*The last day in July

1. With my dear sister, when we were on a walk looking out for butterflies.

2. Sorting out thoughts & drinking flowers.

3. The wind, telling stories again.

4. Moody summer landscape, just around the corner.

Lavender tea in the morning of this last day of July. I'm not sad that this month is coming to an end, my favorite month of summer is August. On the weekend I laid out an old sleeping bag on the warm asphalt of the garage driveway, next to our herb & flower patch. Usually I like to sit there a moment after watering the plants in the late afternoon and look up the sky and just feel how everything is somehow connected with each other. But this time Ronald joined me and we were laying there, waiting for the first star to appear in the picturesque firmament. The ground was comfortably warm, as if it had secretly stored the whole summer. Everything actually happens between the lines, have you made this experience, too?

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*cloud pillow

If you follow my blog from the early beginnings, you maybe remember the little cloud pillows I used to sew and sell in my shop. In June I felt like sewing one for myself again and today in the morning when  the temperatures were more bearable, I took my chance to take some pictures and I was so happy when the swallows started to join me again.

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*Slow life in July

{Music: Warming Light – Jonny Easton}

July has been super hot and therefor everything had to be done in a slower pace. Rain was rare, I enjoyed every drop that decided to leave the skies. I started to work with clay again and made a walk in a forest full of wild flowers and butterflies. The first zinnia opened its flower and since many more followed. It was a month of growth & abundance. In- and outside.

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*Island Pag

In June we spent a few days at the seaside on the Croatian island Pag. Due to the sad circumstances I mentioned earlier this month, I did not film and took only a few pictures. So this is all I can show you. I love this island. Most parts look like a moon landscape with all the stones and sparse vegetation. I hope we can return in the future with lighter hearts and stay a little longer.

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*through the heat wave

Good morning dear readers, we already hit the 35 degree mark last week and the heat wave is continuing. The tomato plants love it, for the rest of us, we have to do everything a little slower and with more deliberation. My first dahlias are about to bloom, I'm observing the progress every day with lots of anticipation! Nature walks are hardly possible, the humid heat is just too extreme, but every now and then, when my physical state allows it, I leave the house in the very early morning hours to visit a little sunflower field not far from our home and once a mild summer rain surprised me and I walked barefoot back home, wading through the just accrued puddles, feeling relieved from the burden of the heat for a moment. When I enter the garden, I feel the most imaginable gentle embrace. While I water the thirsty birches, I sit on the well and enjoy the shadow play of the leaves on the mossy ground before my feet. I preserved the first zucchinis and made some more jam and I fill little paper sachets with seeds for the coming year. All has its order and rhythm. Soon I have enough new clay pieces to fill the kiln. They just have to dry some more. Hopefully you enjoy the heart of July and you are absorbing summer with every pore of your being.

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*The wind, the warmth & the swallows

{Music: Je te laisserai des mots – Patrick Watson}

Just a little getaway for the mind,

with the swallows in the warm summer winds.

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*summer musings

Even though I caught myself already daydreaming of autumn, I'm embracing summer with all its benefits. How comfortable it is to wear loose summer dresses again and to feel the gentle strokes by the warm winds on my skin. The swallows follow me where ever I go and the herb garden is exploding in an abundance of scents. After a break of many months I finally worked with clay again. I want to enlarge my set of tableware with fennel flower imprints and it's only possible when the fennel is blooming which is now! I know that it would be easier to make a mold of a fennel flower that I can use over and over,  but I prefer to use for each peace an unique flower.

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