With My Lifelong Love of Nature - Every Day Is Earth Day

Ruth Sandra Sperling
RSS Designs In Fiber - Get My Handmade in my Bonanza Booth or my Etsy Shop -- or Privately

My "Avatar" or Identifying Icon - A Crochet Tapestry of Nature on Earth!

So-o-o .............. It's Earth Day!!

Well, I'll tell you - it sure is glad to see that there is Worldwide acknowledgement of the need for support of an "environmental movement" on our planet!

But for me - well!  It is ALWAYS ON MY MIND!!

Yes - we need to take care of our environment - to learn to take it into consideration in all our daily activities - at Home, at Work, at Play.

I LOVE the Nature on this planet - from Pets and Plants at Home - to Trees everywhere - to Mountains, Valleys, Seas, Lakes, Rivers, Fields ..... !

One of the reasons I chose the place I live right now is that I can walk outside and Be In Nature - all I have to do is walk out, walk off the porch and starting walking around under Trees and by Bushes, watch the Birds (lots of Ravens live here) - not as great as being in Wilderness - but good enough for "instant Nature"!

I try to live "Green" - Green Commute, Green Economy, Conservation of Water, Energy - Recycling, Re-using - it is a way of LIFE for me!

And I show it in my Arts and Crafts - Photography, Crochet Tapestry, Filet Crochet, Knitting Intarsia -- and here are a few examples of how I Celebrate Nature on Earth!!!

From Giant Sequoias in the Sierra Nevada .......

....To the Bird Feeder with Birds in a Tree outside an apartment I lived in .....

...... to a Scene on a back road in the Santa Monica Mountains ......

.... to fields I walked through in the Antelope Valley!!

..... to making a "Tree Tapestry" Pillow - every stitch my own .....

.... to crocheting in Fine Threads the type of Mountain Cabin scene I love ......

.... to figuring out how to crochet a Bouquet in a Vase, so it looked like the Cabbage Roses I saw on a Walk!!

To a little thing like this Key Chain with Irish Crochet Roses and Leaves!

Well, I have the Nature on Earth Every Day in my life, because I want to - and I share it with others!  Do You???

My Top 10 Parks - The Ones That Really Made A Difference In My Life - Part One

Ruth Sandra Sperling
RSS Designs In Fiber - Get My Handmade on Artfire and Privately

My Crocheted Tree Tapestry - Inspired By All The Hours and Days I've Spent With Trees

Spending time with Social Media - all kinds of comments pass before my eyes when I am on the computer, but when I saw The Wilderness Society tweet --

'If you put together a "top ten national parks list", what would make the cut?'

-- it caught my eye, because going to Parks and Forests all my life has had such an affect on my life that I cannot really measure it - it helped make me who I am.

So, I thought about it - and I decided to come up with my Top 10, but they cannot all be "National Parks" - because some of the most influential parks for me personally weren't those!

It all really started the summer when I was either 5 or 6 years old and our Summer Day Camp in Chicago, IL went for a hike in a local Forest Preserve of Cook County.  I have never forgotten it because for some reason it made a huge impression on me and I have Loved Forests ever since that time!! ---- I can still remember being this small, little girl with all these other kids and the Camp Counselor who was leading us down this trail - showing us different plants - including the lesson I have never forgotten about: Poison Ivy and how to recognize it to avoid it (and I have never in my life missed recognizing Poison Ivy so I didn't get the rash LOL)!

But my Top 10 reflect certain times in my life.  I am going to list them chronologically for me - as my life went along. This blog post will cover the first 3 of the 10 in the years before I went to the Western United States.

1. Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park

Ontonagon, Upper Peninsula of Michigan

I was a teenager and my family would go there for summer vacations - it was where on a family hike I had the experience of seeing Bear Cubs wild in the Forest - and then there was one August we could see the Northern Lights one night on a Lake Superior Beach somewhere around Ontonagon and Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park (southern part of the Keweenaw Peninsula of the Upper Peninsula of the State of Michigan). -- More unforgettable moments!

2. Allerton Natural Area of Allerton Park & Retreat Center

I was in College at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign when I went to some kind of orientation at "Allerton" where I was immediately impressed with the place - but it was some distance from the campus in the twin cities of Urbana-Champaign and it was some months before I got to go there a second time and just wander.  -----------------Over the years from early 1971 until I moved away (to the St. Louis, MO area), I found ways to go there and explore all areas of what to me was at that time in my life a wonderous place to go walking as shown on this Map  - over on the more "Formal Side" as I think of it, you see Works of Art literally out in the forest:  Beautiful Sculptures such as The Centaur and The Sun Singer - then Adam, The Three Graces and The Girl are more right in the Formal Gardens - and then there is the Avenue of the Chinese Musicians playing all kinds of instruments, which I just loved; and the Walk to the "House of the Golden Buddhas" then over to the Fu Dog Garden - and then down a path to the Goldfish Pond (sort of in the woods) - you just have to go there to know how it is with the Artwork and the woods!!  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------But it was the other side of the Sangamon River - what I call the wild side - that I loved the "Green World" of that Illinois Plains Forest - I would spend hours walking around country roads to get over in there and walk around the paths!  I was very lucky to have a friend who bought a 40 acre farm bordering Allerton's "wild side" - for years I would be visiting there and accessing the paths of Allerton's forest from that farm!  This was my first experiences of hiking in real forest for more than just a short vacation and over and over down the same paths - sometimes alone - seeing all kinds of plants and wildlife: Raccoons and Snakes and Flowers such as "Jacks-in-the-Pulpit" - and, of course, the birds!  Such fun it was for me - and in many ways enlightening.  It was years later I learned that only a small portion of that "Wild Green World" was native, virgin forest - the other hundreds of acres of it were forest naturally regenerated through the work of Biologists from the University of Illinois Biology Dept.!

3. Shawnee National Forest

Southern Illinois

Going to the Shawnee National Forest was my second series of more adult experiences out in wild forest - hiking down paths in real forest.  This was done on weekends when I could go with a friend when I was living and working in St. Louis, MO.  Across the Mississippi River from St. Louis on the southern tip of Illinois, it was a lot of fun to go over there - especially when one of the ways going across the river, we took a ferry across the Mississippi!  Driving down country roads was a favorite pass-time of me and a friend - we did some in Missouri, but it was the hiking in the Shawnee National Forest that was the "wildest" and I appreciated the most - and I remember driving down a road and stopping because of a Turtle sunbathing in the middle of the road!!  Yes - we stopped for Wildlife!!

Well - this is it for now - To Be Continued .... the Top 10 Parks of my Life!

New Year - New Fiber Art Designs and More Coming

Ruth Sandra Sperling
RSS Designs In Fiber - My Handmade Designs on ARTFIRE and ETSY


It's a New Year -- and I did make a few Resolutions!!

I always Resolve to live my life the best I can in many ways -- but I had to take a look at some things I was doing and figure out what I really wanted to accomplish -- a New Year's Resolution came out of that.

It is to really work on creating, in my Arts and Crafts, some Fiber Art designs that I have wanted to do -- and do with originality -- and work on them and actually get them made and presented - either for sale or for display (I don't sell everything I make).

I seem to have ideas all the time -- sometimes it is only what colors to do a pattern in -- or how I could do something in the colors and design that I want to do it in (not what someone else says -- what I visualize).

To be honest -- what I really want to do is create some things that are Unique and Aesthetic -- and Inspired by Nature, the World and Life.

Maybe some smaller things, like this:

And maybe some larger things, like this:

Actually, what I want to do is make some things that will bring some brightness and joyfulness into someone's life -- through Color, Design, and/or Subject!!

If I can do this, even with only a very few people, it will make me happy.

-- And I have just Updated my "DESIGNS with FLOWERS" page with some new Fiber Art listings here on my blog!!

In these cooler days of Winter -- even with the beauty of the snow-covered mountains in the distance -- I visualize Flowers and the bright green sprouting plants in the coming of Spring!!

Wishes for a good 2011 to all!!

STILL SNOW IN THE ANTELOPE VALLEY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Ruth Sandra Sperling
RSS Designs In Fiber - Internet Shop of Handmade Items
RSS Designs Wearable - Internet Shop of Wearable Items
RSS Crochet Thread Plus - Internet Shop of Crochet Thread

I woke up this morning to find the ground still covered with beautiful white snow!!

I checked out in my front yard a couple of times today and took a few pictures.

Someone told me that this was a first for them and they moved here 20 years ago!!

Our driveway and yard was still covered with snow, though this afternoon it looked like the sidewalk was starting to peek out!!

Bush in my front yard - about 10 AM this morning:

The remaining photos were taken somewhere around 1 PM today.

Bird Feeder hanging on the tree:

My rose bush was still in bloom when the snow fell - ROSES IN SNOW!!:

Bush in my front yard - some snow has melted off in the sunny day:

Bright blue sky through snow covered branches - but some snow has melted!!

Enjoying this unusual seasonal experience!!

Ruth

SPRINGTIME - AND MY LITTLE FRONT YARD GARDEN IS IN BLOOM!!

Ruth Sandra Sperling
RSS Designs In Fiber - Internet Shop of Handmade Items
RSS Crochet Thread Plus - Internet Shop of Crochet Thread






Spring brought some pleasant surprises in my little front yard garden.


This year, I thoroughly pruned my miniature rose bush in my front yard - early in the year sometime when it was not frozen outside. We get freezing weather here in the Antelope Valley of Southern California, but very often during the winter days, especially when we have bright sun, it warms up. Well, the pruning really paid off -- I have the best show of miniature roses ever since I moved in - in 2001.


Here are 2 more pictures of the rose bush - showing the blooms closer up:











The other surprise was that the snapdragon plants I bought blooming last summer and potted and put in the front yard, did not die this winter -- and came back more spectacular than ever!! Snapdragons are actually annuals - not perennials - and I expected them to die off during the winter. All I can figure is that the pot never actually froze -- and the blooms are like a second period of blooming -- and are better than they were originaly!! I was watering the plants out front all winter long every so often, so they would not dry out -- a gardener from a local nursery told me to water the perennials all winter long and I included the snapdragon pot -- this also really paid off!!








Now my succulent plants are another matter!!







The Jade Plant off to the right in the back is an indoor/outdoor plant -- this past fall I got it inside in my living room early enough so none of the leaves froze off -- the previous year I didn't watch it carefully enough and we had had a frost and some of the leaves froze before I got inside -- it grew back then -- but this year I got it inside and also watered it all winter long. It kept growing a little bit all winter long -- when it got warm enough and the trees in the front yard had leafed out some to give the front yard some filtered light (rather than the harsh sunlight from the west in the afternoon), I put it out in the yard. It is doing really well!!


The other 2 succulent plants in front of the Jade Plant (I don't know their names) was given to me by a neighboring friend who moved to northern CA last summer. I placed them there -- and they don't freeze in the winter for whatever reason -- and I have been watering them ever since I was given them -- including during the winter -- they are really getting new growths and are really lovely!!


I also read up a little about keeping lawns green and growing in -- in this High Desert climate of the Antelope Valley, that can be a real problem. Even with a sprinkler system, we very often end up with brown spots. The landlord leaves it up to the individual tenants if they want to do any additional watering (I am careful to not do too much and use too much water as water conservation is so very important).


Since I am out there anyway watching my potted plants and I have a little round sprinkler head for my hose - it is something I can easily do. I read that watering them lightly and soaking the roots some in the growing season (early spring) -- the grass will really grow in -- and then watering them lightly on a regular basis in the mornings will help to keep it from drying out and turning brown.


I am not really that big on having the "perfect lawn" -- but I much prefer the live green grass than the dried up dead brown spots -- so all spring I have been doing a little bit of watering with my round sprinkler head in the mornings before the sun hits my front lawn. I started before the trees leafed out - and have kept it up since the trees did leaf out. The trees have really grown and offer a lot of shade for the yard and my apartment now.


The little bit of watering I have done has really paid off, too!! The grass has grown in all over my front yard with nary a brown spot -- and my beautiful dog Misty just loves rolling in the fresh green grass!!


Just thought I would share with you one of my joys of life!!


Next time, I will go into more of my plants -- and what herbs I have growing!! Hopefully, I'll have fresh herbs for salads and other cooking this year!!



Ruth

SPRING HAS ARRIVED IN THE ANTELOPE VALLEY, CA

Ruth Sandra Sperling
RSS Designs In Fiber - Internet Shop of Handmade Items
RSS Crochet Thread Plus - Internet Shop of Crochet Threads





Spring has truly arrived - it gets really warm now in the afternoons - and my miniature rose bush has buds that are starting to open!





Here - take a look!!





This picture shows sub buds opening up with bright dark pink roses - and if you look closely, you can see some buds that are still closed on these branches.

Actually there are lots and lots of buds - in a week or two, the bush will be full of miniature red roses.

It is getting close to 7 years since I moved in here - a previous tenant planted this little miniature rose bush out in front - well since I have been here it has grown and grown - and there are a couple of smaller bushes next to it now -- and at various times of the year I have a bush full of roses!

I have learned to prune it regularly, because then I have more blooms!!

As my little front yard garden develops over the spring, summer and fall months, I'll periodically post pictures of the different plants.

When my rose bush is in full bloom - I'll show it here on my blog!!

Ruth