environmental stuff

Sunday Selections #68 A ceramic edition

by frogpondsrock on May 6, 2012

in blogging,cancer,ceramics,environmental stuff,friendship,Fun,real life,sunday selections

I like to make rocks. I get a great deal of personal satisfaction from making ceramic rocks. As I am making rocks I go elsewhere in my mind and I find a place of beautiful stillness and in this space I am working at my most intuitive.

I enjoy making all the work that I make, otherwise I wouldn’t make it BUT it is these rocks that give me the most pleasure.

So without further ado here is the Ceramic edition of this weeks Sunday Selections. There are some rules to this meme but I am fluid, follow them or not, it is up to you. I do ask that you link back to me though.

The Blurb

I take a lot of photos and most of them are just sitting around in folders on my desktop not doing anything. I thought that a dedicated post once a week would be a good way to share some of these photos that otherwise wouldn’t be seen by anyone other than me.

I am also remarkably absent minded and I put photos into folders and think that I will publish them later on and then then I never do.

So I have started a photo meme that anyone can join in and play as well. The rules are so simple as to be virtually non existent.

Just add your name and URL to the Mr Linky.

Publish your photos on your blog using the “Sunday Selections” title.

Link back here to me.

The Photos

These little lidded vessels are about the size of a squished tennis ball. I call them puzzle boxes because it takes a few twists and turns of the lid to make it sit correctly. I had heaps of fun making these.

This is a candlestick and incense holder. We had a power failure recently and I didn’t have anything to stick any candles into.

This is the side view of the same candlestick and incense holder.

This is part of the first platter that I made in response to my recent trip up to Burnie. I can still feel the psychic impact of driving over the hill into Devonport and being smacked in the soul by the ocean.

This platter is available in the Off Centre Gallery in Salamanca Arts Centre

And then we leave my rocks and travel to the other side of my artistic brain and have this work, which I also adore making. These three pieces are part of the Rose Exhibition, which is showing now at the Lady Franklin Gallery in Lenah Valley. I have donated all of the sale price of this work to the Cancer Council.

{ 28 comments }

Say Yes.

by frogpondsrock on December 6, 2011

in environmental stuff,Hope,plastic pollution

All you need to do is say YES.

Say Yes! I can do something about this.

Say Yes! I can help.

Say Yes! By saying No to plastic.

I know it is hard.

I know we are surrounded by the rotten stuff.

But if we each decide to stop buying one item of plastic.

Just one item.

I have said no to plastic water bottles.

So just Say Yes

And we can make a small step forward.

Say Yes to the planet and say no to unecessary plastic.

Our grandchildren are depending on us.

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Last night I watched The Cove.

by frogpondsrock on August 29, 2011

in Animal cruelty,arseholiness,environmental stuff,politics,real life

I didn’t want to watch the documentary, The Cove. It wasn’t high on my agenda as ideal background noise as I faffed about on the computer after a long day at work.

But inertia won as I was loathe to get up from the coach to find the remote.

So I finally watched The Cove because I was too knackered to change the channel.

I don’t know how to describe how I am feeling today.

I think I am in a little bit of shock still.

The film was very distressing

Even though I knew the dolphin slaughter was coming I was unprepared for the psychic impact of hearing the dolphins distress.

The sound of dolphins screaming isn’t easy to ignore.

I honestly dont know if I have the energy to focus on dolphins as well as all the other horrible things we do as a species.

We have a long list of awfulness to our names.

The Australian Kangaroo cull comes to mind then there is the factory farming of domestic animals.

We can also own up to the practice of shooting Brumbies from helicopters.

Designer pets and puppy farms. Sharks caught soley for their fins and then thrown back into the sea alive.

Poisoning of our wildlife with the horrific 1080 poison.

The list goes on and on.

But for the moment I am trying not to listen to the echoes of dying dolphins in the back of my psyche.

You can watch the cove on ivew if you missed it.

You can donate to Save Japans Dolphins

Or you can google any of the other appalling things that I have mentioned here and then come back and tell me what you think we can do.

I don’t know what I am going to do as I haven’t had a deep think about it yet.

Our planet is at tipping point. The ocean is in crisis.

Where the fuck do we think our grandchildren are going to live if not here on this dying planet?

We need to find some solutions today people. Not tomorrow.

Otherwise we wont have a tomorrow.

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Sunday Selections #20

by frogpondsrock on May 22, 2011

in blogging,environmental stuff,photography,sunday selections

Wow! Sunday Selections has been going for twenty weeks.

Thank you to everyone for playing along with me and sharing your photos and your stories.

I am also remarkably absent minded and I put photos into folders and think that I will publish them later on and then then I never do.

So I have started a photo meme that anyone can join in and play as well. The rules are so simple as to be virtually non existent.

Just add your name and URL to the Mr Linky.

Publish your photos on your blog using the “Sunday Selections” title.

Link back here to me.

Easy Peasy.

Here are my photos for this week.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Grey Aphids.

by frogpondsrock on November 23, 2010

in Distractions galore!,environmental stuff,fauna and flora,gardening,photography

I have a large honeysuckle that grows over the balcony rail, it is only a few feet away from my computer space and in the spring and summertime the perfume is divine. I often try to photograph the honey eaters as they drink the nectar from the flowers or the silver eyes and wrens as they pick insects from the leaves.

This year the plant is absolutely covered with grey aphids there are zillions of the fat little fuckers happily sucking the life out of the flower buds.

As soon as “The Spouse” sees aphids he gets an itchy trigger finger and wants to start madly spraying soapy water everywhere to kill the little sap suckers.

I am not that hasty. I like to adopt a wait and see approach to pest management. We have a very good ecological balance here and I have found that it only takes a week or so before all the predatory insects find the veritable feast on the honeysuckle.

Also while the Aphids are sucking the life out of the honeysuckle flowers I know where they are, the honeysuckle is a tough plant and it will recover. I would much rather have a large population of Aphids on one plant that can cope instead of all over the garden on my more fragile plants.

So yesterday when I should have been working on various projects and answering your emails, I was photographing the busy ecosystem that is contained within one plant in my garden.

The birds come in the early morning to breakfast on the aphids.

There are ladybirds everywhere, gorging themselves on fat juicy aphids. (photo credit: Veronica took this first shot)

I counted at least four different types of parasitic wasp busily hunting aphids.They were far too flitty and zoomy for me to photograph well.

There were lots of different flies feeding on the honeydew the aphids produce as well as two different types of small ant.

As I am writing this I can see a number of finches eating aphids as well, I know that if I move they will fly away and I don’t want to disturb their breakfast. You will just have to imagine them flitting from branch to branch busily pecking aphids off the flower buds.