Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #63 – Magical – My Magical Garden

Everything is made out of magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden – in all the places.
Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

I read The Secret Garden as a young woman, and over the years it has occupied an enchanted and magical place in my heart. Now Autumn has arrived here, where I live in Sweden, and that means There’s a magical tie to the land of our home, which the heart cannot break, though the footsteps may roam. – Eliza Cook.

But Magical can mean so many different things to everyone of us – At Lens-Artists, we have already had Magical Light as a theme, (last year) but this time it is all up to you! What is Magical to you? People, places, things, nature, adventures, moments… – this week we are looking forward to having some of Your magic!

As usual – click on the images to enlarge.

The magical, supernatural force that is with us every second is time. We can’t even comprehend it. It’s such an illusion, it’s such a strange thing. – Anthony Hopkins

Picking plums today – waiting for the lovely Comma to finish basking on my ladder…

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

An oil painting can, maybe, make the magic last forever…

Garden as though you will live forever.  – William Kent

 

Beauty surrounds us, but usually we need to be walking in a garden to know it – Rumi

Poetry is a fresh morning spider-web telling a story of moonlit hours of weaving and waiting during a night. – Carl Sandburg

I am sure there is Magic in everything, only we have not sense enough to get hold of it and make it do things for us
Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden 

Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too? – Douglas Adams

– But there are, Fairies dancing in my garden.  Contemplate the lovely writer Roald Dahl’s words:  Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.

 

Thank you for all the wonderful silhouettes for Patti last week! If you haven’t seen her beautiful post yet – please pay her a visit!

Have you seen these:

A lovely first time, Welcome Carolyn – of Carollynnlife.wordpress.com – by the waterside

Smruti gives us a true silhouetted philosopher

Oneletterup is ever so mysterious this week…

And a first time Welcome, for Pam of i choose this, with beautiful beach shots

 

As always, Amy, Tina, Patti and I hope you will join us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday Photo Challenge – Focus

These early Autumn mornings often bring dew and grey skies. In my old apple tree I found triple spider webs behind each other – where was I to set the focus?

Frank from Dutch goes the Photo’s Tuesday Photo Challenge: Focus

Lens-Artists Challenge #57 – Taking a Break

Once a year, go somewhere you have never been beforeDalai Lama 

Tina allows us all to take a break this week, and I am just back from a lovely break together with my family. The best way for me to enjoy life!

We went to Denmark this weekend, the whole family, and watched the Danish wake-board championships together with many enthusiasts.

The weather was great, and the competitors skilled.

The only means of transport needed in summer!

Afterwards we decided to go for the sand sculpture exhibitions – and they were spectacular too. But, what I enjoyed the most, was being together with my children.

Find what brings you joy and go there. –  Jan Phillips

On coming home this afternoon, I walk in my garden, among the flowers, listening to the late summer fluttering of tiny wings.

The Painted Lady is watching me, closely.

When she turns around, I admire her intricate outfit. And I feel good.

 

Welcome to join in the challenge!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday Thoughts – Garden News

So far this Spring and start of Summer has given the ideal weather for the garden: Raining during the nights and sunshine during the days. Such wonderful difference from last year’s extreme heat. Come along for a short walk!

 

These are only some of my flowers – but I am so glad they survived last summer’s heat! I adore the little rain gauge my son bought for mother’s day.

My wild roses were planted maybe 20 years ago – I got them from a friend who in his turn had got them from a little old lady in a forest cottage.

I love those little ones – a sea of pink! If you study the bumble bees below, you will understand how small these roses are.

This year, the Painted Lady, being a long-distance migrant, caused the most spectacular butterfly migration observed in Sweden.

Each year, it spreads northwards from the desert fringes of North Africa, the Middle East, and central Asia, recolonizing mainland Europe and reaching Sweden and even Svalbard. In some years it is an abundant butterfly, but never as early as this year. I usually see them in my Buddleijas in late summer.

This year they migrated in millions, and Gotland, our biggest island, received more than 6000 of them in some hours. In my garden now, I have hundreds of them. Some battered and torn – but who wouldn’t be after such a flight!

 

Macro Monday

Walking in my garden is such a joy right now – enough warmth and just enough rain has made it into a dream compared to last summer. I am very grateful, and so are the insects, the birds and the hedgehogs…