Art for Heart's Sake

Happy Wednesday & Sand Formation Photos

Hi, yikes it's Wednesday already and we're heading towards Easter and the end of daylight saving - thank goodness!  In the past few weeks I have been finding it increasingly difficult to wake up in the mornings because it has been getting slightly darker each morning.  This morning dear hubby had to get up at 5am to catch a plane to go to a meeting and I didn't manage to get back to sleep after that... yawn.... can't say I feel terribly awake today!!

I am about to plant some red broad bean seeds (oh gosh I've just realised I haven't done my weekly gardening tip yet - sorry, might have to be next week now!).  These broad beans are a heritage local variety and I can't wait to watch them grow.  If I plant the seeds now, I will be eating broad beans in early/mid Spring (depending how harsh our winter is this year).  I'm pretty sure the pods will still be green but the beans inside are red!  How cool is that!  Apart from that I want to start making a new magnet too. 

I popped into town this morning to post some of our precious home-grown scrumptious black grapes to my mum in the north island.  She adores them and when I sent her the first lot a week or so ago, she phoned and told me they were 'ambrosia'.  So happy I can bring some grape happiness to her world.  My mum is a real character, 82.5 years old and full of beans.  Her eyes and knees are giving her trouble but she is a total delight and I love talking to her every day.  I do feel bad that I don't live close enough to be able to help with the 'little everyday' things that go wrong though!

Here are another couple of photos from our weekend.  Aren't the formations in the sand incredible??  These were taken at Whakariki Beach.  The first one John thinks looks like a horses hoof upside down!  If that's the case, I feel sorry for the rest of the horse.. giggle....  Big smiles

 
 
 
 

Simple Things In Life Make Me Happy

So love doing this!!!  Big smiles...

Download MOV05135

Some Weekend Photos

Hi, well I'm settling down to my regular daily routine after our fabulous weekend.  This morning it has been cloudy (well sun is coming out now) so I've been able to do a few things in the garden which is great.  Yesterday I uploaded all of the photos we took over the weekend and I am stunned how well some of them turned out. 

Now where to start in terms of posting some of them for you.  I think I'll start at the beginning.  Golden Bay is an area that is around 1 hour's drive from where we live in rural Nelson.  The most amazing thing about the area is you have to drive over the gorgeous Takaka Hill (also known as marble mountain because of the type of geological material you find there).  I really love driving over this hill - it is steep and has lots of very windy (as in curvy)corners which I also love.  To make it even better when you get to the top you have a gobsmacking view down into the plains of Golden Bay.  It really is quite breathtaking and I can only imagine what visitors to our country make of it.  From the base of the hill it is only a fairly short distance to the township of Takaka which has an atmosphere all its own.  It was known as the hippy centre of NZ at one stage and it still retains some of this feeling - very laid back and feels comfortable in its own skin (if that makes sense).  One of the most spectacular parts of Golden Bay is Farewell Spit which is the northernmost tip of the south island.  It is basically a sand bar and is renowned for the fabulous birdlife it has.  There are tours available but we decided just to walk part of it on Saturday afternoon.  Before we got to there, we stopped at another amazing spot 'Pupu Springs' which is where a mineral spring sends up 14,000 litres of water a SECOND!  It has the second most clear water in the world and it truly is amazing.  Apparently the only water that is any clearer is under the Ross ice self in Antarctica.  I'll start with a couple of photos of that.  The first photo is me standing on a bridge before we got to the actual spring.  The next one is my lovely John under the foliage of one of our native Rimu trees.  The next two are of the springs themselves - I love the last one, it looks like an underwater garden!  Hope the clarity is okay, would have been better if it hhad been cloudy I think.

More tomorrow. Smiles

  

 
  
 
  
 

A Fabulous Weekend!!!

Hi, it's Monday lunchtime and I'm just back from my Zumba class, which as usual was a lot of fun.  I feel very energised which is great!

We had the most amazing weekend.  On Saturday morning we took off in the little fun car to Golden Bay, over the stunning Takaka hill.  After a bit of touring around we checked into our motel in Collingwood and then headed to a place called Farewell Spit, which is at the very tip of the South Island.  I have so much to tell you and show you about this amazing area - we took around 160 photographs!!!  I don't know where to start and am starving so once I have sorted out the best photographs I'll start posting some.  I hope to get a couple posted by the end of today for you.  Suffice to say I was completely blown away by the beauty of two of the beaches we visited.  They were surreal to say the least!  More later everyone, I'm starving and need lunch.  Big smiles

Thought for Today and Another Brooch

Hi here is a thought I love for the day and a photo of the latest brooch I've just finished.  This one was really fun to make.  Another busy day today, so must fly but will write more in detail tomorrow.  Smiles for your night/day

LISTEN TO YOUR INTUITION, IT WILL TELL YOU EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW.

A New Magnet & Brooch

Here is a photo of a new magnet I've just finished and a brooch.  I love the French feeling the magnet has and I really enjoyed handpainting the flowers in this gorgeous paper.  This is short today as we have a busy weekend ahead.  Have a great night/day everyone.  Big smiles

Mirror Tile 'Victoria'

Hi here are photos of my new mirror tile.  It is very hard to photograph these so I hope you can see the detail better on the closeup.  I cut this gorgeous victorian-looking bouquet of flowers out of a piece of scrapbooking paper.  Isn't it just divine!!  Smiles...

Sowing my Own Seeds!

Hi everyone, yesterday much to my joy, I managed to spend quite a bit of time in the kitchen garden - until it got too hot again.  Mercifully there was a bit of cloud cover off and on but I have to tell you, when the sun came out around 3.15pm it was like being put under the grill (broiler).  The sun here in NZ is extremely intense and at the height of summer you can get burnt in just 4-5 minutes.  Amazing!  I have used a tonne of sunblock in the past few months.

One lovely thing I did yesterday, was to prepare an area in one of my kitchen garden beds and then I sowed some carrot seed from carrots I grew last winter in one of the other beds.  It was such a neat feeling, just picking the seed heads and sprinkling them straight away, knowing I hadn't sprayed them at all.  Of course, here's hoping they germinate!!  Giggle..

I also weeded a few other areas that really needed it and got an area ready for some red broad bean seeds.  They are an heirloom local variety so I can't wait to see what they are like.  It's funny, as a child I loathed!! broad beans, mainly because my darling Mum would freeze the spring/summer crop when they were large beans and then bring them out in the middle of winter where they sat, grey wrinkled skins with an incredibly dry interior.  I used to have! to eat them and oh my they were gross!  I do remember liking them more when they were young and we ate them pods and all.  Since then I've discovered the wonderful way the Italians eat them.  If the beans are largish I put them in boiling water just for a minute, then ito iced water and take the skins off.  You are left with a buttery, nutty bean interior that is perfect as a salad topped with good quality extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice, finely sliced red ionion and whatever else you like!  Yum!

It's a fine day today with a quite gusty SW wind so I'm hoping to be back out in the kitchen garden later.  It just depends how hot it gets.  I still need to find those photos for you so you know the area I'm talking about!  In the meantime here is a photo of some tomatoes I harvested yesterday.  I love the colours, like a trug of sunshine! Smiles

The Garden Smells Wonderful!

It's mid-morning on Thursday here and the sun is shining again.  One of the most beautiful things is the way the garden looks after even a small dose of rain.  We have been so dry here and it is wonderful to see the plants looked relieved after yesterday's moisture.  We only got around 9.5mm but that's better than nothing.

I love the way the garden smells after rain.  I have a rose scented geranium outside my studio door and when it's rained and the sun hits it, the scent that floats into my studio is unbelievable - free aromatherapy!  I can smell it as I'm typing this.  I wandered out into the kitchen garden this morning to look at our rain gauge and caught the aroma of sheep manure - yes another gorgeous smell in my book, giggle!   Whenever I plant a new crop in the kitchen garden the bed gets a good dose of beautiful local fish compost (rich, black and non-smelly!) and an 8kg bag of sheep manure pellets.  Each of my beds in the kitchen garden is around 9m long and 1m wide so I need all of those pellets!  They are great because the swell up when they get wet and provide nourishment over a fairly long period of time.  Obviously I don't put them on when I am sowing root crops etc that don't like too much food, such as potatoes, carrots, parsnips etc.  If I feed these crops too much they will be all top and no 'bottom'!

I can also smell the late blooms on my roses.  I don't have a lot of roses but I adore rugosa roses!  They are tough, don't need spraying, have stunning hips in autumn (that sounds a bit odd, giggle), will thrive in almost any soil and even on the sea coast!  What more could a girl ask - well many of them have the most amazing true rose fragrance.

Some of the best rugosas are: Blanc doublet de Coubert - double white, Alba - single white, Frau Dagmar Hastrup (love that name) - single pink with good hips, Rosarie de la Haye - double deep magenta, Scabrosa - single deep magenta to name a few!  That's all I can think of at the moment but there are many more!  I'll look out some photographs for you from my old files and post them in the next couple of days.  Right I'm off into the garden but first I must apply sunblock - think I need to take out shares in the Nivea company!!  Smiles..

Horray It's Raining!

Well it's Wednesday morning and as I am typing this it is starting to rain!!  Yipppppppeeeee is all I can say.  It feels so nice not to have to have the sheer curtain pulled across the sliding door that is directly to my left, to help keep the heat down in here.  I do love sunshine but just lately I've been getting very ratty with it because I really haven't been able to enjoy being in my studio in the afternoons - I end up like a melted icecream, giggle!

I made a not-so-exciting discovery this morning!  I have a wine barrel outside the studio that collects rainwater from the roof and after 3.5mm rain during the night (not much but still something!) I could see a whole layer of black, wriggling things on the top of the water - yes you guessed it - MOSQUITOS!!  aaaggghhhhh.  We don't tend to have a problem with them carrying disease in this area of New Zealand but they still give a nasty itchy bite.  These little devils have white stripes on their legs and they give the nastiest bite!  Needless to say I've had to drain the precious water out of the barrel so that John can tip it up this pm and get rid of the little blighters (NZ for nasty creatures!).  I have heard that putting oil on the top of the water in the barrel prevents them from breeding or suffocates them?  Does anyone out there know if this works?

Well we're off into town today to do some much needed shopping, groceries etc.  Hopefully it will still be raining when we get home so I can be happily ensconced in this little haven of mine - my studio!  I must take a photo of it for you.  Here's a photo of some tree bark I took the other day.  It's a gorgeous young silver birch that is over behind our pond.  Amazing apricot coloured bark!  Smiles..