Flowers in My Garden

I started my first garden this year, 2014! It has been a lot of work and has cost a good amount of money (thanks to my dad). I was inspired to start my garden by the community garden I volunteer at. I also get paid to be the substitute garden manager, which has been interesting! I planted a lot of different things and have had different experiences with all of them. My lettuce heads had an earwig family living in it along with several of my tomatillos. I've had a good amount of aphids therefore attracting a lot of ants. There were always little egg sacs on the bottom of my spinach and beet leaves, and some even hatched into worms! A lot of my tomatoes suffered from end rot, but I think that's my fault.. But a lot of stuff did go well!

Sunflower with a bee!

Tall sunflower

Pumpkin flower

Raddish flowers

Marigold

Marigold

Tomato flower

Strawberry flower

Snow Pea flower

Art Display

This is the place where I have my art publicly for sale! The building is called Montana Mosaic and it has been around for a couple months over a year. All the stuff in the store is locally handcrafted in Montana. The jewelry around my art is by my mom. She makes necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and key chains. She also makes custom switch plates for light switches with sculpy clay. So far having my art in this venue has been kind of stressful. Every Saturday my mom and I have to come open and work the store from 10:00am-5:00pm. We don't get paid, but we signed a contract that said the fee on purchases is at 25%, but when we don't work it goes up to 35%.  Well, I think 25% is already a big percentage, but no one purchases my art anyways, which defeats the purpose of working on my Saturday. Anyways, after a couple of weeks of having my creature art up, the store owner got complaints about the nudity with some of my creatures. People were getting offended by it and had 11 of my pieces token down, without my consent, which was the bulk of the art I had displayed. I guess the people who had them token down were religious, which really frustrated me and demotivated me to make art in the town I live in. Since then, I've put up my fashion art creatures that have clothes on. I don't like them as much, and other people don't seem too interested... Anyways, Check out our stuff on facebook!
Veronica Smith's Art

Jennifer Smith's Jewelry

Jennifer Smith's Sculpy Art

Some of my art is in the window and in a display case along with my mom's jewelry

My Disease

So, like a lot of people these days, I have a disease too. It started from a rare condition called Iridocorneal Endothelial Syndrome in only my right eye, that I believe developed in the first year or so of my life. It was left unchecked and undiagnosed in tell I was 7 years old. By then, severe damage was done due to the clogging of drainage canals from cells from my cornea due to the ICE syndrome. It developed into Secondary angle-closure glaucoma, which is a type of glaucoma that is very hard to control. I eventually had to under-go surgery for an Express mini shunt. It would let the aqueous humor flow through the tube, allowing my intraocular pressure to go down to normal. I had that surgery in the 6th grade and since then it's been about 5 years. Now the tube is failing and I'm back on medication to keep the pressure down. It's a really hard disease to deal with because there is no room for improvement and I will eventually go blind, and loose my eye. I hope there is new technological advances when I am an adult so I can get a bionic eye or something...

The medicine I take currently to lower the intraocular pressure in my right eye

Mushroom art

By: Veronica Smith

A Day at the Community Garden

I awoke to my alarm at 7:00 in the morning. In spite of my strange resistance to the early hours, I reset the alarm to 7:30. I got ready , ate a small cup of strawberry yogurt, and left my hair natural, I'm not sure why..

I got to the community garden known as the Westside Family Orchard around 8:45ish, and asked the garden guy what the plan was for today. We were to take a tour of the garden with children from the Boys and Girls Club, which is something I do on a daily basis. Next, I had to direct the children and help with mulching around various tomato plant pots around the garden. The pots are black and absorb a lot of heat from the sun, especially in the clear Montana sky in late July. 

The children were older than the ages I usually work with. 

I like kindergartners - 2nd graders best... They were good helpers,  and could use the wheelbarrows and shovels on their own. The sun was hot and the little ones were tired, so we took several breaks in the learning center. This is an area inhabited by chilly stone benches, potted flowers, vertical gardens, and the dark blue thermos full of icy, cold water! It's fun water, because mint leaves grown in the garden are added by the garden guy! It gives the water a cool, minty flavor, and it's a flavor I now associate with the Westside Family Orchard. 

Some of the little kids enjoy it, but others spit it out and think its disgusting!..

After the children left, I decided to work on the 2nd mural project on a panel for one of the compost boxes. It can be interesting, besides the buzzy, breeding flies, the array of spiders, acute heat, wind, and tacky paint.

I did that for about an hour and a half and got home around 12:30. I ate some rice noodles and it was peaceful.

There is still much to be done! It's inspired by the garden's logo

The finished product!!

 Fashion Art

By: Veronica Smith

random ideas

Sacred Space

Sometimes I wish I didn't live in the city. It's hard to see the cosmic night sky with all the street lights shinning.  If you get binoculars, and peer into the night, sometimes you can see hundreds of beautiful orbs all out in space. It is truly an amazing sight.

                                                   Hello strange man that i caught eating meh couch!!