On my 9th birthday, to my delight, I received a Fairy Garden box. A fairy garden is a small flower garden for the fairies, and a fairy garden box is a wooden frame to plant it in. I was happy to get what I wanted! Here I am sitting on the edge of it after receiving it.
One day, I found it filled by 'the fairies'! They left a note telling me they filled the garden with dirt and couldn't wait to move into their new home! I immediately started putting in things. Dad had purchased four lovely flowers, so I planted them in the corners, and they looked bea-u-ti-ful! Here I'm trying to make a swing. It didn't work right, so I made a better one. But first I tried it out a bit longer.
Here I am making a stone house.
Here's a piggy-pig that Ma bought me at a sale. Poor fairies, piggy's eating up all the carrots! Naughty piggy-pig!
Here's a pear-juice stand. Maybe it's only a pear-bank, but in this case, it's a pear juice stand for fairies. They can put their little straws in at the slit and drink the juice.
Ma had built a little hill, and on it I built a small slate bench shaded by a rhubarb leaf. The 'trees' are old flower stalks of some kind, I don't know what.
Of course, fairies do not want people spraying pesticides on their flowers so they put up warning signs. They do not want pesticides because they ruin the flowers, and there will be no bugs for the birds to eat.
I enjoy making little signs for the fairy garden, using toothpicks and small bits of paper. The signs include: 'Butterflies Welcome Here', 'Ladybugs Welcome Here', and signs telling what some things are such as 'Wading Pool' and 'Pear Juice'.
Here is one of the aforementioned purchased flowers from the flower shop. You see, it really is a fairy garden to plant flowers in.
Here's a tiny Trader Joe's coffee cup that has in it boating and fishing equipment. Inside are boats made of different kinds of leaves and bark, and poles made out of sticks, and fishing rods made out of sticks with bits of twine.
This shows a side view of the whole garden. Spiders continually crawl over the sides and weave webs between trees (that aren't really trees).
This de-light-ful structure is made out of the old recycled trunk of a hibiscus tree, shaded with a large rhubarb leaf, and supporting the long swing where the fairies love to slide back and forth. It also has a platform made out of more slate. Here on this slateful platform the fairies may enjoy the view of the countryside. They may go up and down by the braided hibiscus trunk.
This here, seeming to be a coconut dish supported by sticks, is actually a slide, where the fairies enjoy to bounce up and down. It has a small ladder to climb up, and is supported by a triangular block.
The fairies' teacup, full of water, is where the fairies love to go fishing and sail their boats. This teacup is surrounded by two small stone benches where the fairies may sit in the hot summer afternoons and chat.
The fairies here live, cheerfully surrounded by delightful flowers and lovely play things. Here is where they sleep and cook their meals.
Attached to the house is an upraised deck shaded by a rhubarb leaf and decorated with a pot, in which is contained a violet. Leading up to it are slate steps, and there is a small round piece of slate on the deck. This was supposed to contain birdseed, but the birdseed all blew away.
Close beside the small hill is a light, which sticks up from the earth and gives out a blue light when it grows dark. This light was given to me by Dad, who brought it home as a surprise for my fairy garden. It shows exactly where the fairy garden is when it is dark. This glowing light is sometimes used as a lookout pole. The fairies fly up and then stand on the top and survey the landscape. In the background, you see a pinecone. This is a climbing pole, and the sign near it says that it has a fine view. This is true, but other tall things give a much better view of the scenery.
Closing remarks: This wonderful garden box wood was purchased by Daddy, and the box was made by my dear brother Josiah. The writer of this post hopes that her fairy garden will flourish and grow flowers, but not weeds. I think that it was very kind of Ma to ask Josiah to make me this lovely garden box, which is now in my backyard.
Each day, I proceed to go outside and change the canopies of rhubarb leaf and change the water (which is probably being drunk by birds). I also make sure that the swing is not falling down. And always, always, I give the fairy garden a delightful rain of the hose. And so we must end. The end.
P.S. I took most of these pictures myself, but not the ones with me in them.
Editor's Note: The square garden box was made with one ten foot long 2x10 board, cut into four equal pieces. The corners are held together with weather resistant screws. Fairy gardens seem to be quite popular at present, but I was careful not to let Kateri see any of the numerous websites or pinterest boards as I didn't want to fill her head with other folks' ideas. I provided her with a few boughten trinkets and let her do it all herself with her own imagination as her guide. I think she's done a wonderful job, and she takes joy in playing around in it every day. :-)
