*A little bit of June

{Music: Ana With Birds – Daniel O'Rhys}

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*Garden & Greenhouse

It is going quick right now, we are having a heat wave and the peas are already over. In the first picture you can see how huge my holly hocks (where I got seeds from Sylvie) grew. Only very recently it opened its very first flower - what a special moment after two years of caring and waiting! I did not know the color, so it was a double surprise! I was able to harvest four cucumbers already, even the plants are not that big yet and today I saw the first little bitter melon fruit appearing. Currently I am drying lavender and had my first cup of fresh lavender tea in the morning! June is full of blessings, but the risk of heavy thunderstorms is also high. I try to cherish everything as it is right now in the garden, because I know from one moment to the other it could be devastated from the storms or hails. A deer family is living just a few meters away from our house right now, a mother with two fawns. They are grazing in the clover field every morning and I can observe them from the window. I filmed them a little for the next movie.

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*summer to do list

Little summer to do list:

• drinking lots of fresh spearmint tea

• picking cherries

• wading barefoot through a river

• drying lavender 

• observing butterflies

• reading in the flower meadow

• sorting out all the things you don't need anymore

• surprising a loved one with a gift

• learning about native herbs

• starting a brand-new journal

• putting your phone aside

• trying out something new

• make a little campfire

• inventing a cake recipe

• collecting seeds from flowers you find on your walks

• dye your clothes with plants

• searching for glow worms

• looking for falling stars

• solving crossword puzzles

• starting a herbarium

• making ice cubes with fresh berries inside

• crafting a kite

• cutting out your favorite pictures of old magazines

• taking your time to braid your hair

• painting on stones

• arrange your clothes by color

• make a picknick in the forest

{feel free to add more

in the comments}

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*a flock of clay birds

Here is my latest clay bird collection.

They are all available in my Etsy shop 

if you want to get one as gift or for yourself.

Shop will be open until coming Thursday!

Have a wonderful Sunday!

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*watercolor

I have not been painting a lot lately, but here are my recent illustrations that I made and I am working on a nice communal book project which I will tell you more about when the time is right. How are you spending your free time at the moment? What excites you the most right now? Is there anything you just started to learn or practice? 

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*garden

Finally I took a moment to have a look in my photo archive to pick some pictures for this first garden update of the year. A little late, but I will post them anyway. Today we stood up early to work together in the garden. R. did water the trees and helped me building brick paths in my new herb corner. I had started last year to create this corner especially for herbs and flowers, but then the strong hail damaged it and because I was bedridden all summer I was not able to care for it anymore, but this year I am slowly bringing it back to life again and planted all sorts of new herbs like different mints, valerian, chamomile, marshmallow, curry, roman fennel, stevia and many more. First the snails ate up most of the flower seedlings, but after some time some started coming through again and I planted some more. Mostly zinnia, cosmea, girls' eyes, calendula, nasturtium and baby breath and my little highlight will be the quaking grass, but let's see if it will survive after all. At the moment I live mostly from peas, mangold and fresh berries and cherries. You can literally watch them turning red, so fast does it all go right now. It is a really overwhelming time in many ways, so full of tastes! After garden work we made a campfire and went swimming. It was a really nice day! I hope yours was nice too!

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*My May

{Music: Narcissus – Jiří Horák}

Some video material that I collected in the month of May. This month was both, beautiful and sad. It was filled with lots of garden work and the scent of lilac and lily of the valley. I managed to finish some more ceramic items and took some time to observe all the snails and insects and I had fresh salads from the garden every day. Unfortunately we had an unexpected death case that made our hearts heavy despite all the lightness and beauty this month usually offers. Bliss and tearfulness are sometimes so very close to each other, but I guess this is something we all experience from time to time. I wish you all the best and warm feelings for everybody who is grieving right now.

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*Mountain breeze

Pictures from our little mountain trip. 

The forest was full of wild winter roses in all sorts of shades, it was beautiful!

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*from spring to summer

We are having summery days with humid heat and thunderstorms. On the weekend I had my first swim of the year – to be honest I was a bit scared to swim again after being so sick last year and still am struggling. I was just not sure how my nerves will react and I have to take it slowly, but I always loved swimming so much and I do not want to live without it. At some point I will try to ride the bike again, but it still feels far away somehow. I feel like the heat is heavy for my body and that on one way it throws me back, especially the sudden strong weather changes that we are having more and more often. But I am grateful. Grateful to be able to walk at all! Because I know it is not self-evident. We tend to take so many things for granted but when you loose one of it suddenly, you start to be more and more aware that most of the "normal things" are actually great gifts.

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