"In May"...

"Yes, I will spend the livelong day

With Nature in this month of May

And sit beneath the trees and share

My bread with birds whose homes are there,

While cows lie down to eat, and sheep

Stand to their necks in grass so deep,

While birds do sing with all their might,

As though they felt the earth in flight" ~William Henry Davies "In May"

Wishing you a beautiful beginning to my favorite month of the year... xoxo

Nature Walk...

It has been awhile since you came on my daily Nature walk with me... so many beautiful things God has created... let's just walk in silence and savor the beauty of all He has given us...

I hope you enjoyed yourself... let's walk together again... soon... xoxo

A little fairy~tale for you...

Do you believe in fairies?... I do... Monday I drove down the back winding road, and along the little country lane to one of my favorite little out of the way shops... here, fairies and elves live amongst the plants and flowers for sale... of course some had to come home with me! ...

Did you know ...

A beautiful fairy is reading from a book of Fairy Tales to a sweet little bunny and teeny fairy who is holding up the book for her..., a little toadstool close by...

Fairy~bunny seems enthralled by the fairy tale...

Would you like to know what it says? ...

"The woods are full of fairies,

The trees are all alive,

The river overflows with them,

See how they dip and dive!

What funny little fellows,

What dainty little dears,

They dance and leap,

And prance and peep,

And utter fairy cheers" ~Unknown xoxo

Everlasting Flowers... Everlasting Love ...

I inherited many beautiful things from my mama... not just material treasures that belonged to her, but wonderful traits from her heart and soul... she passed away almost twenty~eight years ago... much too young... and I miss her so... I do know though that she is always close by me, in my heart and at my side... one of my most precious possessions that was hers is this beautiful classic "Anne of Green Gables" ... gently faded and worn... yet still full of the love of my mama ...

When I received it, as I gingerly opened the pages, to my joy and delight was a beautiful flower my sweet mama had pressed... sooo very long ago... I am quite sure it is a Larkspur, one of my very favorite old~fashioned blooms... my mind drifted off today to my beautiful mama, reading one of her favorite books as a young girl, and carefully pressing a delicate flower out of her mama's (my grandmother's) cottage garden... just like my mama's love, this dainty flower will never fade... it must be handled with care... like life itself, it is very fragile...

My mama instilled in me and my sisters at an early age, her love of all living things, and taught us to love and take care of them... as little girls, my sister Jill and I would gather the spent rose petals from our mama's gorgeous rose garden... she would give us little snippets of lace and net and silk ribbons from her sewing basket and Jill and I would create pretty little sachets out of the petals... laying them amidst the net, then gathering them up and tying them with ribbons and lace... preserving their Heavenly scent and dried blooms... we were creating "Shabby Chic" treasures long before Shabby Chic was cool! ... this love I inherited from my mama continues to this day ... I love all living things, and preserve many of the flowers I now grow... I have two larger flower presses and one teeny little one, which I adore, that I use when I have an itty~bitty little flower, such as a Heartsease, to press...

Here are some of my flowers I pressed from last Spring... awaiting their turn at being made into a pretty bookmark, picture, put in my scrapbook... there are so many things you can create with these beauties... I also collect vintage flower frogs, and have shown some of my little growing collection in with my pressed flowers... the purple one below is pressed glass and over 90 years old... it was originally clear glass that many years back, but the glass contains manganese, which makes it turn the spectacular color of purple it now is... the longer it sits in sunlight, the deeper purple it will turn... (manganese was no longer used in the glass after about 1915) ...

There are so many flowers that press well ... below are a few of my favorites, along with some of my metal spiked flower frogs...

Purple and flowers just go together ...

Pretty crab apple blossoms, cherry blossoms, and purple flower...

Autumn leaves also press very well... here are some of my favorites I gathered last year up Mueller Park Canyon nearby... the pretty amber colored flower frog is carnival glass and belonged to my mama... it always held fresh roses lovingly gathered from her gardens... and placed about in our home...

I also preserve flowers a number of other ways... some I just hang upside~down to dry, some I place in silica gel in tightly covered containers, some in plain old sand in covered containers, some placed on screens to dry... there are lots of easy ways to preserve your favorite blooms... (unfortunately, I can no longer have dried lavender because of my allergies... and I so love it's Heavenly scent)...

These roses were in my friend's garden last year... we walk past her home every day on our Nature walk... they had frozen from the bitter cold last fall~early winter... I snipped them just "as~is" and placed them on a screen for several days to completely dry out, then put them in a pretty jar... Nature's own "freeze~dried" flowers...

When the blooms are almost all spent on my miniature rosebushes, I snip the flowers off and also lay them on a screen in our garage to dry out... they look so pretty in a jar, or in this case, scattered about the bottom of a glass cloche...

Here are more of my miniature roses in a pretty little apothecary jar... (the gorgeous postcard in my flower frog is from Heather Bullard's shop) ...

However I choose to preserve the beauty of blooms, I find peace and contentment in doing so... it costs me nothing... just my favorite flowers and my time... if you do not have a flower press, a large book will work just as well... take a walk with Nature on a dry day... pick your flowers about mid~afternoon, when they are in full bloom and free of moisture from rain or dew... be sure to press them promptly on your return so they do not wilt... I leave mine for about two weeks, undisturbed... then, just like something delightfully magical, they become truly everlasting... and carry sweet messages of eternal love... xoxo

"To see the world in a grain of sand

And Heaven in a wildflower.

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And eternity in an hour" ~William Blake

The Good Earth...

This Thursday, April 22nd is Earth Day... founded in 1970 "to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's environment"... being the Nature lover that I am, I thought it would be fun to show you some of my favorite pictures taken over the last year of a number of reasons why I so love this beautiful planet we all call "home"... this is the home of "Bebe Squirrel"... in the large old Maple tree down the lane where we take our Nature walk each day... surrounded by pretty Forsythia blooming right outside her front door... all photos were taken by "Moi", either on our Nature walks or at our home... I hope you enjoy these!...

"Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the Earth are never alone or weary of life" ~Rachel Carson ... xoxo