The Well

[helen99]

After 3 days of valiantly rescuing rocks in captivity and escorting them to their new home (but only if they wanted to come - I asked first), the cairn is up and running - not fully activated yet, but it's building up to it toward full moon.

rialian fixed the malfunctioning motion sensor light on that side of the house - it had gotten to where the thing never shut off no matter what and was blindingly bright. He changed the lightbulbs and changed the sensitivity so now it doesn't activate as easily (and the bulbs, a diffuse blue, are less bright).

Because the lights were well out of reach and I don't have a 12-foot ladder, he bought this contraption which consists of a mechanical grasper on a 12-foot pole. Ideally, the grasper would hold the bulb, and he would use the pole to screw the lightbulb into place. This immediately made me think of the question, "How many elves does it take to screw in a lightbulb".

But because the contraption was proving very difficult and frustrating to use, I didn't say that out loud at the time....

After about 3 tries, he got the bulb in, but then the Grasper wouldn't let go! So he had to unscrew the lightbulb again and start from scratch. Finally, he put the contraption aside, got my little 6-foot ladder, climbed up (not even to the top), and realized he could reach it easily. Heh. Lightbulb changed in no time.

While he was doing that, I continued sanding and staining the benches which are situated around the perimeter of the cairn, and consist of the ivy-covered foundations of the old shed with 6-foot boards (sanded and stained to blend in with the surroundings) placed across them on three sides of the cairn (the 4th side facing the house is left open). One of the benches is done, and the other one will be done today. The third one is sanded on both sides and needs to be sealed and then stained (almost done).

Last night we decided to sit for a while on one of the dry benches - in the halflight of the city the rocks glowed white (no moon to speak of). I'd deliberately selected rocks that glowed in the halflight when I'd gone to collect them - it looked magical. We saw little sparkles here and there - not bugs or foxfire. Good sign. I kept wanting to peel back the quarters, but rialian said not yet... The Well awakens...

Comments

[ahril.livejournal.com]

That sounds lovely!

I intend to build with stone eventually, but all the gardens must manifest first. My land is too open to noise and other intrusion from the road(s) at the moment. The Arbor Vitae hedge needs time to mature to create the proper privacy screening and there need to be more plants attractive to the fairies before they'll want to go outside to play. Until that happens, they seem happy enough in the kitchen and in one particular spot under the deck.

temporary privacy measures

[helen99.livejournal.com]

One quick temporary fix we're considering between our yard and our neighbor's yard is to get a fan-shapped wooden trellis with some sort of vine growing on it - it would provide attractive shielding and not take forever to grow in. Meanwhile, I also intend to plant some scotch broom and my baby pussy willow in that area, which will grow to be about 10 feet tall and put down enough droopy branches to hide me. The ground there is really wet (which is what eventually took out my shed). Although it's a minor inconvenience not to have a shed, it's not serious. I can put a large plastic broom closet by the side of the house and successfully store the sum total of my gardening tools, all of which are manual...

To shield us from the driveway, we intend to get some large box planters and put scotch broom in them - so while the privet hedges that are already there are growing up, the box planters will provide privacy and look pretty.

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

*oozes a green, translucent fluid which would be revealed by forensic investigation to be liquid envy*

[helen99.livejournal.com]

Actually, the first one I built was a much larger one out in a state park. That one is different from the faerie cairn at 4QF - is a different design. It's described here: http://www.rialian.com/waystrands/stonecircle.html
If there's a park near to where you live, you could create one of your own design and the size of your choice. I still visit that one out in the park - it's kind of a secret temple of sorts.

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

*nods* That configuration is actually in my Faery Miscellany, and I hope someday to have a house on enough land to accomodate such a thing. As for building one in a park, there are parks around, but not probably the same sort of thing you'd be thinking of. Lots of play equipment and sand and baseball fields. Not anything wild enough to conceal such a thing so it wouldn't be disturbed, aside from Sanborn-Skyline which is well-camped and also a bit of a hassle to get to. Mrf.