The lavender’s fading, but the bees are still enjoying it.
The English word lavender came into use in the 13th century, and is thought to derive from Old French lavandre, ultimately from Latin lavare from lavo (to wash), most likely because crushed lavender flowers would be added to water for bathing, and washing hair and garments. It belongs to the Lamiaceae (mint) family.
These handsome flycatchers have been evident in the garden lately. So dapper!
Ugh. Another one down. I don’t know why there’s a sudden spate of collision deaths, but we need to do something about it right away.
This one’s for A, who loves tiny goats.
(Sketched from Creative Commons images by Greg Schechter and Israel_photo_gallery)
It’s fun when your curiosity leads you to a new food growing in your yard. I saw these little purple fruit and wondered if they were edible — and yes, they are!
Fuchsia fruit can be substituted for berries in any recipe (teas, sauces, ice creams, jelly, tarts, pies, cheesecakes, pavlovas …) The biggest fruit-producing fuchsias are the single petal varieties (which is what we have.) But we’d need a lot more plants before we could count them as an actual food source. But still, I’m delighted with this new knowledge.
We’re enjoying these cheery winter garden visitors.
I’m continuing to work on my sketchnoting skills. During book group I scribble and sketch madly, then next morning I try to pull it all together into a coherent, easy-to-follow summary. It’s an enjoyable challenge.
The tiny but mighty earwig packs quite a pinch. Don’t let one crawl up the leg of your pants.
In honour of Movember, five x 5-minute sketches of facially hirsute people.
There was once a pale yellow bucket hat, whose owner wished for it to be a little more neutral in colour. No worries, said I.
I started first with bleach, then used coffee grounds to dye it, but even though I simmered it for an hour, the result was too pale. It was time to bring out the commercial dyes, of which I have quite a selection. But Golden Brown turned out to be too peach. Chocolate Brown made it too red. Navy + Black produced purple. We are definitely nowhere near ‘neutral’, so it’s going back into the bleach and we’ll try again.
The adventures continue.
