Nature's Stunning Abstracts - Masterpiece "Paintings"

 

"Each man’s necessary path, though as obscure and apparently uneventful as that of a beetle in the grass, is the way to the deepest joys he is susceptible of; though he converses only with moles and fungi and disgraces his relatives, it is no matter if he knows what is steel to his flint."

  -Thoreau journal entry; excerpted in Thoreau and the Art of Life

 

 

"The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention."
 - Julia Margaret Cameron

 

 

“The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, 

for I have seen the shadow on the moon, 

and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church”

- Ferdinand Magellan

 

"Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand." 

-Thoreau journal entry; excerpted in Thoreau and the Art of Life

  

 

"Life is much too important to be taken seriously."

 - Oscar Wilde

  

"Between the banks of pain and pleasure the river of life flows."

 - Nisargadatta Maharaj

 

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious - 

the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science"

 - Albert Einstein from Living Philosophies

 

 

"One is never so strong as when one is broken."

 - Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan

 

 

"Hand over the controls to the universe and go along for the ride. 

When you're a passenger, 

you can appreciate all the beautiful scenery that you might otherwise miss."

Author unknown

A Bountiful Crop

After a single digit night, I look outside at the snow covered ground and dream of the garden...

My green babies...foot long green beans, though some reached 18", anyone want to barter neat seeds, let me know...

LOVE

 That being said, I'm grateful for this time of rest and renewal.

"Take a rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop." - Ovid, from Ars Amatoria

I rest with extra reading, meditation, and baths and I renew with creating.

Lately I've been collaging Artist Trading Cards...

It took me a few years to collect and cut out all these small images.

The start of the organic process:  allowing the cards to come together!

Here are a few from years past:

I'll share some of the new ones soon.

~ How are you resting and renewing? ~

 from House of Belonging by David Whyte:

 "When your eyes are tired
The world is tired also.

When your vision is gone
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb
tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you."

A Day in the Life

Happy Cactus

Burst into bloom with all this heat we've had - early Summer in late Winter!

Crazy Cat

Calyx doing his thing.

Brave Spider

In the bee hive, surrounded by propolis.

Wild Dinner

Harvested from the yard - free food full of nutrients and organic!

This rainy day has determined that my scheduled landscaping will be done another day, so Mathieu and I worked more on house designing; we have come full circle over the past year and are looking into yurts again.  I checked on my new bee packages that were just installed a week ago today.  They're doing well:  producing lots of comb, bringing in pollen, and doing their "purr" buzz.  They even started building comb on the queen cage:

Each hive had constructed 10 times this much comb in 5 days.

I went into my other hive (Monkey is her name); I have 3 total now.  Monkey has made it well through her second winter; no need for sugar water.  A thunderstorm suddenly started to come in, so all I could do was get into the top super.  I noticed 2 spiders inside the cover, one of them a Black Widow - both of them the type that stay put in their web nook - not hunters.  I wonder what they do in there and if there might be symbiosis.  If not, why wouldn't the bees kill them?  and what are the spiders eating?  Bees?  other insects?  I'm guessing other insects and the bees leave them alone because they aren't bothering the bees.

I harvested some wild greens to saute for dinner, above, clockwise from bottom left:  Redbud flowers, Garlic Mustard, Plantain, Wisteria flowers, Smilax shoots, wild Chives, Chickweed, and Violet leaves and flowers in the center.  You'll notice I pulled up the Garlic Mustard by the roots.  I did this because it is an invasive non-native and it is prolific.  I want to weed it out, but even pulling it up all the time does not get rid of it.  The roots too are edible if it doesn't have a flower stalk.  Throw the roots away if you don't eat them; don't put them in the compost.

Here is the finished product, with humane, local, organic Chicken. I simply wilted the greens in a little olive oil in a skillet and added the flowers later with a little salt.

Listening: