Day 223-224- A Lotus Pond

I Built A Pond Today 

                                                  ----- by Sans!

I built a pond today.

 I dug a hole, the water flowed

I built a pond today.

Lotuses bloomed today.

 I planted some seeds and spread some leaves

and lotuses bloomed today.

Magic fills my day.

When the pond starts singing and the flowers dancing

And two butterflies come to play.

And so it was that I spent a big satisfying part of today building my lotus pond. It started well enough and I enjoyed some Zen moments. Then troubles brewed and with bubbles too and I nearly lost my cool.   Shall I tell you  what happened?  

Come, walk with me, the evening breeze is warm and gentle and  the pond is a good place to rest our feet. And now, let me tell you what happened...

It all began with these pods I gathered from the park  behind my house. I knew then  that I wanted to build a rustic and natural pond for my tribal house. 

As you can see, I often gather interesting specimens from the park. These I did not  know what to do  with until yesterday when I thought the small  husks would make nice lotus leaves. 

So I painted bits I found a suitable lotus leaves green. There's something about green I don't quite get because my shade is often a bit off.  No different this time. 

In any case, it got too dark for me to continue....

..so I picked the flowers for the lotuses, 

chose the pod for the pond , 

put them all on my dining table 

and

went back to stitching my brand new rug. 

The next day,

I woke up bright and early, eager to work on my pond BUT not before I finished replying to all my comments * you guys always come first *wink .  

Z   E  N 

I started with  bashing the pink peonies. I removed the outer petals , gave them yellow centers using sponge and converted the peonies into bright perky lotuses. I then wrapped the bottom of the flowers with dried moss and glued them into position in the pond. The leaves and the floating lotus would have to wait till I add water. 

  

T R O U B L E D  B U B B L E S

The picture on top shows my 2nd attempt at water. I used UHU glue which l thought looked great if you wanted a clear effect. My 1st attempt was the Araldite epoxy glue mix. See the picture on the left. It shows the murky effect of the glue. I decided I preferred the UHU and squeezed the glue generously into the pond.

While the UHU was still wet, I placed the leaves and the floating lotus into position.

Trouble soon runneth over when these bubbles started forming. I am not sure why but it could be due to the porous nature of the pod or it could just be the glue. But even with a healthy eco life, there could not be so much bubble in a pond. So I decided I would have to wait till the UHU dry and then apply the epoxy mix again. 

While we wait for the glue to dry, let me take this opportunity to wish all of you GONG XI FA CAI! The Chinese New Year greeting card says "FU" or prosperity in Mandarin and fluttering around the word and in the card are about 20 odd butterflies waiting to come alive. 

This is what I spent most of my time doing. I now know I dislike cutting butterflies immensely.  

But even after 20 of them were brought to life, the UHU in the pond did not dry completely. The real impatient me surfaced and I decided to mix the epoxy glue in anyway. The result was not pretty. No picture but imagine creamy snot like gooey gook.  

Last resort, 

P A I N T ! 

All's well that ends well often when I use my paint. This time, it was green with a dash of dark brown . The water in my pond is now a natural muddy green, as it should be. I had wanted the clear water because I wanted my pond to be pretty instead of natural.

I am glad I didn't get what I wanted.