The honesty plant stall and spring in the garden.

I love growing plants and I love gardening, so instead of growing plants just for my garden, I started to sell my surplus plants at the beginning of our drive in my up-cycled plant stall.

The plant stall was an old book case from the recycle center and I painted and decoupaged the stall and transformed a Dutch clog into a honesty box so my customers can pay for the plants. 

I must say it is a slow process and up till now I haven't sold that much yet, but then I only started a few weeks ago.

                            

My plant stall

The honesty clog

Now with readers not familiar with a honesty stall, in New Zealand many roadside stalls have a system were the customers leave money behind in a honesty box and buy from the stall what they want without seeing the owner of the stall.

There are many roadside stalls selling fruit, veges, plants,flowers,eggs and often the stalls are in the country side.

Most people are honest and leave the correct money behind, but sometimes there is a little less, but that happens not that often.

I find it special that the honesty stalls are still part of the New Zealand culture and I hope they will be there for many more years to come.

My sign

Spring has arrived and the trees in the orchard are slowly coming into blossom. The almond tree was the first to blossom, a darker pink and now the cherry and the pear trees are a cloud of pale pink and white.

Our garden is taking shape, Henk has done a lot of pruning and cleaning up and  he nearly finished the chook house and the run.

This weekend our 4 new girls will arrive and they will have a great place to call home, the orchard and a doghouse  remodeled into a chicken coop.

New Zealand Kowhai flower

I will be selling the surplus eggs in my roadside stall as well.
This week I started visiting Jack Inglis, a local hospital and rest home in Motueka with my dog Ollie as part of the Canine friends therapy organisation in New Zealand.
Ollie is wearing a bright red scarf  printed with the Canine friends logo and looks the part with his black shiny coat and cute border collie face.

The cherry tree in front of the cottage

On the first visit, Lynn the activity coordinator showed us around and we greeted residents in the main lounge and Ollie and I went round the room saying hello to everyone. Ollie was a little hesitant at first, but then gentle touched hands with his nose.
One of the nice encounters was with a gentleman lying on the bed in his room staring at the ceiling.
We asked permission to enter his room and if he liked to meet Ollie.
After only 5 minutes he was giving Ollie treats and Ollie did his "high fives" and he was telling me about his own dogs.

Magnolia tree near the garage.

Today on my second visit in one of corridors a little lady walked past us with her walking frame and she went straight to Ollie and started talking to him. She bent over to pat him and Ollie went to her and to my horror gave her a lick on her nose. I apologized profusely to her for Ollie "kissing" her face. She looked up to me and with a big smile said: "Ollie can kiss me any day".

Two mosaic tiles inspired by my garden

I just love pansies

The nurses loved him too and Ollie got a lot of attention, but after a hour he got tired and started panting, so time to leave.
The rest of the afternoon Ollie slept and that is  unusual for my active dog.

Spring and new beginnings

It has been a very long winter and for me it was a long winter of waiting.

Waiting to recover from the cancer treatment, waiting for my next MRI scan to find out if the treatment worked,waiting to find a little bit of my old self again.

Every time I looked out of the window I hoped for the first signs of spring; the daffodils popping up out of the cold wet soil, the first blossom on the fruit trees and the new born lams in the paddock.

It took a while, but now spring is here and my garden and my life are feeling the warmth of the sun again.

I had the MRI scan and a consultation with my oncologist Lisa in Christchurch and  I am in remission, there is no evidence of cancer left.

I have scarring from the radiation treatment and for some time there will be symptoms I have to live with and maybe the changes will stay,like my loss of hearing because of the chemo therapy.

But I can start living again and make plans for the nearby future.

For the next two years I will have regular scans and appointments in the hospitals in Nelson and Christchurch, so it not over yet, but for now it is.

My plans are to start art classes for children from my home studio in October and in November open the "Shabby chic cabin" in our garden mostly in the weekends selling my art and shabby chic furniture.

I also started a plant stall at the entrance of our drive and busy growing plants and herbs, also making jams and jellies to sell. 

Happiness is in the small things of life.

It is Spring again, thank God for that.

Angels on our way

Sometimes when the going gets tough you need angels on your way to help you through the bad patch.

My angels are my friends and my family, I can't do without them.

Today is a rough day, I have more pain then I had before, my anxiety levels are high and for the first time I needed some anxiety medication to stop the racing thoughts in my head.

I am still waiting for my MRI scan to reveal if the cancer is gone or still there or is spreading somewhere else and on some days I can't handle this very well any more.

I know craft blogs are mostly uplifting and no one wants to read the hard stuff, but it is for now the real stuff in my life.

My angel doll

Every fortnight a small group of creative friends meet together and we have a craft morning, last time I started making this angel doll with Elizabeth.
The doll patterns are designed by her and her friend over many years. I finished the angel doll just before our craft morning today and took it along to show the other women.
I was not in the mood for crafting much and I left a bit earlier.
I came home crying, life seems to hard now.
But my amazing husband was home to comfort me.

The grapevine angel

But I realize that the kindness of my friends this morning are the angels on my path today.

They recycled cans for me to use for my herb plants, made me a coffee, gave me a new pattern to make for another angel doll and gave me a hug and prayed for me.

Thank you God for the angels in my life, I need them so much.