New iPad Cover

I bought myself a cover for the iPad Don bought me for Christmas. I was able to personalize it with photos of my fibre art work. Turned out well!!

Botanical Gardens Visit

I had a great visit with my fibre friend Theresa at the Botanical gardens. We strolled the garden and talked for 2 hours and then went to the cafe for lunch. Great to catch up in such glorious surroundings!

One of the docents gave us a lot of information about the wooden structures inside cacti. 

Stormy Seas Canada 150

I have finished piecing my fibre art piece to celebrate Canada's 150 birthday. I used the Storm at Sea block, 2" squares, for the majority of the landscape, which is mostly commercially printed gradated fabrics.

The sky is a mix of piecing and solid fabric in hand dyed cotton sateen and hand marbled cotton. 

I strip pieced the Prairies and the buildings that represent Canada's metropolitan areas. 

There are dark blue swirl batik pieces to represent the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean with the Maritime provinces.  

All the provinces are represented in the piecing. The Yerritories will be represented thru quilt stitching images in the sky. 

The entire piece is a triptych.  Each section is about 30" long.

Pacific Ocean, mountains of BC, foothills of Alberta and hills of western Saskatchewan.

Prairies of Saskatchewan and Manitoba; water, rocks and trees of Northern Ontario.
See the sailboat?

Metropolitan areas of Ontario and Quebec, strip farmland of Quebec, Atlantic ocean and Maritime provinces.

Gilbert Riparian Preserve

Elaine introduced Yvonne and I to the Gilbert Riparian reserve today. What a wonderful wilderness gem in the middle of the city!!

One of seven man-made ponds to recycle water. This one is slowly drying up. The water level in the ponds is controlled to act like a natural marsh, with flooding and drying out periods. 

Why are these basins (ponds) here?

The Town of Gilbert gets much of its water from an aquifer, 150 feet down.  In the past, this water was used faster than it could be replaced by rainfall. These basins were designed to allow water to seep down into the aquifer, replenishing the groundwater supply.

Why are some basins dry?

Each basin (pond) is cycled thru wet and dry periods so that water will soak into the ground quickly. If water were allowed to stay in the basin too long, algae would start to grow and clog the basins, which would prevent water from seeping into the soil. Every once in a while, the dry basin surface is broken up with a tractor. This process helps the water filter thru the soil and makes the basins look just like freshly plowed agricultural fields. 

Turtles on a fallen log on the edge of one pond. Sunning themselves!

This pond shows egrets feeding and the buildings of the city close by. Quite a juxtaposition!

The only bird on this list I haven't seen in Arizona is the burrowing owl. 

I think we may have seen all of the shorebirds. Lots of these waders at all of the ponds. Great to see!

There is even a night sky observatory provided by the Rotary club and is open for viewing on the weekends. Awesome!

Gilbert's Southeast Regional Library can be seen in the distance. Water Ranch Lake seen here is permanent and is stocked with fish. Fishing is allowed here. 

Momma and baby turtle swimming. A wonderful view of them from a small footbridge thrust the marsh. 

Egret posturing to see fish. Just after this photo was taken the egret dipped his head and came up with a little fishy morsel!