Saturday 25 January 2014

Warm Wet January

The temperature is mild as usual in the winter, but it's wetter than usual.  We have lived here for over 10 years, used to the wet winter.  And yet, this winter has been so stormy and a lot of rainfalls that many spots were flooded in this area.  The cray soil doesn't soak all the rain water, which caused the floods.


As I walked by the hedgerows, which contain quite a few ancient trees and shrubs, my eyes were drawn to the other side of the footpath.  It is neither pond nor stream in the picture above, but a long ditch along with the hedgerows.  Some ducks were swimming on the temporal (hopefully!) pond.

At the beginning of the walk I saw a man with a black dog.  He walked much faster than I did; rather, his dog wanted to run, I presumed.  When we ran into each other at a gate led to a meadow, he greeted me warmly and passed through.  But he turned around and said to me, 'Watch out for the puddle in front of the gate!  It was deeper than I expected.  I was kept in the mud up to my knees.  See my trousers'  'Thank you, I'll be careful.'  Indeed there was a big cloudy puddle.  Of course I didn't venture to go into it.  (Though I could've done with my wellies.)


I walked through the marshland.  There is always muddy except for the dry days in the summer.  Some meadow plants were half in the water.  The water was clear, though.  Maybe dragonfly's eggs are waiting silently for the spring under the water.


In the woodland various mushrooms were thriving on the dead trunks or between fallen leaves which nurture them.  Look at the black mushrooms on the dead oak trunk!


Everywhere in woodlands is covered with moss.  Looking at closely, we can recognise moss has also wide variety.

Outside at the edge of woodland there were piles of rose hips still left.  Mild warm autumn produced perhaps sufficient fruits.  The birds were obviously still enjoying the ripe sweet fruits.  I saw a few rose hips pecked by a (or more) bird.


At the edge of a meadow, an apple tree stood.  In the summer it had loads of tiny apples and now all gone.  I heard a bird chirping.  I know that!  Yes, indeed a robin was busily flattering between the branches of the apple trees.  Luckily I could take a picture of it.  But then the tiny bird flew quickly away onto the other higher tree.






Saturday 18 January 2014

Felt Work: Peas in Pods

Finally 'Pea Project' has been finished during the Christmas break.

I bought a bag of colourful natural dyed felt in a organic shop in Germany many years ago; always wanted felt making but no idea how to do it.  

Some years ago, I picked up the felt.  At first I made little balls with warm coloured felt. It was a great fun of rolling a small piece of felt in palms, and a lot of tiny balls popped out from my hands in a short time. After having had enjoyed ball making, I looked at them for a while.  Do they look like peas?

Inspired from overgrown pods in my tiny vegetable patch at a corner of our back garden, green pods were created for the peas.  Four pods with peas were created soon after, but I abandoned them in a drawer because I had no idea what to do with them.

It's time to finish off to decorate these pods!  It was just before Christmas.  I took out some cross stitch threads from my tiny sewing container, and found old white cloth nappies made of cotton 100% in a bag of old cloths for recycling.

Two piece of pea pods work:


'get on with'
(felt, cross stitch threads, cotton cloth, 23x23cm)
Usually I don't use words in my art work, but it was at the end of the year.  So I felt like having a new years resolution.  'Get on with what?' is up to you.


'just being peas'
(felt, cross stitch threads, cotton cloth, 23x23cm)

Wednesday 8 January 2014

Story of my Calendars sent to Germany


Yesterday lovely photographs came through to me vial email from a cousin of my husband who lives in a Bavarian town, between Nuremberg and Munich, Germany.  I was very delighted of her greeting message and the photos.

The beginning was just last month, in December 2013.  She posted a message to me regarding my 2013 calendar, which was shown on this blog on 22.October 2013.  Some of mothers, whose children as well as her child went to a kindergarten in Eichstätt of the State Bavaria, were interested in the calendar.  She asked in the message if I could send some of them to her.

I was very interested in the kindergarten, which their children attended, and searched the website, Waldkindergarten.  Would have been ideal for me when I was a small child!  Children spend their precious time mostly in the nature.  The name of the kindergarten, Spielraum Wald und Wiese, shows that children play and learn through the experience in the wonderful natural space including woodlands and meadows.



Waldkindergarten




photos: courtesy of the cousin and her husband

I wanted to contribute something towards running the kindergarten, and thought. Would it be a nice idea to send my calendars to Germany as a donation.  I suggested the cousin that she could sell the calendar to those who were interested in and the money collected would go straight to the kindergarten.

So, I rushed into packing a small batch of calendars in a parcel and sent the parcel to her, having hoped that it would arrive there before Christmas broke up so that she had time to sell them as Christmas presents.  Luckily she received the parcel in time and could collect the money.  She wrote that the money would be used towards purchasing new materials, which sounded brilliant!  The amount of my donation was small, though, I was glad that it helped a little bit for such a nice kindergarten.  Thank you so much, cousin and her family, as well as those who are involved in the Waldkindergarten!



PS: Ich möchte herzlich danken derjenigen, die die Kalender eingekauft haben.  Ich habe zwar, die Pflanzen bzw. Blätter, die hier in der Gegend, South Wales von Groß Britannien, gezeichnet, und die Namen sind auf Englisch gezeichnet.  Aber man kann ja die Pflanzen auch in Deutschland im Wald oder auf der Wiese finden, außer Englisch Oak.  Auch Oak, Eichen, wird in Deutschland üblich gesehen.  Ich wünsche ihnen, den Kalender durchs Jahr zu vergnügen!