Guessing Game-A Guest Post

Hi everyone, it’s me, Beverly Sills Iris. Well, no it isn’t really. She is a lot prettier than me.Frances is busy fooling with her new camera so I thought she needed some help writing a post. This will be a little guessing game you might enjoy. Are you curious as to who is speaking to you? Look up.Here I am, above your head. Let me introduce myself. I am Manny Mantid, a copper Praying Mantis purchased many years ago at an art gallery in Johnson City, Tennessee. I like to hang out in the garden and watch the comings and goings of the gardener as she bounds up and down the hills here. I have a new lookout perch. Can you guess what it is?I am trying to give you some hints.This should give it away.That’s right. It’s a bottle tree. This is a project that has been in the works for some time. Cobalt blue glass has always been a favorite of Frances’ and she has quite a nice collection of antique glassware. During visits to craft stores blue bottles would sometimes be spotted on sale for a dollar or two and she would buy a couple here and there over the years. Individual wine bottles were also collected, for the wine was palatable and the bottles desirable. All that was needed was a stand of some sort to hold the blue light catchers.Copper pipe, one half inch diameter, was chosen as the tree material. Three ten foot pieces and four five foot pieces were purchased at the big box. There was a weathered ten foot pipe already in the garden resting between uses.The ten foot pieces were cut into four and six foot lengths with the power mitre saw. Safety glasses were a must for the little slivers of metal flying. The intended stakes were three pieces of four foot three-eighths inch rebar. All but the center ten foot piece were bent one foot, fifteen inches, and eighteen inches from the end with the help of The Financier. Copper pipe of this smallest diameter bends surprisingly easily. The unbent ten foot center piece was surrounded with the three six foot bent pieces and secured with black electrical tape. The four pieces of five foot length were then placed around this assembly and also taped with electrical tape. The final three four foot lengths were added and taped. There was a template made from a foam meat tray to mark where the rebar needed to be hammered into the ground. The rebar was placed right through the foam in the desired location two feet deep. The copper pipe tree was slid over the rebar. To hide the electrical tape, extra copper screening that was leftover from the shelf liners being used on the orchid shelving unit to deter slugs and snails was snipped, wrapped and secured with copper electrical wire from which the white insulation had been peeled away.Copper end caps had been purchased to make for a neater look, but most of the bottles would not fit on the pipe with the caps in place. The topper is a tri colored glass canister with the metal hardware removed. The bottle placement still needs some tweaking, however.For when the wind blows or there is severe weather, hanging around up here can be a wild ride!Another thing that needs mentioning is how grateful I’ll be when the aborvitae hedge grows a few more feet and hides the appalling satellite dish. A little privacy would be appreciated. I hope you enjoyed playing this little guessing game. It wasn’t that hard, was it? Thanks for letting me tell you about my new perch. I think Frances has a plan to correct the leaning problem with some rocks. She really has been preoccupied though….…trying to figure out the new camera.
Manny
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Sweet Tina at In The Garden has a list of bottle tree posts on her sidebar if you wish to see more!
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All photos in the post were taken with the new camera, the Canon Powershot Sx1 IS-without tripod

~ by fairegarden on May 12, 2009.