New paintings and regular art updates.
More done, I’m having a rest now…. I am enjoying doing this but I want to get the mane right, the photo I’m working from is quite high definition, I want to get as much detail in as I can without overdoing it. It’s about A4 size and acrylic on canvas.
Messy things, trees
They shed their leaves,
Drop twigs and branches….
Make coal (in the past).
Make soil (maybe)
Give homes to woodpeckers
Owls,
Insects,
Birds
Even frogs!
Trees make oxygen, stop flooding.
Trees are important,
Save the trees!
So many animals, not just big ones, but tiny ones, insects, fish, are going extinct.
Why? Because of hunting, pesticides, over fishing, plastic, fires, people encroaching on the places animals live.
Why? There are too many of us, but we could all try and live more thoughtfully. People need space, and food. But there must be ways of dealing with our needs that doesn’t cause harm. We are too busy consuming to realise we can’t always have everything we want. If we could live in a more sustainable way? I remember in the 1970’s there was a comedy programme called ‘the good life’ where a couple tried to leave the rat race and live a better life by growing their own food, making their own clothes, but it didn’t always work.
It’s too simplistic to expect that to work worldwide, but I think we should try.
Bright colours
Extend the season,
Bishop of Llandaff,
Daliahs, Red.
Verbina and ice plants
Feed the bees.
Roses and autumn crocuses.
Asters and cone flowers
All sparkle and show.
Dont fade yet,
Wait for the snow.
The weather is changing, getting colder, wet and windy and the leaves are starting to change on the trees. 
The Acers are the ones that turn deep red and orange, at the same time the seed pods also turn bright red.
All of thus beauty can be found at Bodnant Gardens in the Conwy Estuary, near Llandudno in Wales. Travel along the A55 and turn off at Llandudno junction and take the A70. Up and down some hills you will see a National Trust sign on your left hand side. Follow the long drive up to the car park up a hill on the left. There is a green pavilion at the bottom of the carpark by the drive and you walk down and past it into a landscaped spiral ramp down to a tunnel under the road and into the garden centre, shops, and entrance into the gardens.
There are tall trees, pines, redwoods, Acers and oaks. Autumn flowers and mountains in the distance. Formal and informal gardens surround the Bodnant Hall with an old conservatory or greenhouse attached to it. There is no entrance to the hall but there is plenty to see anyway.
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A shout from outside. My hubby had gone outside to feed the stray cat….
There’s a problem, a catastrophe.. The pear tree had blown over in the heavy rain and wind we have been having…
The tree has been gradually leaning more over the last couple of years, and each crop of pears has grown. Till this year we counted over fifty pears. But that of course pulls on the top of the tree.
We had propped it up with some wood, but that had snapped in half. What to do? We tried using an old exercise bike near the roots…
We also tried to pull as many pears off the tree as possible as they were now in reach. My hubby normally shakes the pears down which may be why it’s leaning!
Finally we used the step ladder to prop it up a bit more. I don’t know if it’s salvageable, the trunk is split. It’s a shame if it has to go as the pears are very tasty. They were just starting to ripen, but the weather has been mad. We weighed the good pears (disposed of the split one’s). 11.7 kilos. Not sure what that is in pounds but I think it’s around 24 pounds.
I’m going to share some of the crop with friends….
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Daliah with hover flies. Another form of pollinator. They are so similar looking to bees with yellow and black stripes although they are quite a bit smaller. They really do hover almost like humming birds.
I like these daliahs, I like the simplicity and bright colours and because they are not double flowers the insects can get at the pollen easily.
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Condensation trail.
Sometimes people mistakenly call them chem trails and assume that planes are dumping chemicals. What the planes are actually doing is disturbing cold moist air in the atmosphere and the moisture (water vapour) condenses out and leaves a trail in the sky behind the plane. They regularly criss cross the sky above where I live as I live quite close to a couple of airports. Obviously they seem more frequent in the summer. If you want to find out more about clouds there is the cloud appreciation society. They have a page on Facebook.
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‘what is life, if full of care, we have no time to stop and stare’
W. H. Davies
Today has been lovely, we went out to see an exhibition and decided to stop and have an ice cream in the park. The sun was shining and it was just nicely warm, there was a sensory garden with large leaved plants and seed heads, the sky was dotted with fair weather clouds and the Rowan trees were full of berries. Dogs were barking off in the distance. The world was just right. I closed my eyes and suddenly I felt like I had been transported to my childhood. It was the 1960’s again before I knew about politics and anger, before I has heard of wars and revenge. I relaxed! Like a sunny Sunday afternoon in the park I played in as a child. No thought of what I have to do next. No time constraints. No I’ve got to be somewhere now. Wonderful.
Moths are not as common as they used to be, like many insects they are in decline. I rescued this one from our bathroom yesterday. Released into the back garden. I hope it found a safe haven.
Moths and butterflies are important creatures, they help fertilise flowers and often their 🐛 caterpillars are food for birds. Like everything else in an ecosystem butterflies and moths play an integral part. Without one part others may fail. The same is true of other ecosystems throughout the world. I hope the people of the Earth can sort things our before it’s too late.
Mallaband-Brown