*heralds of spring

The typical April weather has arrived.

After the short warm period, we had some rain.

Sun and clouds are alternating and we have frost again.

Even snow is predicted.

A mix of everything.

I started reading "The ten thousand doors" by Alix E. Harrow and so far I really enjoy it. My favorite morning drink is tumeric tea at the moment, maybe because it has a stimulating effect to the blood flow and is warming the body from inside. Ever since I was so sick in winter I have issues with blood circulation and I lost half of my hair. I never had so little hair in my whole life, but since some days I feel the hair loss goes back a bit and I'm hopeful that they will start to grow back in summer. It was just a too big strain for the body. But the body is really a miracle! It always thrives towards balance again.

Further I started reading & working with the book "The artists way" by Julian Cameron. I was still a teenager when I first read it and I only remember the "morning pages" and I think I did not finish all exercises, so I thought I start with it again. I'm sure most of you know this book already. If so, what have been your experiences with it, did it help you in any way?

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*the endless joy of a flower garden

April is all about the garden so far.

I started seeds, prepared the garden beds, welcomed the first Roman snails and pruned the berries. We had the first 28 degrees and the apple trees are already in full bloom and even the lilacs are blooming already, they usually open their first flowers in May here. It seems all is blooming at once this year and not gradually as usual. Every year is so different and all we can do is to observe and trying to adapt to it.

I'm looking forward to try some new flowers this year, I have seeds of a light pink summer aster and a few new dahlia bulbs and I want to grow straw flowers again. Marie sent me some seeds of her pink filled hollyhocks last year and I hope I get the first seedlings through the year, so they will eventually bloom next year! Yes, patience is indicated!

Do you have special garden plans for this year?

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*March moments & Easter preparations

{Music: The Heart Harmonicon – Colleen}

Just some little moments, collected in the month of March. 

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*Easter hedgehog

Happy Easter Sunday!

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*rising in spring

March is coming to an end already. I feel like feeling the taste of food in my mouth for the fist time again after a long period of starvation regarding my creativity and general vital force. I'm coming slowly back to life like nature and I could not be any more grateful. Still there is so much going on, so many worries all around and inside, but after a time of beneficial self isolation, I feel more stable inside of me again.

Early in the morning, when the moon was resting over the village, Rudi (the pheasant that sits under the quince tree in our garden each day) and I got startled by the ratchet boys. They are coming with their bikes to make a short stop and scream. An Easter rite of that I'm not really fond of. Silence is precious and rare.

The apricot bloom was followed by the wonderful vibrant pink bloom of the peach trees and right now the cherry trees are opening their first blossoms and yesterday I saw the first open tulips! I got used to the slower spring pace here. I almost did not film at all this month, last recordings have been of the little deer in our garden. After it died, I felt opposed to take up my camera. But yesterday when I decorated the Easter bush, I started to take up filming again and I hope it will bring me some joy again.

In any case I wish you a wonderful Easter weekend!

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*The first snowdrops & 17 years together

{Music: Light and Water – Rasmus H Thomsen}

I always forget to post my little movies here, so a little later again:

First little signs of spring are brightening up the otherwise gloomy days. On our anniversary we visited an old ruin castle where we had an amazing view over the Kamptal area.

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*hiding sun

Impressions of the autumn-like days that we had throughout February and most of March. I love how this series turned out though! I'm slowly taking up my brushes again and trying to get into a routine. Yesterday I also cleaned the greenhouse and started to prune the raspberries. We had several days with frost and minus degrees in the nights, but it seems the coming days will get milder again.

Tiny heads of stinging nettles are popping out of the ground, so I started my yearly nettle cure. I'm looking forward to all the fresh greens that soon are available again and and the different tree blooms and that it will become spring here in my blog as well!

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*High flight

Today I was browsing through one of my old diaries (from 2006) where I had written down a poem by the Anglo-American pilot John Gillespie Magee Jr. who fought in WW2. He died when he was 19 years old.

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of wheeled and soared and swung.

High in the sunlit silence, Hov’ring there

I’ve chased the shouting wind along and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up the long delirious burning blue

I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark nor even eagle flew

And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

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*reunited

We found the last deer yesterday in the early morning hours dead in our garden. At least it is reunited with the others again. I'm running out of tears lately. Storms Night and Day, reflecting the turmoil inside of me. The bad news are not breaking off and I long for a pause to be able to process all that has happened this year already. 

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*Returning to the comfort of words

Two days ago we celebrated my Birthday with a walk at the river where billions of snowdrops are covering the ground right now, the weather was quite grey again and windy. We met a men who was working with a logging horse in the forest. He told us that wood work with horses is not as seldom as we often assume. Nowadays a lot of wood work is done with huge harvesters and they destroy so much in the forests, the work with a logging horse is a lot less invasive.

Unfortunately only one deer remained of the flock that lived in the area around our house. It is a little one, that has found refuge in our garden recently. First it only came from time to time to graze, but since several days it also sleeps there and does not even flee when we are near. Don't know how to lead it to a safer area. It always goes back to the place where it has lost the others. The street is so near, it's really a dilemma.

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