A post Christmas Craft Project 12 '14

I found these Christmas stockings on sale at Cracker Barrel for $1 a piece. They were perfect for a Christmas Craft project I had been thinking about.  I bought on  some red cotton bias to make the straps and some snaps to hook them on.  A few stitches later and like magic...  We have four Santa sock decorating the chairs at our Christmas Table.

And the stockings are hung 12 ' 14

"And the stockings are hung by the TV with care..."  and so  with that ,we are wishing a "Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.!"

PS.  You can't see it in this photo, but  we each have out initials glittered on our socks .. BJ's  are on the left, CC's on the right  and K (for Kat) is in her rightful place in the center.

Our Menorahs 12' 14

The Menorah is the symbol of Hanukkah. For Jewish people worldwide the Menorah  is is a symbol of pride in their shared history. Whether Orthodox,Reformed, or Conservative Jew's world-wide respect and use the  Menorah as one of their symbols of identity.   For Bruce, who was raised Reformed , and exposed to all three forms of, the Judaism, the Menorah is integral to who he is.

Bruce's First Menorah

Of course we do honor the holiday's tradition by the  are lighting  the candles and reciting the prayers all eight nights.  We use the  50 year old Menorah and a prayer book that was given to Bruce by his family when he first went into the military. For Cece, who has been married to Bruce for half of her adult life,  the prayers said during this ceremony are a comforting reminder of shared social values towards family and community and one another.

As a show of my respect for my husband and his traditions, I put symbolic Menorahs all over the house throughout Hanukkah.  Most prominent is the set of blue bottles arranged like a Menorah in the front window.  We add one new candle in each bottle throughout the eight day  holiday season.

The next most obvious is the fancy modern Menorah that graces the center of our dining room table. We light the candles in it  only on the closing night of the holiday.

Smaller symbols abound as well.... like the tiny Menorahs which sit by each place setting 

Or the tea towels with  hand stitched Menorahs on them..CC even painted a small Menorah on canvas.  It remains on display not just for eight days, but throughout  the entire month of  December.  

Yeah, yeah, we  know all the above has nothing to do with the real connection of the Menorah to the holiday,  but both of us are romantics.  What better way to show my sentiments towards my husband's values , than to do something so schmaltzy.

Night of a Thousand Candles 12' 14

Bruce and I made our now annual trip to   Brookgreen Gardens to attend their Night of a Thousand Candles Festival..  This is one of our favorite events of the holiday season and one we always look forward to attending..  

BJ  in the garden

For nine evenings in December all 500 acres of the garden are lighted by holiday displays and  remain open until 10 pm giving the public an opportunity to explore the gardens after dark.. 

CC with camera

For photographers, the event offers a rare opportunity to capture nocturnal views of  the garden's  grounds and the magnificent sculptures .   No matter how cold the weather, Bruce and I bundle up warmly enough to spend every minute we can  before the gates close on us.We come fully prepared with cameras, extra batteries, mono-pods, and spotlights.  About the only thing that can stop us is a rain heavy enough to damage our equipment and damp out the candles..  Unfortunately for the past couple of  years , this is exactly what has happened..  Rather than be rained out again, Brookgreen has changed the event's lighting from being 'The Night of a Thousand Candles' to what looked this year to be 'The Night of Ten Thousand LEDs' .  

The result were strikingly different in the kind of photographs one could capture.

2011 Candle it tree

For example compare the  photograph  above I took in 2011 of the candle lit Christmas tree

  with the blue mini-light trees that Bruce took at this years event.

2014 Blue mini-light trees

2011 photo of Sprites with floating candles and strobe backlighting

or the 2011 photo I took of the Sprites pond with the 2014 photo Bruce took of the

same sculpture pond

BJ's 2014 photo of sprites pond  with electric lights

2012 Tree Allee

Above is a photo I took in 2012  of the gardens  maganificent Tree Allee  and 

below is Bruce's photo of how it looked in 2014 with thousands of strands of mini-lights draping from every oak branch..

2014 Tree Allee

Personally I thought the number electric lights obscured the landscaping entirely ( as can be seen in several of the photos above)  

2012 Photo of a Heritage Tree

At best it made the landscaping play second fiddle to the lighting 

2014 Heritage Oak

That being said, the stronger lighting did provide some interesting opportunities to photograph the out of door sculpture collection. Check out the interesting effects we got from photographing the Sunflower Girl Sculpture in the  Children's Garden 

Lighted  from the front by a camera flash 

Lighted by a side strobe

Long exposure lighted by garden lights

Many of the other sculptures were equally interesting when seen by artificial light

Many of the other sculptures were equally interesting when seen by artificial light.

Snow Owl

For our part we both are hoping that the weather will eventually allow Brookgreen  to return to using more candles, but either way,  we will still  be attending the 2015 Festival.

Hanukkah 2014 12'14

This year, Hanukkah starts on evening of December 16th and ends at sunset on December 24th.   On the morning of Dec. 16th, CC took down all the red ornaments inside and out.

and  replaced  most of the  interior  Christmas theme decorations  with  symbols of Hanukkah (a few of the less obvious Christmas ornaments, like our kitchen elves were allowed to remain.) 

Bruce claims he always had a ' Hanukkah Bush' in his childhood home while he was growing up, so all the red ornaments on the Christmas tree were replaced with blue 

And the smaller trees in the other rooms replaced with silver and blue ' Hanukkah Bushes'

  

The main dining room has blue and silver service 

and a decorative Menorah prominently displayed as the centerpiece.

Home for the Holidays. 12/1/14

Front Entry

Bruce and I will be staying home for the holidays.  We have decided to enjoy the season and to make our home as festive as possible. We always celebrate both  Christmas and Hanukkah , but we try to keep them separate so as not to  forget the underlying meaning of the holiday.  This year we decided to decorate the house for the first two weeks of December with a Christmas theme colored  red silver and gold .

As usual, CC put up Xmas trees in every room in the house 

and hung garlands and wreaths  everywhere.

 She  decorated every window with snowmen and snow flakes.

 And even had  snow flakes over  and  on  the table .

We're all set to throw the  first Christmas party of the year.

Update on Grass Renovation Project 11/14

Rye grass looking North from our back porch door

I am happy to report that the Rye grass has taken hold and is looking very lush.   The view above is looking north towards the bare spot that was shown in the first post I made on the project.  ( see: http://candbscene.blogspot.com/2014/11/our-grass-renovation-project-1114.html) You can clearly  see the difference between where our seeding stopped and the baren areas beyond begin.

Looking North  from our next door neighbors porch.

 The photo above was taken from almost the same spot as the first photo in  the Nov 20th post.  Look how much the grass  has filled in.  Once the Rye seed germinated it grew unbelievable fast.. almost and inch a day.  We've already had to mow it once.  Yes I said we had to mow it.  It seems that the HOA also forgot to mention that the yard maintenance crew are not going to be mowing the lawns during the winter. Actually that is probably a blessing in disguise as they would probably just rip the Rye up driving their heavy equipment over it.  By the time the maintenance people begin mowing the weather will be warming up and the annual grass dying back.  By that time we will be able to by a perennial sod to replace any missing in the  original lawn.

Update on our grass renovation project 11'14

You may remember that ten days ago Bruce and I started a project to renovate the grass behind out condo For details see  http://candbscene.blogspot.com/2014/11/our-grass-renovation-project-1114.html

Looking North at the newly sprouted annual rye

Surprise! surprise!  After  anxiously days of waiting the  Rye grass is starting to germinate. We weren't at all sure it would even germinate.  .  Ideally we would have aerated the soil before putting down the seed, but we got started so late in the season, that we had little time to prep the area.  All we had time to do was to rake up the leaves and put down a thin coat of mulch to provide the seed with some nutrients and protection from drying out... And, oh yes.. the HOA forgot to mention that they were turning off all water to the gardens for the winter months (starting the day we set the seed out). so we also had to water it by hand twice a day.  Now we just have to wait to see if it will set in well enough to survive until spring.

Looking  South at the newly sprouted  rye grass.

Our grass renovation project 11"14

The grass behind our condos has taken a beating this year.  The trees in the nearby forest compete with the grass for nutrients. Months of prolonged ran has  further leached out much needed minerals, The maintenance people dig ruts in the grass when they run their heavy riding  mowers over saturated soil, then more rain eroded it even more.  Threes have been removed, but the HOA has refused to cover the area with new grass because they feel it is a waste of money. The final blow came when the contractor power washed all  the buildings with bleach  prior to painting them. The heavy dose of chemicals came just before the cold set in so there was no time for the grass to recover before dormancy.  The end result  of all this abuse is huge areas where there is no grass at all, and many places where the grass is so spare as to look like a mud hole.

Not wanting to look at mud all winter, much less risk losing more soil due to erosion, Bruce has obtained permission from our HOA to put out winter Rye seed to cover the area behind us.  It is about a month later than  ideal for starting such a project, but we had no choice but to wait for the painters to finish running their trucks back and forth before we started. It is TBD whether the seed will germinate and have enough time to  get established before the first frost arrives.  But we are determine to give it a try.

First Oyster Roast of the Season 10 '14

OMG!  Finally!  Oysters are back in Season. 

 We've waited almost 6 months for this meal. Soooooo Good.

House painting 10'14

 The HOA has been having the exteriors of all of the units refurbished this summer.

They finally got around to working on ours this week.  What a messy business.

  First we had to move all the potted flowers on the porches further out into the yard and  so the painters could power wash all the wall surfaces.

Rather than carry the potted  herbs from the upstairs deck  into the yard (and expose them to ground dwelling insects) , I moved them  into our bedroom.  The master bedroom suite now looks like a jungle. It's very dry in the house so I put a plastic sheet over them to help retain more moisture in the air around them. I've been giving them minimal amounts of  water.Fortunately the weather has been sunny and mild so getting enough light without overheating  has not been a problem.  Hopefully the painters will finish out unit soon, so I can put the herbs back outside where they belong..

Georgetown Wooden Boat Show Activities 10 '14

Of course there is more to do at  Georgetown's Wooden Boat Show than just  checking out the boat displays.   Like all street fairs it had is share of  street performers

A Pirate encampment  greeted visitors at the entrance to the festival.

A talking miniature tug boat intrigued passing  children.

art and crafts, and food and music.

But the action didn't stop there.  All sorts of  maritime activities took place over the course of the weekend: including  a wooden boat building competition, a children’s model boat building, and rowing  rowing races. 

What is the Wooden Boat Challenge?

It’s a boat building competition with teams of two battling each other and the clock to build a 12 foot rowing skiff – the CAROLINA BATEAU – within a four hour time limit. The teams are judged on building speed, workmanship, and rowing speed when they test their completed bateaux for seaworthiness in a rowing relay on the Sampit River. At the end of the day cash prizes are awarded to first, second and third place winners.

The Challenge begins at noon with the command “Gentlemen Start Your Skill Saws” which sets off a din of circular saws and swirling sawdust as the teams commence to build their bateaux fast and build them right. Quality counts for 1/3 of the points, speed of building for 1/3, and team rowing ablity for the final 1/3.

Each team receives a set of plans for the CAROLINA BATEAU when they pay their $100 entry fee and are encouraged to practice-build a boat before the Challenge. On the big day they are issued the same building materials. They provide their own tools, sawhorses, work tables, hull molds and home-made oars. Each team builds within a 12 x 15 foot space beneath a huge tent with hundreds of spectators cheering them on. Some teams finish, amazingly, in just two plus hours. It was amazing to watch a boat  cut and fitted from start to finish in such a short amount of time.

But perhaps the best part was actually watching the builders then have relay races in  their newly built boats on the Sampit River.  Talk about having confidence in your product.

The Children’s  Model Boat Building 

 Adults weren't the only ones who could get into the action. Children could build and embellish a wooden boat model and then test sail it in a pond on Front Street. Two model kits were available at $15 each: a paddleboat and a sailboat. The kits are made and assembled by Wooden Boat Show volunteers and proceeds from sales benefited the SC Maritime Museum.

The New Charleston Mosquito Fleet gave both adults and children a chance to practice their rowing skills.  

The rows began at noon and continued until 4pm from the floating docks at Francis Marion Park. Each row took about 45 minutes. The New Charleston Mosquito Fleet was founded in 1995 in Charleston SC to get inner city middle school children involved in boatbuilding and boating. The mentors built two Joe Dobler designed pilot gigs with the kids, and they row early mornings three days a week.  The original Mosquito Fleet were the mid 19th century Gullah fishermen of the South Carolina  and Georgia Lowcountry, who rowed out upwind in the morning in small wooden boats and sailed back downwind in the evening; they arrived home at twilight along with swarms of Lowcountry mosquitoes and sold their catch in local markets.