garden of earthly delights

The end of another week, the last Friday of July, how quickly it all goes.
Today, like yesterday, is cool and overcast. We're expecting more rain. The ash tree that has been shedding all week will appreciate that more than any of the other plants that seem to be doing so well...

like the black hollyhocks amid the clematis

Of course the hollyhocks are not really black but a deep maroon

On the other side of the composter are various plants like Echinacea and lavender

The Echinacea always seem to have benign bumblebees in them

that don't seem to mind me getting up so close to them

while they busy themselves with the task at hand

There are also sweetpeas growing up the composter walls.

Wally's garden is coming along very well, especially the peas that are too heavy to climb very far up the green trellises Wally erected for them. Peas for lunch, peas for snacks, peas for supper.

The beans are just coming in on the lefthand trellis and to their right the zucchinis, then the beets, then carrots and in the back and throughout Dill and Cilantro.

There were so many bumblebees in the cilantro. You rarely see so many together.

The bumblebee got away in this shot, but I decided to take advantage of this exposure of Cilantro blossoms.

On the pea trellis this hornet appeared to be having a nap and let me get quite close to it.

On the far side of our yard I can peer into the neighbours' poppy garden

There is a mass of berries on the mystery tree that grows from their yard into ours.

I must do some homework on this.

The black currants ripen a few at a time, and don't grow like grapes the way I once imagined.

The hayfield has been filling in nicely since it was mowed on the first of the month,

and the goldenrod, harbingers of autumn, are coming into bloom. 

Looking over to my right, Wally has cut a swath out between the massive rose bush and the equally massive back of our hedge.

The little maple tree is not so little anymore. I swear it's grown 2 feet this summer.

Wally mows around it now that I've trimmed the honeysuckle to the left, barely unrecognizable with the grass and lupins growing around and through it.

This is the first time I've noticed that Honeysuckle have a fruit all their own

And who ever looks at the grainy seed head of grass?

I'm so happy with this camera for close-ups.

Another thing I'd never noticed is how the Lupin seed pods spiral open to drop their seed.

This is a vague memory for me- that cow vetch has a seed pod.

I don't think I've noticed this since I was a child.

This camera life, this blogging, has taught me so much.

Heading back up to the house (there is a definite slope to this part of the yard) I head toward the Hydrangea, still bowed from last night's rain

Wally wanted me to look for the bird's nest he saw there.

It has been abandoned, and now it is squished from the weight of the branches.

What I love about it is the animal hair lining the nest. I find this very touching somehow.

So beautiful.

In the middle garden, the succulents we call Hens and Chicks is blooming.

And the Hostas too

I hadn't realized until a few years ago that they are lilies.

Back in the house, someone needs attention

Three Sprites

pencil crayon and India Ink Pitt pen 

And today, because I've been so happily busy making pictures, a "two-for-one". 

I rarely have so much work back-logged. This little Dancer, also done in coloured pencils with Pitt pen has a little white Sharpie paint pen too, but what's really unusual is that the body and the hair are done in Winsor & Newton pigment markers which I believe are alcohol based and absorb a little too readily into this sketchbook paper. I believe marker paper is less absorbent allowing for more blendability. Because I've been storing the marker upright instead of horizontally, I sometimes get less saturation which helped keep the skin tones more subtle.

With that, I will carry on here. Always something calling me to get done. Who would we be without some external thing calling us, defining us, ethereal beings that we are?

"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.

We are spiritual beings having a human experience." 

                                                                                                    Pierre Teilhard de Chardin