Skin of leek, excretment of snail......

In my world, I don't always go for the pretties of the flower kingdom.  I was completely taken by the little tissue caps that split off to reveal the flower of the leek plant. As they dried I put them in the bottom part of an old silver salt shaker. When did the snail show up? There is something about the tarnished silver and brown transparent tissue of the leek "caps" that is very appealing and I have kept these caps all summer. Need to take some better photos before letting them go.

Some small sweet thing w/rock

Buddies

Summer

The return of the dahlias. And an unexpected surprise when a zucchini clipping bore a blossom in the vase. You can almost feel the determination of plants to birth out their fruits this time of year.

Happy Mother's Day

 What eggzactly?  Continuing on an ovoid theme, I guess.

  The Hellebore are in bloom again, here in one of my favorite containers.

Annual vine pulling contest:
The quince bush before the vine extrication. It's really pretty looking with all the draped vines...... but there should be no leaves and only brown branches filled with salmon colored flowers.

This was one of those days, you know, when you're just merely walking by the  garden and somehow three hours later you realize that it happened again.  I love to work in the garden. Today I had a lot of confused feelings. Usually my mind  is gratefully empty, but today I had the task of the annual vine pulling off the quince bush. Come end of the summer, artfully intertwined in this beautiful shrub are the also picturesque morning glory vine, jasmine vine, trumpet vine, and ficus vine( yeah, guilty for planting two of these close by). Come spring, the quince bears beautiful flowers. But you can't see the flowers for the vines. If I didn't pull the vines off each year, the quince would be eventually smothered/ killed by the vines. What's going to  happen eventually when I'm not here to take care of it? The vines will do battle and the most vigorous will win maybe living on the skeleton of a dead quince bush?  Last year I did an especially good job of trimming back and uprooting the vines  and they rewarded me this year with even more verdant growth and I was pissed! Then I thought, well who are you to call the shots- just the resident garden dictator. Here just for a short regime. I don't know.  Could it be that men make wars and women make gardens?

 

But the site of the pea growing down into the cabbage leaf was balm for my monkey mind. Still vine pulling...

Just prior to December 25.

New Monarch painting on douglas fir panel in watercolor. This is an older series that shows the life cycle of local butterflies. I'm adding to the series again. I have a show at Crome Architecture now and another solo show at the Marin Headlands Visitor Center this summer.

 

Buddy  

It's been too long. i had an art show and then that brief, intense, dream time we call Christmas took over completely. And then it was gone. Here in California we still have trees that are trying to lose their leaves and the hellebore have started blooming.

These flowers were made for the fall memorial service of Henry Dakin, a rare individual I had the pleasure knowing for awhile; a tie that  continues  through his dear family. He was a beloved father, husband, philanthropist and seeker. An interesting thing happened in that three of the vases that were used in the service broke/shattered on different days after the service. That's never happened. No one was hurt. It does bring up the question of energy and it's transference around the passing of a human being.

T

Took a few shots before loading them into the van.