Friday, August 08, 2014

June collage


As promised. My resolve to do this seems frequently to get thwarted, by sad things and other distractions, but even though it often seems as if I'm not bothering to get the camera out and use it, when I go back over there are more than enough seasonal nuggets to make up a 3x4 collage.

June



Top to bottom, left to right:

1) Under the sumac tree, who loves to lie with me... there were days for the deckchair in the long grass with book or podcast and/or knitting, and Mol happy to settle on her fleece blanket alongside. Shortly after, unseasonable winds took down the heaviest branch of that weed tree, with its thick foliage and pappy soft wood and we've not cleared up all the resulting damage, so its pleasant dappled shade is reduced, but it was nice while it lasted, and will be again.

2) Buttercups and forget-me-nots, refractory but affectionately regarded weeds, in the grass around.

3) A bunch of Californian poppies, red campion and other easy-going, self-seeded things, in a jar on the table.

4) International knit-in-public day, which we at Quessquitricote celebrated on the 11th July though knitting fascists purists on Ravelry frowned and said it should be the Saturday following.  My polystyrene head, Jean-Pierre/Josephine-Pierrette, along with a crochet daisy chain and a very long tapestry wool scarf join in the festivities. I'll do another knitting post later.

5&6) View from the bedroom window, view from the terrace, 6.30 am midsummer morn.

7) Tortoiseshell butterfly, not the yellow legged version, as far as I know, on a shrub whose name I forget; no, it's not a hawthorn.

8) The blackbirds go crazy for the amalanchier berries.  I took a lot of photos of this (which I meant to make a post of but didn't), mainly from the living room sofa while Molly was pinning me down.  The amalanchier berries are edible to us too, and taste a bit apple-ish but not very interesting, and it's just as well since we don't get a look-in; through most of June the whole tree is alive and shaking with blackbirds, male, female and young ones, bouncing and squawking and feasting on them. Male blackbirds seem to carry and atone for the whole weight of their gender's oppression in much of the rest of the animal kingdom; they struggle to feed, raise and protect  the young for the whole breeding season, and are mercilessly bullied by them and the females all the rest of the time. They have to hurry to get to the berries first; once the young and the females get there they are driven off.  The babies are perfectly capable of feeding themselves but pester and harry their parents into giving up their share too. It's a jungle out there.

9) Our redcurrants, netted lest they meet the same fate as the amalanchier berries.

10) Multicolour radishes and plain and striped aubergines from a wonderful stall on the market, a guy who comes up from Finistère with whatever he's got that week, which is a surprising variety, apples, then tomatoes, radishes, courgettes, the aubergines were just for a week, going on into the autumn with multifarious squash and pumpkins.

11) Exhibition at the Briquetterrie, Langueux, with some fascinating installations, which I went to with my sister(that's her hand). I do love the place.

12) More redcurrants, we got a couple of kilos I think.

~

That'll do for now, I'll do July's tomorrow.


4 comments:

Ellena said...

Lovely, lovely, lovely. When I moved up here from Montreal I dreamt of making a garden such as yours.
I did not even come close to it but, when I drive by there now I see that the pine trees which I had unearthed high up on the property and planted as a hedge not far from the house are doing well.
You have a lovely view from your upper floor.

the polish chick said...

i am jealous of your view, though i do love my urban one, and of your red currants. they are so hard to come by here, and deathly expensive if you can find them, and i think back to my childhood when i used to eat them to my heart's content in my grandma's garden and failed to appreciate their ruby deliciousness…but such is life.

Lucy said...

Thanks both. We are quite well perched on a hillside, which is also windy, so in fact the garden and its hedges have largely cut out the view, though with the big skylight window in the bedroom we have reclaimed it somewhat, as well as enjoying looking down on the garden. It is a nice garden, though really very ambitious and quite difficult to manage or keep in anything other than an unruly state. I've more or less accepted this and appreciate much about its wildness, as do the birds and other creatures. Our professional hedge cutter and general heavy jobs man does all right out of it anyway, and curbs the worst of its overgrowth.

In fact looking back at the June pictures, I realise my feelings about it change with the seasons: earlier in the spring and summer I love it intensely, by this stage I'm feeling a bit jaded and defeated by it. By the time the man's been and whipped it into shape and it's been put to bed for the winter, I'm more at peace with it again.

Rouchswalwe said...

Beautiful! I've been working so much I feel I missed the summer this year. These snapshots make me feel better.