as some of you may know, for three years in a row my property got chemical drift from the neighboring farmland. The third year was so bad that a lot of plants didn’t even bother coming back and trees were in serious distress. Even the grass wasn’t green any more.
It was not a pretty episode in my life to a point that I was not healthy any more. But what can you do?
Ask them to stop spraying in high winds? Every one was laughing.
I could not just abandon my property or just let it be killed off by the chemicals.

So I decided that I had enough and must fight for my little spot on this earth.
With help of my friends, I finally found the means to put a halt to all the chemical trespassing.
Lucky for me, I have very good friends with down town offices on top floors of the highest buildings.
When the farmers started receiving letters from serious people and the Indiana Chemist bureau, they suddenly started to take my complaints seriously.

Now they can’t spray themselves any more. The experts of the local Coop are doing that now.
And it shows off. After two seasons without any drifting, my little habitat is showing signs of recovery.
Like this one on the photo. For years the plant was struggling and producing ample and very crumpled flowers but now it seems to be back to glory.
Young trees and seedlings I planted are just now starting to shoot up and the old trees do a remarkable effort to recover.
There must be a lot of chemical residue because some trees are still showing the obvious distress.
Mainly the Red bud and the Boxelder. Those two species are known to be very sensitive to roundup anyway.
But it will take years of recovery, not to speak of all the plants and flowers what just disappeared .

I have lived for the better part of my life in the countryside and always enjoyed farming in general. Up to this episode I have never felt the need or needed to defend my environment.
Now I see the flip side of the chemicals we all use and it’s not all that safe what we do.

The top had an ugly and fresh water stain that had to come out.
I had to take all the lacquer off and re-do the top with new.
I can justify doing this because the piece had been refinished recently,
The new finishes are generally not fixable.
It took some real nifty tricks to get the black ring out.

still beautiful
as ever
more mature?
yes
still crazy
yes
what do we create
graviti or attraction
Two stars collide
Is that a Super Nova
Their sublime destiny
in time
time can be bent by gravity
are we heading for this?
I would make it
eternal then

(4 x 6 foot canvas)
Actually there is a super nova just born.
Interested?: newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2011/06/03/new-supernova…
and/or:
skymania.com/wp/2011/06/supernova-flares-in-whirlpool-gal…

his Japanese or Chinese cabinet door fell and got a big hole in the paper.
It has 5 layers of different quality/thickness paper. The border is silk fabric.

Had to do a bit of surgery to access the rear and then glued it all back together.
It’s not perfect but it will have to do
(result in comment)
and don’t ask me what kind of glue I used. I won’t tell you:))

I have the feeling that he’s going to pester Juliette a lot in the coming years.
Apparantly some people didn’t want us to mourn Thomas too long and sent us this wonderful creature.
J and I are deeply impressed and speechless with this precious gift of life.

Juliette and I are heart broken.
Thomas’ cancer was progressing faster then I expected. He went down hill so fast. Stopped eating, hardly took any biscuits and the pain medicine didn’t work any more.
He was a hero until the end. Guarding at night and doing his rounds against all odds. Just limping from place to place as best as he could then sit down and bark a bit. Then his barking became feeble at best.

I know I was trying to hold on to him but it was no use. I couldn’t let him suffer this way. We sat nights together on his mulch heap and on Monday, I saw it in his eyes: He had enough.
Yesterday morning Dr. Lions came on house call and we both decided that it was time. He wanted to get up to greet her but couldn’t.

He went to sleep very peacefully in my arms on our front porch where we spent so many happy hours.

Juliette and I will miss our great protector, teacher and friend.

Thank you all my friends and Thomas fans.