Joie de Vivre

"This week share with us what brings you joy!", Inspiration Avenue asks us.

"What a nice challenge", I thought. "That shouldn't be difficult."

And it wasn't.

There is so much in my daily life that brings me joy - little things, big things.

Like this black-crowned night heron that I see so often when I walk around my lake. Of course it's not always the same one, but I do think of him (or her) as my little friend, and it's a highlight every time I see this beautiful bird.

And talking about birds - I love the view out of my studio window. It goes right to the garden and the bird feeders, so that I can observe our feathered friends, and that brings me tons of joy.

Especially when an oriole lands here.

Or this little titmouse who looks so darn cute.

But there are more than birds - squirrels, of course. They enjoy chewing on the moose antler that I brought from Maine six years ago. They are pretty noisy chewers! 

I enjoy taking pictures of the moon and let her sit on the wire or be a pole dancer. If the pictures turn out pretty fine, that's an extra slice of joy!

Of course I enjoy my garden as you have seen in so many posts before. I felt tremendous joy when finally, at the end of August, my seeds of "Heavenly Blue" morning glory turned into the first flower. By now there are so many more of them climbing up the trellis that I feel like living in Provence.

Joy is to be able to bike to my favorite nursery and buy flowers. Priceless (well, not quite....).

Joy is to play with my family. One of the newer games we enjoy is Sumoku. Kaefer's best friend Becca is the real master of this game - she even beat the Geek!

Living off my garden - turning the harvested vegetables into delicious sauces, soups and meals - is a BIG joy in my life. Seriously, nothing tastes better than the food you grow yourself.

I don't always enjoy cooking, but most of the time I do. Especially - see above - if I can use super fresh ingredients, preferably from my garden. Then turn them into something delicious, like this tomato mozzarella gratin. Joy of eating... 

... accompanied by good wine. Ah, the joys of life!

A deep satisfying joy is the return of my creativity. Over the past two weeks I have spent more time in my studio than all summer long, creating tags for Halloween, greeting cards and journals. I haven't returned to painting, though. However, Kaefer requested a "custom order" - an elvish mixed media painting featuring Galadriel. Now, that will be a challenge!

Halloween Cemetery Coffin Tag

But what or who brings me the biggest, deepest, richest joy? 

She.

Sunflowers

September for me is the month of sunflowers, although they have been in my yard the entire month of August and most of them are way past their prime. However, they are still here providing food for birds, and they will do so well into fall.

I love how even the smallest sunflower shows its delicate pattern. And no matter the size of the flower, the bees go crazy over them.

Sunflowers make me happy - their bright colors, their different sizes. Even on a cloudy day they bring some sun into the garden - as their name so appropriately suggests.

The insects - bees, wasps, flies, butterflies - sure love them!

I had planted over a hundred sunflower seeds in both my back and front yards. However, the flowers in the front didn't stand a chance; both the raccoon and the deer devoured them with gusto!! Not even a single one could grow. The deer probably thought how thoughtful is was of me to provide them with such delicious salad! Lesson learnt.

But the sunflower seeds in the backyard made it - I have had all kinds of them, big ones, small ones, tall ones, short ones, yellow ones, yellow ones with a little bit of red - but my favorites are the red ones!

And even when they are past flowering, the seed heads are impressive. I usually leave them to the birds - I love to watch them flying to and fro and picking at the seeds.

Did you have any sunflowers in your garden this summer?

Harvest

After a long long time I am participating in Inspiration Avenue's weekly challenge again - I remember a time when I used to do that almost every week! It kept my creative juices flowing even though sometimes it was quite a stretch for me.

This week's theme is "harvest" - so true for my garden at the moment. We pretty much "live off the land" right now. I harvest something almost every day and our meals are so much more richer and tastier with our own veggies and fruits.

For a good harvest you need the right basket to put your hands' labor in - like this one that I saw at a local nursery:

It's an old grape basket, and at its steep price I decided to leave it untouched. I'm still using my old metal colander that I found a few years ago in a thrift store for a couple bucks.

I have had peppers, tomatoes, zucchini and eggplant growing in my garden. It was the first year that the harvest of the zucchini was rather meager, whereas there were many peppers, especially the orange "Tequila Sunrise", my favorite. Great flavor!!! I'm happy with my tomatoes this year and already made tomato sauce that sits in the freezer now, waiting for cooler days when we will taste the flavors of summer again.

For the first time I grew melons - Charentais melons. The fruits weren't very big, but oh! the flavors of Provence were in each of them. I hope I can get them again next year - this was the first time that I found them in a local nursery.

As I said - our meals have been super fresh recently. Be it Caprese (the best food on a hot summer's day),

or oven roasted veggies with tzatziki made from scratch (very easy).

What are you doing with your home grown veggies and fruits?

Walking Through the Rain Forest

My posts about Cape Scott wouldn't be complete without telling you about the rain forest that we had to hike through in order to get to the wonderful deserted beach at San Josef Bay. The hike through the rain forest took about 45 to 60 minutes and was easy.

It was also beautiful. The rain forest is never silent. There are birds singing, water dripping, mosquitoes buzzing. Your own sweat collecting at your neck and slowly running down your back - yes, it's humid in there. The humidity, however, causes this incredible growth we found in this rain forest.

The rain forest starts right at the beach - one moment you're still out in the sand, the next you are in the cool and shady forest. Quite a sudden transition.

The trees are huge and really impressive looking. Many of them are covered with moss, especially the further away from the beach you get.

Everything is so fascinating here - the trees, the plants and the little animals - that I wasn't the only one who got carried way by taking pictures.

What fascinated me most were the beautiful mushrooms - difficult to photograph since I didn't want to lay flat on the ground here. So I just put my camera on the ground and did some "blind shots", hoping it would work out.

This last photo is my contribution to this week's Texture Tuesday, layered with Kim Klassen's texture "kk_littlethings".

The Texture of Sand

After a little excursion we are back to San Josef Bay in Cape Scott Provincial Park at the very northern end of Vancouver Island. While we were hanging out at this beautiful, deserted beach I noticed how different the texture of the sand was in different locations - quite fascinating!

You can already see it here in all the ripples in the sand. But there was more.

This looks like the wind is  blasting across the sand, but it actually was rather still here.

Look at this interesting pattern - when the tide went out, the small pebbles that were still floating in the water painted these zig-zag lines into the sand until they just stopped where the water would drop them.

I love this landscape - just a different perspective of the sand in the top photo.

Here you can clearly see where the water was flowing before it retreated and left these canyons.

A peaceful pattern, one you think can go on for miles and miles. Again, just a different perspective of the second photo.

And this is how the sand looks like in the water - gorgeous. I feel like picking up a brush (or using my fingers) and make beautiful textures with heavy bodied paint.