Altered Book Round Robin

You meet the most wonderful people online, one of the wonderful artists I have met is Lee Weber, from W. Virginia. She's a nurse in her day job, and an extremely talented artist by night...

Lee invited me to join an altered book round robin project....

Each participating artist selects a song with lyrics they like, creates a front and back cover for the book, a couple of pages to get it started, and then ships the book off to the next artist to add a few more pages. After the book has made it's way from artist to artist it returns to you to drool over the other artist's pages. Fun, huh?

In my continuing healing process from loosing my Grandma Pearl a couple of years ago, I chose her favorite song from days gone by - "In The Hard Rock Candy Mountains". She thought it was a catchy tune and the lyrics made her laugh. It was a naughty song of it's day - written after the Great Depression, when there were lots of hobos traveling about the country.

A closer view of the cover of my book, in bright candy colors - strawberry, peach, tangerine, cherry, blueberry, etc. I typed the title of the song with my vintage typewriter using vintage paper.

I soldered a mountain scene and a dragonfly for the front cover, added a metal honeybee aren't they attracted to sweet things - just like Me?

The back cover has another dragonfly, vintage crochet doily, another soldered charm honeybee and a sketched whipoorwill. NOTE: I have heard the song of the whipoorwill at the farm in the country, but I had never seen one until I pulled up an image online. The song is prettier than the bird, which is often the case.

A closer view of the whipoorwill sketch - "in the lemonade springs, where the whipoorwill sings".


The inside cover of the book has another tiny book for each artist to sign in and record their page in the book. I added a watercolor above the sign in book - my view of "The Hard Rock Candy Mountains" in cotton candy pink.

My page for the book features another watercolor background, a vintage postcard from the 40's of the Grand Canyon stitched in place and held with red rhinestones.

A closer view of the "hard rock candy" mountains watercolor and the lyrics for the page.
When the postcard flap is lifted, a vintage Kodachrome slide of some distant mountains is riveted in place.The flip side of the page with the Kodachrome slide - a window cut for viewing from both sides.

A pressed flower card from Kathryn Glevanik with a vintage skeleton key held in place by vintage lace bit.
The inside of the card is embellished with feathers, vintage sheet music, a bluebird in a gumball tree and the next line of the song, "There's a land that's bright and fair".

In The Hard Rock Candy Mountains

In the Hard Rock Candy Mountains there's a land that's bright and fair,

Where the donuts grow on bushes and there's cookies everywhere,

Where the boxcars are all empty and the sun shines every day,

On the birds and the bees and the cigarette trees,

Where the lemonade springs and the whipoorwill sings,

In the Hard Rock Candy Mountains.

In the Hard Rock Candy Mountains all the cops have wooden legs,

And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth and the hens lay soft boiled eggs,

The farmer's trees are full of fruit and the barns are full of hay,

Oh, I'm bound to go where there ain't no snow,

Where the rain don't fall and the wind don't blow,

In the Hard Rock Candy Mountains.

In the Hard Rock Candy Mountains you never change your socks,

And the little streams of alcohol come a-trickling down the rocks,

The brakemen have to tip their hats and the railroad bulls are blind,

There's a lake of tew and of whisky too,

You can paddle all around in a big canoe,

In the Hard Rock Candy Mountains.

In the Hard Rock Candy Mountains the jails are made of tin,

And you can walk right out again as soon as you are in,

There ain't no short handled shovels, no axes saws or picks,

I'm a goin to stay where you sleep all day,

Where they hung the jerk that invented work,

In the Hard Rock Candy Mountains.

Tarantulas At The Farm & Other Buggies

This is the tarantula that Martin found in the house when he went to the farm to repair some exterior doors.

I haven't seen any tarantulas since I was a kid. We used to put our feet up on the handle bars of our bikes as we rode past them on the paved road by our house.

My brother and most of the farm boys for that matter used to catch them and keep them as pets. I really hated it when they would bring them to school for Science and Biology. They would hold them in their hands and talk about how gentle they were. I will never know the thrill of holding a tarantula - ever. It just goes against my nature of avoiding anything with eight legs.

This tarantula seemed small, half the size of the ones I remember as a kid. Or did they just seem bigger then?

Martin caught the tarantula in a bucket from the garage that I use for gardening because I had said that there was no way that a tarantula was in the house, that he was just being a sissy and it was just a ground spider. He was throwing quarters at it. When that failed he left to stay at a hotel refusing to sleep in the house. The next morning he came back to the house and decided to catch the tarantula to prove to me that he really saw one.

We arrived the following day and I snapped a shot and set him free. I have never heard of anyone getting bitten by a tarantula even though the boys used to catch them.















We found the largest Praying Mantis I have ever seen while clearing the Horse Weeds from the barn lot. He was four inches long as you can see from the relative size to Angus' back. I wasn't able to get very close as I was afraid he would fly at me and I would crap my pants, drop my camera and probably hurt myself as I fell down trying to get away. But, I did get close enough for this shot.





















Later when I was clearing the weeds away from the lilac bushes behind the little cottage and I found this huge spider. Again, I got as close as I dared to get this shot. I left the spider alone and continued removing weeds and dead branches.

















That's one thing about the country, it's not all zinnias, glasses of wine, and sunsets. There are lots of creepy crawlies. Molly killed two black snakes and one lizard.

Of course, there are wasps and hornets everywhere that you have to be on watch for. I would say that they pose the biggest threat as they can guard their nests fiercely.




















It's just country living. You have to pay attention, and you learn quickly where spiders, wasps and snakes usually hang out and you avoid them if possible. You also wear leather gloves, jeans, long sleeve shirts and boots when clearing brush.

Just another day in paradise.

Resident Praying Mantis

The girls found this fellow while watering the flower box planted with cabbages. He (she?) has been feasting on the white cabbage moth larvae. Rebecca shared her discovery with her husband, Jeff and these are his photos he shared with us.

The shot above is my favorite - I love the definition of the praying mantis against the soft background. Look at his antennae - Doesn't he seem to have an intelligent contenance?

He's a big one, almost 4 inches in length.

He looks like he is waving - or motioning for Jeff to come just a little closer.

Okay, in this shot he is beginning to look a little miffed. Time to move along, Jeff.

My what creepy green eyes you have. How close did you have to get for this shot, Jeff? I too, am fascinated by nature and love to see lots of "good bugs" in my garden. However, these guys still creep me out.