Beauty and magic takes a lot of work

Finn & I are packing up the sleigh for a Christmas road trip.  

The weather has warmed up just in time for me to clean out the car, rake the last of the leaves from the yard and carport, pack and drive to Virginia. 

I love the timing of a sixty degree, dry day right when I really need it.

I stayed on top of the maple leaves all fall, but the oak leaves fell with the cold snap a month ago, and pretty much buried my lawn. I was beginning to get real depressed about the garden view from my window.  

It was so delightful to get outside and hear the birds tweeting happily while I raked. Finn was glad to get out too. We have had three days in a row of rain and fog.  I always feel better when leaving home if these things are done. Now I am freed up to feast and play.

I did get a start on a series of garden paintings I want to do this winter.  I have been wanting to paint this scene for a long time. 

I couldn't get the true colors to come through the scan. In real life it does not look quite the same. It is really a bit more greenish than it looks here. It looks like I was hoping it would, though I may fuss with it a bit more after the holidays. 

It makes me want to write and illustrate a story book for my granddaughter. Maybe that will be one of her Christmas presents next year. 

I just had a giggle over that last line I wrote..........

I have always said I wanted to grow up and live like Tasha Tudor.  I read her books to my daughters when they were little. The link takes you to Tova Martins book with all the beautiful photo's of Tasha's garden in Vermont.  Ms. Tudor finally let go of her garden last summer, I was sad to hear when she went over the rainbow.

I never even thought about illustrating children's books until I did this painting.  My father always gave my sister and I beautifully and whimsically illustrated fairy tale books. He encouraged us to believe in Unicorns and such.  He imprinted in me a love of magic and beauty. Just by investing in some great books. I used to spend hours staring into those images of the beauties and the beasties. The beasts were so beautiful and horrific at the same time. The beauties were so enchanting and tragic.

My parents sent my sister to art school. Every line she ever drew was frame worthy. Some people have that gift. I don't. They sent me to gymnastics. I was not born with a green thumb either. My mother never even kept a houseplant.  The only garden I remember planting with her was when I was two and she let me poke some zinnia seeds into the little holes she made in the earth. We moved around too much to ever garden as children.  

But, I did have this love of beauty. When I figured out I could create natural beauty in gardens, that was it....I studied everything I could about garden design. I tore up and re birthed hundreds of yards learning my craft.

When I was thirteen I loved the beauty of harmony in music, so I made myself learn how to play a guitar and sing harmony. It didn't come naturally, I begged friends to teach me. I locked my self in the bedroom for several years, fingers raw on the ever plucked strings, until I finally did not sound like a cat in heat. It turns out, I could make people emotional when I sang. Even grooms at weddings.

I gave it up professionally when I was being asked to sing at too many funerals. I didn't want to make people sad with my music. I was young and didn't want to be around all that grief.  But I had found a sense of beauty that spoke to my soul.

It is the same with my new love of painting. I hasn't happened naturally. But I am getting better at it all the time. I do know, that when I watch the colors spread out on a piece of white paper and form a flower or a landscape, I get that sense of the soulful harmony in the act of creating and I know when I hit a perfect tone, or note.  Something magical is trying to happen. 

Speaking of magical, Christmas is always magic!  Morgan and Barrie were trimming the Christmas tree together the other night. Every now and then Morgan would step back and look at the tree and ask little Barrie, 'Isn't it beautiful'?  Barrie would step back, hands on her hips, just like her Mom, and said 'Jus gorejess". Who knows how she picked up such a big word, she won't be two until spring. Must be magic.

Thunder

I slept with the windows open last night. As the sun rose I heard the neighbors rooster clearly for the first time since the windows shut last Thanksgiving. How nice to lay in bed and listen to the morning birds. As the sun rose it looked to be a warm sunny day. My gardens look so beautiful in the early morning light.

My Trillium are blooming.

I was thinking I may be able to go work in the community garden after all. I looked at the mountain towards Boone and thought, how dark and grey the sky looked above the hills, then I heard the thunder....Finn wanted back inside immediately after he heard the clap. For a dog that loves to swim he sure is wimpy about the rain.

Just as well, we spent the week mulching a garden that took 35 yards of mulch to get the job done. Of course most of it is up and down a fairly slopey area one wheelbarrow at a time. Mike did the bulk and the harder places gratefully. I hope he gets a quiet rainy weekend to recover. I may get my homework done for my watercolor class after all. Of course there is always the laundry to do, I can't believe how much soil I track home on my clothing. Most of my jeans have a hole in the right knee. (Note to clients...please pay your overdue invoices so I can pay Michael and buy some new work clothes.)

I have been out in the garden these early mornings taking photo's of all the new growth. I love staring at Pan ruler of the nature spirits, guardian of my garden when he is wet with rain.

The Peony foliage is wondrous at this time, deep red as the new leaves unfurl.

I am also enjoying the flowering of my dear old friend Twinleaf. Jeffersonia diphylla, one of Thomas Jefferson's favorites is a native wildflower that flowers before the trees leaf out.

The seed pods when fully formed look like Elf Pipes which my daughters loved to find when they were younger. I have transplanted this special creature to my many new gardens over the last 18 years or so. It spent one year in my daughters garden until I moved to this current home. This is one tough wildflower.

The spring flowers are so fleeting. The leaves on the trees are coming out the dogwoods have begun to bloom. The grass is growing and needing mowing. It all happens so fast!

An amazing season it is, with all it's intensity, beauty, thunder and rain. The music of spring is playing loudly. Enjoy!

Fog

The April rains are here. Friday morning work began in the drip and the fog. We could not see the gorge at all even though we are perched on the edge of the gorge in Blowing Rock. By noon we could see Grandfather Mountain from the parking deck of the garden we were working on. The scene changed by the minute as the fog receded into the gorge.

It has been like this all week, cold and misty in the morning, warm and steamy in the afternoons.

Completing the week of garden labor here, I get a surge of gratitude for where I am and what I do. It is a breathtaking movie of nature in action.



Somehow, in spite of all the physical labor the season demands, I am painting a bit. I have been sketching and painting my Saucer Magnolia blooms. I first cut them in bud two weeks ago and brought them inside. I didn't want to miss the opportunity to paint them if they got frozen. Once I brought them in and put them in water, they opened so rapidly it was hard to sketch them fast enough before they changed. I rarely get to see the unfolding so closely. I ended up with many sketches and several washes and colored pencil renderings by the time the process was over.




These are done in my Moleskin watercolor books. I use them to paint studies of whatever is blooming in my garden over the course of the season in the evenings after work as I wait for my dinner to cook. Very fun....

My garden is bursting with color, every day something new emerges. Kitty watches it all from the living room window.

I have a nice pile of mulch waiting in my driveway to be spread.

But today, the New Moon day is rainy and quiet. Rest and a Reike session are on tap. Yay!

Spring Renewal

I finally got to the fire. I love fires. All the debris piled up from last year has become carbon ash. The pile of debris has been removed, creating space for orderly compost bins....less chaos,more order in the garden. A clean pallet open and ready for the new.


The neighborhood dogs entertained me while the fire burned. It was a smokey wet fire. The smell of the burning twigs and debris was a grounding influence. A 'be in the present moment'~ moment.


I recall a memory of a fire on this date two years ago. It is ritualistic.


I mulched the area around the garden shed. Mud has been splashing onto the sides. I have a lot of mud scrubbing and sanding to do before I can stain the wood siding on the shed. The mulch will curtail the splash during the spring rains.

I was performing the same ritual in my garden last year, my daughter was about to give birth, I wanted my garden to be cleaned and prepped for the new season of new life.

Spring flowers are appearing in abundance. Early squill, daffodils, and hellebore's herald the new season. While tending the fire I heard peepers in the background. The earth is pulsating with new life.

Earlier today I gathered with a local group of artists. An inspiring group of talented women.

I hope to get to know them and their artwork better.

Snowdrops are blooming

This is it...spring is emerging from my dog ravaged garden.


Meet Finn....

This cinnamon colored lab is my constant garden companion during the warm months. In the winter he is on his own. I lock myself inside and focus on learning the art of painting botanical watercolors. At the ripe old age of fiftly, I have become a winter weenie...

Enclosed by an electric fence bordering my half acre wood, Finn stays home, safe from his crazy puppy behavior, while the neighbors dogs are still allowed in for play dates.

It is a wonder, that the pack, consisting of the Cinnamon Lab, the Golden Retriver and the ever spunky Cockapoo have not squashed EVERYTHING!

But Look...

So far all clumps of Galanthis novllis are intact.

I planted them last spring and fall. Some are from my friend Carols garden, that originally came from a plant rescue operation at a construction site over a decade ago.

I love the way they clump and naturalize in woodland areas.

They originally came from a neighbor, a holocaost survior from Holland. She brought the bulbs to Virginia from her home in the old country. By the time Carol & I rescued them from a neighbors new driveway they had become large drifts of white delight in the mostly dismal mountain landscape in April. We dug huge clumps and wrapped them in burlap diapers. Her garden is now massed with them. I tend to move often, Carol doesn't. She keeps the mothers of all my collections in her garden, so that I can get the originals for my latest home.

I have now transported them to North Carolina, blooming in late February now. I live in a wooded area, it looks as though they are enjoying thier new home. I am grateful to have moved south, spring is clearly on it's way. Virginia is still experiencing ice storms.

My Heronswood Helleborus is in Bloom....So, I painted it.
I have left it sitting in a pot all winter. Still waiting for inspiration on it's permanant home.

It also had to survive the winter construction project.

The new garden shed.

It is waiting to be painted as the weather settles. My Son in Law built it during Christmas, while I cooked and played with his little daughter.....my honeydoodle......and her Mother, my beloved youngest daughter.

I already have the Cinnamon Ferns planted in the area in front. I think it will need a window box.

Soon I will be able to get to these things. After all, the snowdrops are blooming already.

After a quiet painterly winter, that did produce some worthy plant studies, I look forward to working up a sweat, growing some food and creating beautiful gardens everywhere I am called.