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It’s easy to feel wonder-struck in a garden – especially if you cultivate delight. -Diane Ackerman
Sometimes you see them when you least expect it. Not the fairies themselves, but their houses. Such was the case last summer when I was pulling into my driveway. I stopped to watch a chipmunk sitting on a log and ended up leaving the car and wandering through the woods in search of fairy houses. The light was perfect for finding them.
Now, before you assume I’ve gone off the deep end, I should explain. Mushrooms and toadstools have always looked like fairy houses to me and, after a warm summer rain, the woods are full of them. By moving a few rocks and sticks around, I made them look like homes with tables and chairs for wee people. Then, I took some pictures. (You can find pictures on my blog at thesingingfarmwife.blogspot.com)
The amount of fun I had imagining fairies in the woods reminded me of the joy I had as a child in my own backyard. I spent hours out there creating houses for the yard fairies from moss and sticks. As I grew older, I lost something important: my sense of wonder. I’m working on finding it again.
Which brings me back to the fairy houses. My yard has no place for fairies to linger over lunch so I’m back in the business of building houses for them. I started with cast-off bird houses that I bought at thrift shops. It doesn’t take much work to repurpose them for fairy houses. To complete the illusion, I decorated their tiny yards with some dollhouse chairs and tables that I picked up at junk stores.
Then, after spending some time on Pinterest, I discovered I could build my own fairy houses from gourds, old flower pots and even small stones glued onto plastic bottles. I was also reassured to see that I am not the only fairy-struck adult in this world. There are pages and pages of fairy houses and directions for building them on the internet.
I hit the jackpot when I discovered hypertufa. It’s a mix of moss, perlite and Portland cement. When combined with water in the right proportions, this mix is the same consistency and weight as papier-mâché, but when it dries it looks like, and is as sturdy as, concrete. And, it can be shaped and carved.
I made some small house forms using ¾-inch rigid foam insulation (not my own idea…you can Google it). Then I tucked and patted the hypertufa in and waited for it to dry. In a week I had houses fit for fairies. They cried out to be placed in the woods, along the trail where I first discovered the toadstools. So, now I’m a contractor in the business of building houses for fairies on Fairy Trail Lane.
I may seem like a crazy old lady to you, but I’m guessing that any future grandchildren will be as enchanted as I am. Unless, they are all boys. Having raised only boys, I am familiar with their Godzilla-like tendencies. Perhaps I had better build a miniature fairy construction zone for them… just in case.
