Nature compliments with her favours

Yesterday it rained. A big black cloud alarmed me so much, with how dark it made the interior of the house, that I had to look outside to see if we were having a solar eclipse that no one told me about!

After the rain, the garden looked so happy.

 

The zucchini leaves looked happy!

 

Don't you think these heirloom tomatoes look jolly too?

 

The tender green of tender peas in their tender green pods,

 

the beets just bursting out of the ground,

 

and whoops! I ate another one.

 

In the foreground, the spiky-leafed artichoke has been loving the hot dry weather we've been having.

 

Here is the wonderful broad-leafed Ligularia Dentate or what I prefer to call it, "Midnight Lady".

It produces its flowers inside a pod

like this! 3 flowers bursting forth

 

Hens and Chicks, that very popular rock garden plant, a desert succulent,

 still sits in its original container.

Potbound, it has sent forth this ridiculously tall stalk of fuzzy flowers.

 

a close up of a fuzzy blossom

 

Our bird bath has to be checked regularly for mosquito larvae that squiggle about like tiny tadpoles.

This leaf lays partially underwater, brocaded with the most amazing pink spots.

 

Meanwhile, the 3 apples we thought we had left have magically turned to 4!

 

How funny that we couldn't see the 4th apple for so long.

 

With another month or more til they are ripe, I find this a terribly magical time.

There is something wonderful about watching your own apples grow...

 

The peaches still number 3. They don't hang like an apple but cling very tight to their branch

 

They, too, need some time to ripen, but a hint of their peachy colour is starting to show.

 

And here's something peachy I enjoyed doing, using a photocopy of one of my Artist Trading Cards in this collage made with dictionary papers with definitions starting with the letter "E"(a gift from a fellow Mermaid Circus classmate and ATC trader) and some washi tape (a Japanese decorative paper tape) with a cut-out of some clams from a can label.

 

I finally got it into my head that there are other beautiful things to paint besides mermaids!

 I enjoyed doing this little watercolour with mixed complementary colours for the greys.

 

Let's make "complimentary" the word of the day.