough to paint the top side....

You might notice that I am first painting a stripe down the center

 using the same color as the underside of the leaves,

 first one end and then the other as before...

This is so that once I have painted the top color, 

I will not have to add a very very narrow stripe for the center vein...

 

Here you can see I am mixing the color for the top side of the leaves,

(a mix of chromium green and mars black acrylic artists paint)

and comparing it to my sample chart.

It is very easy to mix it too dark, 

because the paint darkens as it dries.

 

When painting the top side,

 I carefully paint one side of the leaf,

 as straight as possible stem to tip,

 

And then equally carefully, paint the other side,

 leaving a very thin stripe showing the underside color.

Then I let them dry....

 

before doing the same with the other end.

Here are the completed forty leaves!

All that remains is to fold the stems and cut them apart....

And attach them to the blossom clusters!

I am starting with seven leaves per blossom cluster...

And so far I have managed to keep up

 with adding the leaves on the new blossom clusters...

on the left (in the "new Day mug") you can see

 the ten blossom clusters from last summer

 that still don't have any leaves attached.

But I now have enough leaves to get cracking on that too!

And today I made the blossom clusters number 85 and 86....

they just need to have their leaves added too!

So you can see, Dear Readers,

 I have figured out that to make the leaves

In relatively small batches 

means I am making more Leaves... 

and More leaves....

And more leaves....!

Marching Forward...

 

 Pruning The Shrubs....

While I am Madly constructing the Rhododendron blossoms, Dear Readers, the progress on the Shrub skeletons is much slower and more deliberate. But if I am to reach my desired goal of a blooming shrub by the end of May (only about ten weeks away!) then I need to be making good progress every weekend at least! So as I was attaching yet another round of branches to the Shrub#1 skeleton, I thought I had better make sure the shrub was not going to overwhelm the path to the garden bench by the little brook that runs along the side of The Folly Garden (or will when we get it built)! So I asked Joanna (who is a small adult only 5" tall) to come over and help me test the shrub by walking the short path. She was happy to oblige, and Will was also willing to help (he is a tall 6" adult size). He is warning Joanna to be careful on the very narrow little path....

Which takes off from the steep front steps to The Folly porch.

The path past the lilacs where Will is standing

 is a bit wider and more traveled,

 and the lilacs naturally arch above the heads of anyone who passes.

While the path past the Rhododendron

 has always been wilder and a bit neglected.

As you can see, it would be very easy

 for this shrub to overwhelm the path entirely!

It made clear to me the need to "prune" the shrub

 just a little bit where it stands by the porch!

As you can see, Will is a good bit taller than Joanna,

 and he needs to be able to navigate this path too!

After all, the bench overlooking the brook is in such a sweet spot!

I know it is hard to see the difference, Dear Readers,

 but here is the Shrub#1 with a whole batch

 of new little short branches!

I will continue to shape the branches

 as I begin to add the blossoms to them,

 but first they need to be painted... 

a whole other adventure!

And lest you think I have been slacking... 

here is Shrub#2 getting the same little short branches added and glued...

And Shrub#3....!

And if I stand back far enough you can see all three in a row!

And last week ended with a count of seventy blossoms clusters!

Wowee!

I am Marching Forward, Dear Readers,

Even if I did have to Prune the bushes back a little bit!