Plant Sales

With weather like this, who needs events?  There’s plant sales a-plenty. We went by GardenWorks and bought some shrubs for the postage stamp I call a garden – an overwhelming variety has finally come in (I bought a BeautyBerry and a red-wine Lilac, in case you were wondering). Tomorrow head to VanDusen Gardens for free admission and a huge plant sale – grow all manner of unique or rare varieties and old favourites, all born and raised in our local city garden. Or if you end up in Burnaby, the South Burnaby Garden Club is having a sale at the Buy-Low parking lot at Royal Oak and Rumble, from 9am-3pm.

Then there’s a flurry of sales on the may 4th weekend (see http://www.brags.ca/ for a list)- New Westminster, Lynn Valley, and Fraser Valley. There’s also the BC Orchid Show and Sale on May 3-4th at VanDusen. Don’t miss the always spectacular Burnaby Rhododenron Festival on May 4th (Free Admission).

Or, get inspired during the Dunbar in Bloom festival, self-guided tours through usually-locked Dunbar gardens on May 4th and May 30th from 10am-3pm. There’s a bunch of other events associated with the Dunbar community event: “Salmonberry Days” – find a schedule at http://www.dunbar-vancouver.org/DRANews/.

But I’m holding out for the “big one” – the Mother’s Day (May 11) plant sale at the UBC Botanical Gardens – this sale is killer- amazing plants sold by master gardeners at great prices. Line up early, bring water (it’s hot and there’s no shade) and your pocketbook, and get ready to buy.

 

Bellingham

We went down to Birch Bay/Bellingham to stay at the in-laws’ trailer for the night. It was, after all, our anniversary.

Here’s what was going on last weekend in the area:

Peace Arch Park – One Oat Sea Music Festival – Free – if it hadn’t taken us so long to get through the border we definitely would have gone

Bellingham – Sand in the City Sandcastle competition – 5$ suggested donation – we did go, and it was modest, humourous, and just plain neat

But here’s the real treasure: Whatcom Museum! It’s Free!! It’s four buildings – Old City Hall (1892) boasts a really good, clever, ironic, funny, and genuine art installation on the main floor called “Site Specific” and some fascinating window exhibits on the floors above – mainly Victoriana like clocks shaped like homicidal pug dogs and collections of old carpentry tools and creepy dolls with dead eyes. There was also some kind of Teachers past and present exhibit but a ragtime band seemed to be practising in there so we didn’t pop in.

The Arco Exhibition Hall used to be a Ford dealership back in 1908 but now it’s home to 42 works on paper from the Washington Consortium of Art – American Abstractionists like Jasper Johns, Hans Hoffman, and a great representation of female artists such as Helen Frankenthaler. A strange, dark setting for an art gallery but it worked, and at a cost of $3.00 suggested donation with complementary poster, this can’t be beat.

We didn’t go into the other two buildings – there’s a hand’s on kids museum and a building that according to the website contains all kinds of First Nations artefacts, taxidermied animals and set-ups of old living quarters, but we’ll wait to take the progeny with us next time we go down.

You can see my photos from the trip on this public album on facebook.

 

Festival Vancouver

I got the pamphlet for Festival Vancouver and got pretty excited, because this is a great chance to see some really good International and Canadian Classical/World/Jazz performances. Plus, it’s overlapping with Early Music Vancouver, another favourite of mine.  I was really hoping for some good cheap/free stuff since we’re still on a pretty tight budget.

Heh – was I wrong or what? Almost all the performances bottom out around 19$ for adults. Blast. After ticket fees and taxes the man and I would be looking at over 40$ for the show alone.  Factor in transportation and babysitting and it’s way over. So I scoured the pamphlet in hopes of finding something we can afford to see. Oh, there it is: FREE concerts. And, my heart sinks, they’re all downtown concerts in the middle of the working day. If only I was a stay at home mom, or unemployed, or a student, or someone with a night job…. I too could enjoy three days of free jazz in midsummer.

Here’s something strange, too, if I wanted to see the Asian Music weekend, on August 5 & 6, it would be completely affordable. Each concert is 10$ but if you see four in a day it works out to be only 7$ each concert. I’ve discovered that European and North American sourced music is costlier than its Eastern cousin. Sublime, powerful and traditional asian music is, apparently, cheap cheap cheap.

If anyone who reads this does get the opportunity to see any of the Festival Programme despite venue changes due to strike etc etc, I’d love to know how it was.

 

Preparation for Illuminaires

All our lanterns

Originally uploaded by zakira rose
It’s exactly one week to go before the Illuminaires lantern festival – I’ve dug out the old lanterns from last year and they’re in disrepair. I’ll patch the ones that are worth keeping but this is a great excuse to build something new.

Lantern making requires some simple supplies: Tissue or decorative Paper, Glue (I like wood glue because it dries strong with a nice sheen), thin pieces of wood for supports, wire and tin foil for candle supports, and ubiquitous tea lights. My system is to build the frame for the lanterns out of bamboo barbecuing skewers (100 for $1.00 at the dollar store) glued together with my trusty glue gun. I burn myself numerous times throughout this process, then put a woodglue/water mix along the supports and attach paper one side at a time. I paint over the paper with water and wood glue, then watch it contract and harden as it dries.

There are really neat decorative papers at Paper-Ya on Granville Island that would be ideal for basic but beautiful geometric lanterns. Last year I also made a flower lantern using shaped crepe paper for the petals, and that turned out really nicely, if I do say so myself. For children, we make Glow-Stick compatible, small and strong lanterns using cheap bamboo chopsticks and lots of glue.

Also, last year we constructed a simple trestle-style lantern hanger out of bamboo stakes. It becomes necessary to elevate your lanterns in early evening as the dew settles. You wouldn’t want all your hard work to be destroyed from just a little condensation! This year we’re making a lantern intended to sit on the ‘ground’ – it’ll require some kind of base, either a tarp or legs to keep it from touching the grass and turning soggy.

With only 7 days to go, it’s time to start gluing!

Update: We went to the Illuminaires – check out my review and pics on NowPublic.

 

The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party

Mad Hatter and March Hare

Originally uploaded by zakira rose

Today we went to Trout Lake for the 14th Annual Mad Hatter’s Tea Party and Lewis Carroll Festival. I remember this event from about 10 years ago, when it was maybe twenty oddballs getting dressed up, playing some croquet, and having a picnic under the willows. Well times have changed, and those twenty oddballs has somehow exploded into maybe 150 or so people – I’m a terrible visual count for people, but there was a great turnout this year to the event.

We hung out on the grass for a long time while the event got going, but we weren’t bored – watching Queen Victoria seem bored while listening to the lovely sounds of a historical/anachronistic band called Toot-a-Lute was very amusing indeed. Eventually the White Rabbit raced through, Alice hot on his heels. The event was a trip down the rabbit hole itself – we found ourselves running after Alice and the Rabbit, from station to station to crane our necks and catch a glimpse of her true-to-literature interactions with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle, the Walrus and the Carpenter, and the Queen of Hearts. At one point we ended up back at the Tea Party again, and in a surreal twist participated a second time in the same dialogue – bringing us deeper into the play on sense and fantasy essential to the Alice books.

What a day. With a Caucus Race and DIY facepainting, a by-donation buffet spread, country dancing to medieval music and wandering ‘neath the willows in the company of Queen Victoria and Charles Dodson, this was a pleasure and will definitely be a repeat next year.

 

New Moves – Uzume Taiko

  Last Sunday we went down to crowded Granville Island to catch a free dance/drum show. Part of the New Moves “All over the Map” festival, this was the first of several Sunday performances held outdoors at the base of the big, treed hill they call Ron Basford Park.   The performance was on a small wooden stage outside of Arts Umbrella/Carousel Theatre, and the three members of Uzume Taiko, a Vancouver-based Japanese-style drumming group, played a good hour’s worth of original Canadian compositions.

There was a fairly good turnout – the few wooden bleachers were filled up and we, like many of the audience members, perched ourselves precariously on the steep hill and allowed the spell of Uzume Taiko to take us over. There was a minimum of silly segments and despite a somewhat stupid digression to sushi education, overall the performance more than made up for our frustration in finding parking (next time, we’re biking). There were sublime moments, when they were moving in concert, beating each other’s drums as if they were one, many armed drummer. Other moments, especially the final piece, where they held lunge positions low to the ground for extended periods of time while drumming their large, heavy drums, were both impressive and transporting.