and here's a close up of the Pixar rose.....and it's rather large also, almost 6 inches across.

Shot from the other direction, you can really see how long this wall of roses actually is....sort of....

Once a year, the roses at Pixar Studios bloom all down one wall, then all down the adjoining one. Truely an amazing sight.....and a heady perfume.

Several folks have mentioned that they too, love the old brick streets and old bricks.....so here is what those old bricks look like at Gail's......I took this just before dark, hence the rather flat appearance .....'course they ARE bricks.....hee hee.

I love the view from Gail's living room !...( more about Gail at another photo..) Janet and Gail and I had been out at the town beach picking up purdy rocks....and afterwards we headed out to Gail's house for wine and pizza...and some photo taking for me....what at lovely afternoon, with a great sunset and really good pizza...and a whole lot of laughing. Gail has one of those wonderful laughs that makes you want to join in even if you have no idea what's so funny ..... ( in the case of being too far away to hear what's being said, for example )

Life is pretty good sometimes....

I have this thing about bricks, especially the old ones with the brick company's name so elegantly shown on them.....this group of bricks actually came orginally from the city of St. Joseph, Michigan ( where Janet and Gail both grew up, and live there now)....

Several years ago, while they were tearing up the brick streets in town to put down concrete or asphalt they have now ...( fools !) the powers that be, offered the old bricks free to the people of the town....each brick weighs about 7 pounds I hear tell. Gail and her husband have these brick paving walkways all around her house...the mind boggles at how much all those bricks weighed and the logistics of getting them from town out to the lake...whew, I bet they went to bed real tired every night while that project was in progress ! Not to mention probably going through several sets of shocks on the truck .....it doesn't take that many bricks to put a heavy load in any vehicle.......

I fell in love with the wonderful cedar shake siding on the house, ..... we could never use a material like that out here in California......way too much of a fire hazard.....ya see what we are missing ?!

This was taken from the side of the main deck at Gail's house.......there are 4 levels of decks. I could live happily on those decks, Lake Michigan is such a powerful being, that it drew me outside every time I was there.

I simply cannot make up my mind which sunset photo I like the best......which one do you like ?

Ahhhh ....Just another sunrise on the farm.....this part of Michigan certainly knows how to show off a sunrise !

Back in Michigan Again !

This trip was shorter than the first one, and there was no snow really, and of course no major holiday to decorate for. But I did want Janet and Pysi to have "spring wreaths" ....These are quite a bit larger than the Christmas ones....and both are made from the deodor cedar cones, or cedar roses, as I call them .....

Pysi's is the wun made with silk flowers, and Janet's was made with both dried flowers and fresh...I have never done it this way before, but I am hoping that those fresh rose buds will just dry right there on the wreath..I was finishing them up right up to the day before I left, so no time to dry roses....

I was rather pleased with the way they turned out though....almost broke my arm patting myself on the back .....

When I woke up this morning, the world in Michigan was white again....after several days of brown.....these are photos of Janet's side yard out here on the farm.....

These are close-ups of 2 of the wreaths, the large ones I made from cones I brought from Claifornia, the copper one is made from deodor cedar "roses" and the gold one is made from redwood cones......

Notice the fine threads that traverse the wreath, those are the hot glue threads from all the glueing, this year I forgot to remove them. you really don't notice them as much in person, but they show up big time in these photos !!!

I was looking out the kitchen window just this morning, and I saw this sunrise start...so I grabbed the new camera, and out the door I ran.......

These are some of the 60 ornaments I made for Janet's tree......the inside of the glass ornaments are dried flowers and grasses from the "back yard " of the farm.......sprayed white, gold, silver or copper.....

this is a close up of the greens I put together for the windows......they came from the acreage out behind the farmhouse here.....the long needles were easy, but the short needled boughs that make up the basis of the garland were mean and nasty, I wore gloves to do the work....yee-oche!!!

but for just a little effort, I think they add a lot....I made 2, one for each living room window

and......here's the finished product in place.......I love to put greens over windows and mirrors at Christmas....

the following photo's are the 3 wreaths I made Janet this year, this first one is made from redwood cones hot glued to a straw base, covered in fabric......it takes a LOT of redwood cones to make a wreath this large....there are about 400 to 500 cones on this and it weighs a ton....

it is an esxample of the sparklie type I make, but I haven't put the rhinestones on it yet, I got a very expensive package of Svarsky crystals to put on it, but I can't get the package open, they are all loose in the package but I am afaid if I wrestle it too hard they will fly everywhere ! but I will take the x-acto knife to it soon.....

I brought the redwood cones from California.....

This wreath is made from "cedar roses" that I brought from California, and the baby's breath is from the flower arrangment that the cheezefrenz sent her......

this is a close up of the little wreath that is in the next photo......

This little wreath is made from the teeny tiny cones from the tree in Janet's front yard at her house in town.....and the baby's breath is from the flower arrangment that the cheezefrendz sent to her.....so it is very special to her.

Here's Janet and Pysi with the tree they just cut down......fresh cut trees are the only way to go I found out....they stay so nice and pliable and soft for so long......

ok now that last photo is one of the pieers in St. Joseph, Janet and Pysi and I went for a cold walk down that pier....what can't be seen is yet another lighthouse past the one you see there.....the next shot or two are from that same pier......

ok well, that photo was taken about a week ago, on the shores of Lake Michigan.....we had gone out there to pick up rocks....( a particular passion of mine) and found some beauties....this was taken from the path down to the beach and yep those are giant piles of ice right at the shore....the next photo is snad dunes an wild grasses.....which have some lovely plumey type thingys...so we picked a bunch of those too !!!

Well that photo was taken from the living room window at Janet's farm.....there was a blizzard going on outside....which one next ?????

Oh Hai Awl,

I should have really started this when I got out here to Michigan, but I have only had the camera for a couple of weeks now....my old one died about the time I got here.....the new one is a pip.....and I think the new photos will show that.....I am not sure where to start so I am just gonna go an browse my photo's and I'll describe them after I post them .....