Sugar Maples and Black Raspberries

These are North American plants, and as far as I know they might have problems in prospering in Sweden, and I doubt heavily they would survive in Finland.

The Sugar Maple grows up to about 45 degrees North and my parents' farm is about 62 degrees North...
Black Raspberry SHOULD be growing this high up North, but... In 2006 they said in a garden forum that they had seen some Black Raspberry plants somewhere in Sweden, but nothing has been heard of that project since then. 2008 they said there are "plenty" being sold, but a lot of people found nothing when they tried to get any. So I don't know...

They say that a Sugar Maple won't produce much before it's about 40 years old. Sure... if I plant them now, they'll be ready when I'm 80 :-D But you can tap birches of sap when they are only 10 years old... I wonder why not maples.

Well, well...

Yurts

Funny...
Actually, not so much. Feels very... disrespectful.
I suppose I should be glad for this part of my people's traditions
being adopted by "modern man", but I'm not.
It just feels disrespectful.
I mean... the "fabric" should be felt. Wool felt.
That's wonderful isolation and waterproof, if done correctly, and can be decorated.
Canvas yurt is for wussies.

What is a yurt?

I used to be somewhat... not active, close is perhaps more correct word - with SCA, and LRP people, and I am very proud of my Ugric inheritage, and to me yurt IS Ugric. I have kind of adoptic the steppen people as my own ;-) Sarmatians, Amazons, Scythians, Huns, Cumans and Cossacks and Mongolians. All my people :-D (I don't know. All I know is that their artefacts and culture resounds very strongly inside me.

my people - an Uighur girl, a Finnish girl and a Mongolian girl :-)
While I was looking at these different people, I also found several race discussions...
Someone had put together photos of different soccer players to see what a "racial type" looks like.
In Stormfront's forum they are discussing about whether Finns are "white" or not.
I think all these girls are white, blond and blue-eyed.
They will probably grow up to become beautiful blond women.
Are they Caucasian? Cauc-asian? Sure... :-D
Just like the Romani people are the closest thing of "pure Aryans" we get ;-)
Like they said in the opening ceremonies of the Soccer World Championships, "Welcome home" -
We all - ALL - come from Africa. If you dig deep enough, you find a black person in every human being's family tree.
Eve and Adam were black.
Albino woman - one the only truly white people :-)
Considering that albinism is hereditary, perhaps the "white power" people should go find themselves albino spouses?)

Back to Yurts :-) I want one. With thick, felted covers.
I might want to change some things though.
1) the door could be flaps instead of a real door. Easier to transport. Three layers would keep the yurt warm in the winter. (Three layers? 1) right side flap, left side flap and a separate door flap.
2) reciprocal roof instead of a real one.

This is the way to do it :-D
Have all modern comforts, like solar cells and satellite disc,
and use a motorcycle instead of a horse,
the yurt is real, correct, perfetc :-)
Just the way it should be.
The way it works best,
and has worked for hundreds of years.
Canvas will stop working in just a couple of years.
(The extra super duper durable thing they sell in the "modern yurt" place lasts 15 years.)
15 YEARS!!!
ROTFLMAO!

Bees

Now I have taken a step I have regretted for not taken for 20 years... I've applied to a beekeeping course :-D

I read this article about that "Natural England" RECOMMENDS urban beekeeping - to keep the bees alive. (Also, "city bees are better off than their country cousins")
I don't believe we will be moving to countryside any time soon, but I do have a balcony, and we live in a suburb with the countryside in just around the corner - I can actually see fields from my balcony ;-) (Not really, but if the trees in between us and the farms didn't exist, I would. We have one farm in about a mile South-West and another, big one, about a mile South-East :-D)

So I'll be making myself a bee-garden in my balcony :-)

I like bee balm, centaureas, chocolate cosmos (the other Cosmos Flowers are ok too, and my husband would like them. Look like daisies, the "only real flower" in his mind :-D)
Jacob's ladder is also fine, Globe Thistle, Reversed Clover, Borago, Lacy Phacelias, Deadnettles, "Baby Blue-eyes" (in black ;-)), Marigolds are ofcourse welcome to a witch's garden, Fairycandle "black neglicee" :-D, Bishop's weed, Meadowsweet, Alyssum, Masterworts (Moulin Rouge is especially pretty), Snapdragons, Daphnez, Phloxias, purple coneflowers, lobelias, lupines, sunflowers and all kinds of poppies :-) I adore columbines (aquilegia), but they are hummingbird flowers, and we don't have hummingbirds... I hope the bees like them too :-) They should also like strawberries :-) So do I :-D Also, simple roses :-)
Now I need to find out which of these flowers like to grow together... on a balcony ;-)

Then I need some sort of bird bath :-)

And the last installment :-)

It's a "dragon" watching a door... Cute :-D

Simply love this diorama!

Love these stone snakes. They have these all over the place, inside, outside...
There is something fascinating with this life size witch doll with her crocodile footstool... Maybe a witch collection could be interesting as well?

Suffragettes might be another interesting collection for "my" "house on the rock" :-)

There is also "Granma Brisbey's Bottle Castle", which to me feels very chaotic... The following bottle buildings look much nicer :-D

More on the Castle Builders

Castle Builders at Curious Experiment

I think building a medieval castle - orprince Ludvig's fairytale castle (Neuschawanstein Castle) - is, sure, interesting, and when one does it by oneself, fascinating... but interesting or fascinating enough to inspire me more than in the idea.

So,
Tarodi Var,
Facteur Cheval's Perfect Palace (Palais Ideal),
Jim Bishop's Castle,
Don Justo Gallego's Cathedral of Our Lady,
Ed Leedskalnin's Coral Castle,
Nek Chand’s Secret Space,
Karl Junker’s Architectural Asylum
are sure interesting, but slightly boring...

What I'd like to say about that is:
- it would be more interesting to create the Customs Officer's paintings in architectural form...
- Niki de Saint Phalle's or Gaudi's mosaics

This is Niki de Saint Phalle's Grotto

This is Gaudi's Batllo house and Park Güell

About the Grotto of the redemption. Interesting idea... I especially like the "it was built using rare rocks from hundreds of miles away. Shells and semi-precious stones..."
Reminds me of a cassuck I saw in amber exhibition once... it was decorated with amber jewelry, necklaces, brooches, rings, that people had been donating to church.

Which, of course, leads me to Amber Room :-)
"...a complete chamber decoration of amber panels backed with gold leaf and mirrors. Due to its singular beauty, it was sometimes dubbed the "Eighth Wonder of the World"
"...it covered more than 55 square meters and contained over six tons of amber..."
"The Amber Room was looted during World War II by Nazi Germany and brought to Königsberg. Knowledge of its whereabouts was lost in the chaos at the end of the war. In 1979 efforts began to rebuild the Amber room at Tsarskoye Selo. In 2003, after decades of work by Russian craftsmen, the reconstructed Amber Room was inaugurated in the Catherine Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia."
- Wikipedia


P.S. About using interesting materials and such, look at Fonthill... built of concrete ;-)

Aaaah....

Found the "Librophiliac's Love Letter" about libraries... some really took my breath away :-D I don't think I can manage something like that in my cob cottage...


Not only the library itself is amazing, but the roof! It's like ocean turned upside down...
This one reminds me of aunt Elinor's library in Ink Heart. :-)

This one reminds me of the library in the Name of the Rose... just a bit too bright ;-)

Now, these are a bit more realistic for a normal person... somewhat more normal person, like me :-D





Now, I would be happy if Jay Walker allowed me to live in his library... I would sleep on the couch and hide in some distant corner when ever people come around. I wouldn't even want anything to eat... That library made me cry. That is money well spent :-)
(Not like House on the Rock. That's just stupid.)

I didn't know about that before I visited homelibrarydesign.net/. There's a lot of other interesting things there :-)

P.S. I find the House on the Rock inspiring though.

"The 13 rooms of the Original House are linked by common elements and moods – blue stained glass for a nighttime ambience, or warmth and serenity from the sandstone hearth." sounds interesting. The reality is not that interesting.

I wouldn't collect the things Alex Jordan did. I would collect swords... and mythical creatures.

It would be fun with dioramas, though... I love dioramas, like miniature railroads and Tove Jansson's Moomin dioramas in the museum in Tampere. And the magnificent crechés, Neapolitan Presepios and Polish szopkas. I also love doll's houses. :-) Well... and model ships. I suppose I like miniatures :-D It might be an interesting idea to try to create things like House on the Rock and Jay Walker's library etc. in miniatures... though I don't think our 60 square meters is even close enough :-D
Circus is ok, miniature zoos even better. I love Noah's arcs :-)

Daguerre's diorama sounds really interesting too... think of Bayeux tapestry...

I like curiosity cabinets and museums of natural history.
* link 1 (they have 15 editions of the Cabinet of Curiosity... go, read them all :-D)
* link 2 , *link 3 and *link 4

I don't like mechanical music, but I like mechanical toys... and puppets. And special effects. Starevich and Harryhausen... *sigh*

The Queen from "Le Roman de Renard" by Ladislas Starevitch

I am also fascinated by the Carousel. Carousel creatures are amazing. Think that someone actually carved all those thousands of detailed creatures just to run around and around in a carousel. And the figureheads... love those too :-)


I would also like to have a big herbal meditation garden, like they have in Hässelby... just bigger :-D

These are not from the Swedish garden. I'll add pictures when I get some. It's really lovely, with stones from all over the world, reflecting balls, beehive, benches and nooks and the lovely, fresh, vital and well kept herbs...

Damanhur

This post is heavy with pictures!

When I was looking at the "mud houses", I found "one man's follies"... The Castle Builders :-)

One of them was Damanhur. I had never heard of that. Apparently a man had dreams of this... temple. He wanted to built it. So he did. He and his friends moved into this house and started digging and cutting stone, and built this 300.000 square feet big temple in the hill...


There are some pretty amazing things and then some pretty horrible things :-D
(To me, that is - I am talking for myself now.)

Staircase of pillars from Damanhur - Milles Garden in Stockholm - reminds me of each other
This is some sort of music room... I think it might be linked to the crystal sphere room... these glass rods are several meter high and there are wind chimes placed around it, so one can walk around and make them chime, and the music moves around quite beautifully.

I suppose this is water hall... it looks like it :-D

These are two parts of the labyrinth. It's really fascinating... there are staircases that lead to small rooms, and then there are secret doors and staircases from these seemingly "dead ends" to lead you on in the labyrinth.
This is the floor of the Moon room - it depicts the Star from Tarot cards. Then, somehow, they have made the floor open to a staircase! I adore secret doors and staircases, especially as clever and "mystical" as this one :-D

The labyrinth changes all the time... these are just two parts, but there's an Egyptian part and Minoan part and several others... The boys really did a lot of work!

This is one of the halls... I don't know which one, but the picture in the middle shows the roof of the hall. Very beautiful... I'm not too fond of the murals, they are a little too "perfect" to my taste.

I think they would be better in Klimt style, or like the Golden Hall in Stockholm city hall :-)

Reminds me of the Hall of Supreme Harmony from Forbidden City...
Somehow I also think about this:
It's the "Ram entangled" from Ur :-)

This is The Hall of Earth - the roof has lamps that depict the constellations :-)

I also like the lady with the lamp growing from her head ;-)

"Mesopotamian Mona Lisa" - ivory carving from Nimrud - and a Greek Caryatide from Louvre

They also have a menhir park with rainbow stone labyrinth and another stone labyrinth

I think this might be from Damanhur too... pity that the snake border has broken :-(
Monolitten from Vigeland Park in Norway. The whole park is an amazing celebration of humanity.

And last, an artist's depiction of Atlantis... They say this Damanhur has some sort of connection with Atlantis... so I suppose it's somehow connected to the whole thing :-D Fascinating image, any way ;-)

I told you it's heavy!

P.S. Also see the Derinkuyu underground city and the greek labyrinth caves...