Days 420-422 Water Garden

I am a water garden. 

I am home to rare orchid and sacred lotus, 

wild flowers and rambling reeds.

Life in my pond is quiet but vibrant,

restraint but free. 

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My water garden was of humble beginnings. I still recall how on that really hot Sunday afternoon, I took out an egg crate I kept for years and started building the rock surfaces. The Abandoned House was crying out for a water source and it was between a well and the deep blue pond. I chose the pond. 

The pond's first life after I laid the tiny pebbles and poured some E-6000  over, was a plastic plant from an old project called "Heaven For Dead Cars".  I wanted something special amidst the foliage so I thought, why not a lone stalk of pretty flower?

The rare orchid in my myriad flora collection was the obvious choice. This was a flower made by a Thai artisan bought from a stall in my favourite flea mart, Chatuchak Market in Bangkok. I think it is a variety of the super rare Lady Slipper Orchid.  

The next weekend, I poured more glue into the pond. This time I used an epoxy mix from Elmer's that promised Super Fast something. It wasn't very super anything nor fast. 

I was soon bored watching glue dry so I decided then my pond would be a water garden. I found more discarded flowers, like the lotus buds and placed them into the middle of the pond.

These rather realistic succulents which I love, I planted at the side of the pond.

These dried flowers were souvenirs I plucked when I was in Australia. I knew I could use them in one of my projects someday.

Rambling reeds, another plucked apart dried flower and the pure white paper lotus in full bloom were additions I made on the 3rd weekend when I poured the last layer of E-6000.  The glue had bubbles teeming, suggesting vibrancy and life.

When I brought the house out for a shoot and the various plants by the pond started swaying in the breeze, for a moment there as I looked through the lens of my camera, I saw myself standing over my water garden, dreaming up poetry and enjoying the wind in my hair.

Day 417- The Perspective Of A Fruit Tree

I was "growing" a fruit tree for the Abandoned House when I was once again confronted with the issue of "scale". It was some rambutans I bought from a Thai artisan which I wanted for my tree but these rambutans were a little on the big side (even by my very imprecise standards). 

As some of you may know of me, I am not one to measure down to the last millimeter for a flawless 1:12/24/48 scale. After all, the same object can be different things in different scale. For instance, my Abandoned House could be a 1:48 chateau or a 1:24 shed or even a 1:12 pigsty.  Conversely, an object can, and do, come in many sizes. There are large, medium or small sunflowers or tables or maybe even....

rambutans..

So at the end of the day, how do I tell when something is of the right size? Simple, really. It just must look right, 

Or if it doesn't quite, we can always call it a dragon fruit tree instead of a rambutan tree, maybe even a red durian tree. 

Surely our small world can be anything we want it to be, right?