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...a glimpse into life on Vancouver Island, needle felting, photography, food, gardening, etcetera...etcetera
"Happiness always looks small when you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and at once you learn how big and precious it is."
Maxim Gorky

Showing posts with label spring flowers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spring flowers. Show all posts

Thursday, April 6, 2017

What's up?...

It's been a while since writing, in the meantime, 
SPRING has arrived here!
The woods, all dark and mossy have been lit up with the first sweet little wildflowers...
Fawn lilies or if you want to get all Latin about it, Erythronium oregonum.
 No matter what you call them, they will call to you along the paths with their
little nodding heads, like fairy hats on parade...
 Holding onto drops of rain until the most delicate of movement shakes them off...
 My walks are twice as long now while I stop and stoop on bended knees
(sometimes stiff and achy bended knees!)
to try and capture this fleeting show...
 The mushrooms are staring to make a show as well.
I spotted these tiny little ones, the biggest about the size of a nickel, 
reminding me of minute Japanese paper parasol's 
 Jed is growing into a sweet little pup and I love that he's beginning to
know the trails and paths we walk every morning...
 ...running ahead, knowing which fork to take, full of joy, as only a young pup can!
 I must apologize for photo quality as I seem to just bring along my iPhone
thinking I won't really take any photos...I should know better!!
A few things completed on the studio table in prep 
for a gallery show coming up in May.
This is Stuart.
I named him after our beloved CBC storyteller extraordinaire who passed away
early this year. He will be missed by many, many listeners who have been
following 'The Vinyl Cafe' and before that his stints on 'Morningside' for many years.
He once did a story on birdwatching and called the ones he couldn't identify 'LBJ's'
or 'Little Brown Jobs'.
So thanks for all the stories Stuart.
This little Stuart bird will always be singing your praise as one of 
the best storytellers of our time.
xo
This other piece was so much fun to make...
 It's called 'Spike on Wellesley Street', a nod to my dads childhood home...
...and yes Spike is anatomically correct!
I used a thin piece of gold wire for his pee.
Funny enough, while I was sleeping, someone left tiny hand prints in the sidewalk!
It may be the part of a series as I'm now making two more versions of Spike.
So that's about all from this big rock in the North Western Pacific Ocean.
Hope you are all well and enjoying spring wherever you are!
Thanks for stopping by!

Saturday, April 25, 2015

Also considering...

Besides the pink fawn lilies at Annie's house,
(you can read about that here)
I also went out to have a look at an incredible display which happens
every year at Old St Mary's church in Metchosin under the sheltering Garry Oaks...
The grounds are a flood of tiny white bells...
 What a restful place to lay...
 Carefully mown paths are cut just wide enough to stroll amongst the multitude of beauty
Joining the lilies are throngs of bluebells, pink bells, camus and native bleeding heart...
During this time there is a fibre arts show inside the little church
called 'Consider the Lilies' and I always wondered why they called it this.
So I went to Goo U (google university / aka the internet ) and found 
this verse from the bible...
 "Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."
  
The next day on my walk down the road, I also considered the hawthorn and the crab apple...
 What a plethora of blossoms there are that whirl about in the spring breeze
 these promising first weeks of spring!
Oh, and don't forget...always fun to find a good rusty bit of an old truck in the bush!!

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Hello Beautiful...

Today was Earth Day.
It was a beautiful day on the Island 
and when I woke up this morning and turned on the CBC,
they were playing a Sarah Harmer song about the Niagara Escarpment.
How fitting.
Our Earth is indeed in trouble and we have many miles to go in order to 
help fix things, slow things down and stop things from the cycle of destruction.
Of this I am more than aware of.
But call me a Pollyanna, an idealist, an optimist or whatever but today
I am celebrating the beauty.
I'm bound by the beauty.
I'm in awe of the beauty.
I'm inspired by the beauty.
I went for a visit at good friend Annie Boquist's house down the road...
I've written about Annie and her husband David 
and the amazing things they've done on their property here and here
and so here I go again.
Because they make the world beautiful.
We need that more than ever.
Annie has spent many, many years cutting back invasive species and aiding in
the propagation of the rare pink fawn lily or Erythronium revolutum.
I find that second word quite interesting because right now and for some time,
there has been a green revolution.
Like minded people are planting, growing, harvesting and caring for our natural world.
There is evilness and ugliness enough in this world and inevitably I here about it somehow,
but in my own way I am cultivating goodness and positive feelings
 by being with people like Annie in her pink fawn lily haven...
I am not ignoring the terrorists, the murderers or the pedophiles who rob this world
of safety and love but instead I feel I belong to a collective consciousness of peace and hope.
 "there's a natural mystic flowing through the air"
Bob Marley
Two other friends have come to visit Annie today and we all take a walk to marvel at this tiny  sanctuary by the creek...
The sunlight is lending gorgeous light to the forest...
 Fists of sword fern unfurl in the warmth...
...we head back to the house to have a peak in Annie's studio...
It's like a mad watchmaker/toymaker/magicians lair with ingredients to 
guide the imagination to conjure up...well...things like this...
Made from gourds Annie grows and all the marvelous bits and pieces in her studio.
Now, we mustn't leave without mentioning Marjorie.
Little, tiny legged Marjorie, who kept up with us like a trooper,
who now feels left behind...
"don't worry sweetie! we'll let you in!"
Safe and sound...
And indeed this part of this beautiful earth is safe and sound and peaceful and beautiful.
Thanks again Annie and David.

(thanks Gillian and Dianne for the visit and laughter too!)

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

a wee wander...

There's nothing quite like a wander around a garden in the spring, after the rain...
 ...the promise of a new season beckons...
 ...minuscule fields of forget-me-not rise above the soil
 ...a surprise from plants put in late last summer and forgotten about until just now
 ...little clouds of veronica and violets float through the carpets of wooley thyme...
 ...the graphic detail deep in the heart of a hosta...stunning!
 ...fern fiddleheads open like the hands of a dancer...
 ...the lovely nodding head of a native bleeding heart
 ...the evergreen clematis awake after the long winter...
 ...a forest of chives just about ready to burst...
 ...one of my most favorite plants after the rain, ladies mantel...
 ...the leaves seem impervious to water so it sits like a little, magical magnifying glass...
 ...a perfect bug watering hole!
 ...hardy succulents come alive again with the warmth...
 ...and of course the honeybees, ever present looking for early pollen
 ...the darling buds of May!
 ...fluttering bluebells welcome me at the gate
 ...coltsfoot flowers appear before the leaves
...and last but not least...the whiskers of a handsome iris bid you adeiu!