During one of my shifts as the Region A medic a few weeks ago, I stopped by the farmer's market in Purcellville and talked with a couple of the ladies from the Loudoun County Master Gardener's. They recommended a visit to Abernathy & Spencer Nursery off Lincoln Rd. in Purcellville, VA, which is well worth a visit if you love plants. In one of the greenhouses there are a couple examples of miniature gardens. I've always been fascinated by tiny things, and when I was in high school, my brothers and I decided that it would be fun to build an outdoor model railroad and landscape it with small-scale plants. We never did get out of the planning stages.
I did a little research, and found that these kinds of miniature gardens are frequently called "Fairy Gardens" and I decided to make one. My gardening budget is small, and the hardest part of this whole project was finding a suitable container. It needed to be at least 6in. deep and have space for about 10 plants. And it couldn't be very expensive. I visited several thrift shops and came home with a pair of odd-shaped res plastic serving bowls and assorted small dishes and objects that would serve as furniture and tools for the little fairy figure to use in her garden.
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| Plants, containers and decorations used in Fairy Garden project |
The assembly process took about an hour, more or less. The hard part was figuring out how to arrange the plants so you could see them all and no two of the same kind were precisely next to each other. I think the end result is delightful.
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| The entire Fairy Garden |
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| Detail of the pond and the fairy herself |
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| The Fairy's house and front yard |
In other news, now that I'm finished with Paramedic class (Yay!), I've decided it's time to get a dog. I've always wanted a Border Collie to do obedience competitions, go running and hiking with and play frisbee. I've looked into rescuing one, but given the existing crew of two Welsh Corgis, a Welsh Corgi mix and a large ginger and white cat that my roommates own, it looks like getting a puppy might be the best option to not completely overturn the existing pet social dynamics. So after doing a lot of research, I decided that my best bet is probably to get a female, and while puppies are and insane amount of work, I can start from scratch and train it the way I want. Obviously, digging in my garden, eating my flowers and jumping on the furniture will be taboo. So the aunt of a girl I know from the rescue squad breeds breeds her working Border Collies and competes in dog sports with them. One of her dogs had a litter of puppies the same day I took the National Registry Paramedic written--three boys and a girl. I have first pick of the litter, and I'm planning on adopting the girl.
Further research into traditional Border Collie names has me wondering what to name the little one. Traditional Border Collie names are usually one syllable, often after a natural geographical feature, or the common name of a farm worker. It also needs to be something I'm not going to be embarrassed to say in front of people, and easy to yell across a field. So when we're hiking the Appalachian Trail together and she's running up the trail ahead of me and I need her to come back... Her kennel name is "Daisy" right now. So even though she's going to be a ton of extra work and trouble, calling her "Trouble" is certainly out. I found this nice list of traditional names and decided to pick a few to start with:(
http://www.bordercolliemuseum.org/BCNames/BC_Names.html). This is lots of fun...
I've decided to wait until I meet her and get to know her temperament before actually naming her. Still exciting!
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