Every year I am eagerly looking for a little creature that I first met in France, and then – in September 2022 it visited my own garden!
The Hummingbird Hawkmoth. When I first saw it in that European garden many years ago, I thought it was a hummingbird – but knew it couldn’t be… So fast, so energetic and so beautiful.
Then a couple of these fasciating creatures visited my garden, 2022 and 2023. Nothing last year…I even planted this particular salvia to make them come back to me.
Then suddenly, last week, when we had a spell of summer again – I saw one of them in my Buddleia! The salvias were almost gone, so I really had given up hope for this year too. It was too dark for photos though – you have to make do with the old ones.
Little things – they make me happy. And – we should never give up hope, should we?
Tina asks us to post on the classic Aesop fable ”City Mouse/Country Mouse”. If you’re unfamiliar with the story, its moral is that no matter how appealing someone else’s life may seem, there really is no place like home. (That is what Dorothy, in The Wizard of Oz, famously said too)
I love visiting interesting big cities with all their possibilities for
culture
and architecture,
and thriving technology, like the Shinkansen in Japan.
But – as much as I love this, there are always crowds, all these busy people that never let you sit alone and contemplate. Each single person can make a wonderful meeting – but crowds…
So, after every trip to a big city, I am completely happy with coming home. Musing in my own little corner of the world. I guess this is what most of us feel. Balance is the word.
Crowds of flowers are OK with me – a morning in my garden makes my heart melt. The simple things are the best.
And a walk with Milo a silent Autumn evening, like today’s (exactly this minute when I am posting) Autumnal Equinox, has my heart as well.
Then, about the mouse… I could not find one, but maybe two very good mice catchers might do?
We hope you’ll join us this week, remembering to link to Tina’s post in addition to using the Lens-Artists Tag to help us find you. Many thanks to all who participated in last week’s Longing challenge, by Egidio. We enjoyed all of your creative and very varied responses. Now we are excited to announce next week’s guest-host: Joanne of Joanne Mason Photography, we hope you’ll join us again then. Until then, stay safe and be kind.
September is the first Autumn month, and a long warm Summer is drawing to its close. We’ve had a glorious time – a bit too hot for me, but bright, cooler mornings and evenings.
We have spent extra much time at our summer house with children and grandchildren. Precious days to remember as cold and darkness is arriving.
We haven’t had any rain for two months, so my garden is dry and most flowers are gone. These are some that still were here a couple of weeks ago, but most of them have now given in.
I have been waiting for the lovely hummingbird hawkmoth – and yesterday it arrived! No pictures though – but I hope to see it again another day this week. Have a great day!
Tina starts this week with another of her wonderful quotes – this time from Mahatma Gandhi:
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
Through my whole life, I have strived to take good care of and preserve the things I love. When it comes to humans, people I love, it becomes more difficult. We don’t live forever. Photos are essential of course, but to me, also living things I have received or inherited from them.
The white geranium above, was one of the flowers in my grandmothers windows. In Sweden we have a long tradition of keeping geraniums in our homes – indoors and outdoors. My grandmother taught me everything about them, and I inherited all of hers when she died in 1988. Soon I excelled in propagating them from cuttings, and outdoors they thrive the whole summer.
Our National Painter, Carl Larsson, often used his family and home as models for his pictures. The Flower Window is maybe a favourite with most Swedes.
Our summer house is a haven for the whole family – and the old sallow was the warden tree. It was believed to be at least 200 years old. Last year it didn’t make it through the heavy storms, but luckily a sapling survived at its feet. We were so happy. When we arrived early this spring though, the sapling too had fallen in new storms. And maybe, because it no longer had the support of the mother tree.
I was devastated, and so were all of us. I decided to gather some of its twigs and take them home, ”Live!” I whispered… when I planted them, and at least one of them does. I am hoping for more.
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet.
– Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare
I often fall in love with roses, and would love to have more of those. Google is a good friend when my books are too old, and I found a good youtube clip that showed me how to take cuttings. So, nowadays, I don’t have to double expose my rose photos to see more of them! And I can give new roses away as presents too. This yellow rose for example. I now have three of them.
I just could not resist picking something I have learned over the years, ever since I was a child. It still gives me so much joy and satisfaction. It’s a celebration of life. My whole house and garden are filled with plants and flowers, and many of them are gifts from the start, or inherited. So, in fact they are great great grandchildren to the original ones.
Tina wants us to show some of the things we’ve learned about photography or any other subject. How do we learn it – by doing, from classes, or online, or through working with others? Please be sure to use the Lens-Artists Tag with your responses and to link your posts to Tinas’s original one.
Last week Egidio took us Into the Woods for some Forest Bathing. I enjoyed all of the wonderful responses I could read. Our summer house does not easily allow us an internet connection… On Saturday, August 2 at noon Eastern Time John will be hosting our next challenge. Many thanks to Tina for this challenge Lens-Artists #358 – Live and Learn
Big and
small
I love them all!
Leya 
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