I am enjoying being home this morning! June 21st, the summer solstice.
I treated myself to some quiet time in my garden retreat.... just outside the studio door. This is a place of cool breezes and birds visiting. I wrote in my journal, read about Manet's still-life paintings and enjoyed a cup of coffee. [There is definitely a nice side to loosing one's day job!]


My silent companion, now twice mended, a little praying angel stands above an ornamental sweet potatoe vine.

Across the yard, in the sunshine of a layered vegetable garden, things are growing nicely. Small cucumbers growing almost before my eyes!

My first year to grow cherry tomatoes. They look so cute all lined up on the vine!

An heirloom variety, Anais noir, (or pineapple) tomato has grown a great deal while I was gone!

We are having hot summer weather now, I don't expect to have leaf lettuce much longer but was able to fill my salad spinner with enough for a large salad tonight!

This is Lunarose, the midsummer fairy doll I finished today. She flies around gardens in the moonlight, sipping dewdrops and looking for the perfect rose!

[I'm sorry to only have a scanned image....I have some really cute ones on her in flight, but we've had some technology changes with the computer/printer system since the last time I uploaded digital photos...I can get it into a viewer, but not a file for saving and using on my blog....oh, well! (I'll post those whenever I do get it "worked out")] She is sparkly and shimmery and is very proud of the tatooed rose vining its way around her left ankle. (May be visible in a "flying" photo!)

Lunarose is going to a new home this evening....at our

DQS* Summer Solstice party to welcome the fairies back for the summer....she is going home with Lizzzzy as this doll was made for her in our doll swap!

* DQS is a small group of friends, all of whom used to hang out at my quilt shop....one of our sons called us the "dead quilter's society" (after the movie with Robyn Williams, "Dead Poets Society") Lizzzzy had jokingly commented that perhaps we are also the Drama Queen Sisters....take your pick!

Looking for ways to celebrate the solstice....maybe watching the movie, "A Midsummer Night's Dream".






Mr. Pear is home with bronchitis...resting in bed and taking his Rx.....but I have to share the computer with him (glad to of course!) He works on-line.....

So this will not be a long post.

I went to the farmer's market and bought a lovely bouquet....tried to post a photo of it, but it wouldn't load onto the computer....the flowers (bouquet) are the beginning of my summer solstice celebration. I will try to get them posted eventually.

In the meantime, I had been reading the early months of Daisy's blog....(what she posted before I had been reading blogs).
She wrote about loving art featuring windows. She collected art postcards on this theme. I love it too, and decided to use a painting for this post since my bouquet photo wouldn't co-operate. (I may do a watercolor of the bouquet and can scan that later)
This is a Salvador Dali painting.....I think it says a lot!