adventures

of aplantfancier

Tag: plants

  • on a rainy monday

    Have I really never painted my own garden? I always mean to, but somehow the kit never comes out unless I’m working on something more formal down in the furnace workshop, or on the road somewhere. Thought I’d paint out my own window for a change.

    Yesterday was a washout, so I posted up at the little desk in the kitchen and played around with my folding travel brushes from Rosemary & Co — this was all done with a squirrel mop and a filbert instead of my usual size 4 round.

    Variegated hosta, spiderwort, wild violet, random turf grass, and creeping charlie. Just like this painting, it’s kind of a mess.

    Moleskine and watercolor.

  • welcome to golden glow

    Hello! I’ve been away on vacation three weeks, simultaneously fulfilling two longtime dreams; building a catio and attending a barn raising party.

    The second was, of course, in spirit, but we built a free standing cat house into an existing (beloved) deck and replaced two-thirds of the deck boards in five days with help of heroic visiting family in possession of know-how and skills and if that’s not what a barn raising party feels like then I don’t know what is.

    And fans of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers in the audience?

    It was really really fun, is what I’m saying, and now I’m “styling it,” because I’m that person. The white deck chair cushions are already covered in muddy little pawprints. I let them dry, and then brush them off with a straw hand whisk broom while the puppy barks at me.

    It’s like this with most new things and then she gets with the program.

  • paradise

    piporo // paradise moon

    I’ve shared this one before, but I much prefer this earlier version. I wish I’d scanned it, but I was glad to at least find a photo in my phone, and thought maybe you’d like to see it, too.

    So relax a minute in the cool shade, and watch the pale melon clouds drift by. See you tomorrow.

  • palo verde

    Is there a more beautiful tree on Earth than the palo verde?

    Here’s an oldie from my travel journal, while I work on some new stuff for next week. I’d usually be with family in the desert southwest right about now, but this year I’ll have to make do with memories.

    I miss the shock of green after spring rain, the tenacity of life in the harshest of conditions, the stars, the stars. But I can be patient, everything has its season.

    See you next week, back in space.

  • paradise moon

    Had a quick look around the paradise moon of Jasmodus Gamma and I might stay a while and paint the curly, very berry grassland, all shades of fuchsia and blackberry and violet — just my style.

    There’s cerulean tallgrass cascading down hillsides, and two different plants of what I like to think of as the “corn type,” and the shimmering gold of Jasmodus Gamma filling the sky.

    Scan warns of deadly pressure variations but so far it’s paradise.

    I’ll take a long walk and let you know.

  • start as you intend to go on

    I recently ran across this advice while doing hundreds of hours of research before adopting a cat: start as you intend to go on. And by recently, I mean over a year ago, around the time I decided to start this blog. The purveyor of said advice, whose identity I have unfortunately forgotten, stumbled upon it herself in a parenting book, but felt it had a broader relevance, and I quite agree. Because while I don’t remember where exactly I heard it, here I sit, one year later thinking yeah! That is how I should start this blog!

    Exactly as I . . . intend to go on.

    ENTER