*garden romantic & morning tears

A little bit of garden romantic on 35mm film and a rare visitor, a dragonfly. It makes me wonder why it is leaving it's wetland area to visit our garden. Same I'm wondering with the seagulls that are sometimes sitting in the fields here.

I'm struggling a lot right now, last week I have been mainly in bed again. It seems like my body is remembering the torture that started last summer and reacts to it. The damage in my nervous system makes me feel so much disgust for so many smells and tastes. In general for everything that reminds me of that time and I feel a lot of fear when symptoms return and it affects my mood a lot. I feel even guilty to write this as I do not want to speak too much about it and it does not change a thing. It does not change the deep loneliness it creates and often the reactions of other people about it, make me feel even more alone with it. Crying and praying until God lays a piece of comfort into my heart to be able to go on. I don't know if the day on Earth will come when I do not perceive my body as a prison. Luckily I can escape from it every night for some time. Sometimes it feels as if I was lifetimes away during one night and it is hard to find back into this role I chose to play here in my body. The worst days are those when you open your eyes in the morning and they are filled with tears already.

☙

*Peonies & the yearning for a simple life

Some weeks ago we visited my sister on my father's farmland where she is also working, but recently started to make the old, abandoned farm house there livable. As a child I was there often with my friend Susanna. We stayed there alone which was very exciting and the days were filled with crafting, singing, exploring and grilling food over the campfire. The nights have been sometimes a bit scary in that old house, but those memories belong to my very favorite childhood memories I have.

The simple countryside life was something that always spoke to me, since very young age. When observing the hands of my grandmother while she was making potato dumplings or sitting with my grandpa on the tractor or bringing the crops with all family members together up the attic, I felt this deep contentment inside of me. Everything felt so close and tangible and there was no need to drive to shops with the car or outside the city until being surrounded by nature. Of course a simple life is not automatic an easy life, but the yearning stays and I am not alone with it. 

My sister feels the very same and one of her biggest dreams is to be able to live in that old house on the farm of my father one day and keeping some chicken and living the life. She also created a new vegetable garden this year and shares her little adventures on her youtube channel. I love her movies and feel very grateful to have her in my life!

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*the tenderness of a snail

First of all: Happy first of July!

We just returned from another little camping trip in the mountains. As we are in the middle of a heatwave, we decided to return earlier to enjoy the last days of R's holiday with my sister and near our saltwater pool. Everything goes slowly in these temperatures and you have to adapt, no matter if you want or not. 

Yesterday I was talking with several people about the unpleasant instagram changes and it seems it is not only me who is still loving the good old blog format the most. Marie, who's beautiful pictures I follow since longer now, felt motivated to start a new blog and I absolutely want to share it with you here: 

---> tea and lemon cakes

I'm so happy! It is really such a cozy place already! And she also has a furry little chihuahua companion! Feel free to follow her, too! I hope more and more people will join the blog community again!

☙

*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.

☙

*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}

☙

*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!

☙

*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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*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.

☙