More shots of April Flowers #OEG Life returns in vibrant abundance!

So here are more shots to document what's blooming and when for this year 2010. Things are quite a bit earlier than last year too! Got some great shots!

The Sweet Cherry Tree

The Daffodil , frontal

Primula, pretty!

Wild Violets near the Compost

Sweet Violet is aptly named!

The Blue Scilia are nearly finished

Finally showing off it's finer details!

These are baby spinach! growing in a planter box on the deck.

And here's the mesclun mix I showed in an earlier post, should be about 2 weeks to harvest now!

So much is happening quickly all around the garden. A new pile of topsoil was dug, delivered and dibbled up this afternoon to cover the damage caused by the dogs, then more lawn seed applied. Supposed to rain next day and a half but not enough for the seed so we'll be watering every other day until the grass gets into good shape! The hyacinth are getting ready to bloom, irises, peonies and other plants are barely raising their heads yet! Thank goodness for the enclosure John built! The dogs don't mind at all and they're less likely to lose their ball!

I hear the Osprey are back at Guelph Lake and getting set to nest at the roadside so we'll be out and about for some shots there soon, depending on weather. Those amazing fishing birds are probably setting up shop at the Shan Dam on Lake Belwood too! Wish me luck!

 

 With love,

...from the garden ;-)

#OEG Our Cherry Trees are blooming!

Here's one of the first shots taken this afternoon of the blossoms that opened this morning!
It inspired me right away to apply it to a card design. Also got me thinking about the potential for pretty coordinated sets specific for weddings, maybe even some ideas for attendant gifts and favors! This could be fun and some of the images I manage to capture just seem to want to be used somehow!

I'll add more photos for as long as I can handle being away from my editing tools!

So up close and personal you can almost smell the cherry perfume;

I call this one Edgy!

This one Peachy!

And this one Details!


Lots more life to share still, the garden is exploding into life, including our veggies, be back soon!



With love,

...from the garden  ;-)

New Spring Gallery opening! #OEG

Spring!
It's really setting in now. Birds are nesting, some chicks like morning doves are already hatched, plenty of other eggs have yet to be laid. I love the spring and there seems to be something new and beautiful in the garden every day.

I've put together a Spring gallery of images at my Blogger site. You'll find a link to it near the top of the blog home page. The link is also built into this post's title. I'll build the gallery to include some of this spring's shots as they come along, currently it features some favorites from last spring.

Some of these images, and other favorites have also been utilized to create products like note cards, t-shirts, Keds shoes, fridge magnets and aprons. Check them out at our Zazzle Gallery ; Our Enchanted Garden

Your support of our work is so very appreciated. Words cannot express the joy I feel when I've learned a special image had touched a heart and triggered pleasant memories for someone. We endeavor to share our shots and our thoughts as a sort of therapy for our world. Nature and the natural world we live in is far too often overlooked and discounted.

Noticing the nature around us, appreciating and even encouraging it to flourish are the first steps in what we can each do individually to help our world.  Our world is an enchanted garden and this author, photographer, artist, gardener and spiritualist is finding the ways and means to remind us all that we are human spirits immersed in a magical world!

With love,

...from the garden

A safe enclosure - for our pups and our lawn! #OEG blog post

If you recall last year's blogs we often wrote about the puppies in the garden and the challenges they provided. Our smallest, Mia is one spunky Jack Russell Terrier and she can jump over tall fences. Daisy the Lab has grown to near her full size, about 100 pounds and her weight alone can destroy new sprouts and delicate flowers. Not to mention the beating our lawn has taken as the puppies grew and romped in the back yard with their friends and foster brothers. Mind you, that can't be blamed on the dogs alone - the weather through the past two winters has provided next to no snow cover to keep the root system of  what was left of our lawn healthy. Needless to say - we needed to find a way to keep the dogs and the lawn safe but also in good shape!

Our solution? We built an enclosure at the end of our driveway and the beginning of the backyard, an area that is covered with fine crushed brick gravel and doesn't get muddy. We already had the gate at the driveway so we simply added a second interior fence and gate that connects at the back corner of our deck creating a huge 25' by 35' enclosed area, lots of room for the dogs to run and play and still do their business while leaving the grass seed some time to grow in this lovely warm early spring weather we've been enjoying!

We wondered, after putting up the new gate - why didn't we think of this sooner? Ah well! We spoiled the puppies with all that room to romp and it was good exercise for them. This summer, once the lawn has had a good chance to grow in, we'll allow the dogs to play on the lawn at controlled intervals, hopefully finding a happy medium for both of what we enjoy in the yard; Our dogs and Our Garden!

With love,

...from the garden

#OEG Spring Greens planted the first week of April!

The garden is showing signs of life and some spring greens planted the first week of April are already up!

A spicy mesclun mix blend in planters on our south facing deck.

Tiny sprouts, these will grow fast!

This view gives you some idea of their size!

21 days to harvest the package says...

Yum!!!

With love,

...from the garden

Our Garden is Giving me the Blues! #OEG

And when our scilia are blooming I don't mind The Blues one bit!

Such tiny clumps of delicate flowers - when they first start growing they look like a clump of crab grass.

I took these shots in between today's rain storms, thinking they may not look as good once they're beaten down with the heavy raindrops and there's even the possibility of hail. Beautiful little parcels of life and color, like these sweet little bells of blue must be appreciated in the now - later they could be gone, such is the fleetingly fickle heart of nature and her synchronistic ways! Something I've come to truly appreciate, as learning to be fully present in the now is a skill I am cultivating while I work with the garden, the camera and nature herself.

My favorite shot is this verticle image above with the focus set on the forefront flower, this is a perfect example of a depth of field shot at close range. It gives a fabulous sense of depth and size even though these sweet little beauties are no taller than 4", or 100 cm for my metric minded readers! This marks the beginning of the flowering in our perennial beds - with the weather playing it's fun tricks I'm certain there will be more popping up all over the property!

There are so many delightful, cheery flowers to adorn our gardens. Which is your favorite of the first flowers of spring?

Stay tuned - planting and sprouting of our vegetables has begun and we're also getting the back lawns into shape again after having been subjected to the pounding of puppy feet for over a year. I will be adding entries highlighting both later today!
Also see Our Garden Blog at http://ourenchantedgarden.net/gardenblog for similar stories and larger format photographs. Do feel free to follow me at Twitter or to become a fan on our page at Facebook if you are inclined. (See this blogs' side bar for links.)There are so many great ways to keep in touch I enjoy taking advantage of the services and learning how they work!  

Cern ... What will we learn? #OEG

Cern ... What will we learn?, originally uploaded by Our Enchanted Garden.

The broad mix of people's reactions to the experiments at Cern and attempts to discover the smallest particles; the Big Bang type of particles that exist in matter!
There will always be controversy and mystique around something with so much potential, so many unknowns.
Some of the graphs, charts and diagrams shown in the media were interesting. I got inspired to play with elements of these digital maps. Symbols representing some of the questions and concerns raised by media and concerned citizens are superimposed over a representation of a photon tracking chart from the banks of video screens at the research facility.
I am curious where the experiments will take our world and ever hopeful we apply it's gifts wisely, generously and with compassion.
It is an incredible time in history to be alive and witness the birthing of such new breakthroughs in science, math and philosophy!
What will we learn?