If you saw my little island/giant flowerbed, which is currently filled with an abundance of yellow flowers (yellow Asiatic lillies and marigolds, soon to be joined by yellow day lillies), you'd think that I like the colour yellow. Ordinarily, you'd be right - it's such a sunny, cheerful colour. But right now, not so much. For the past few weeks, this part of the world has been blanketed in cough- and sneeze-inducing pollen. There has been yellow pollen everywhere, getting into my eyes and dust whenever I'm outside (making walking and working in the garden rather unpleasant, instead of enjoyable). The abundance is apparently thanks to the many days of rain we had in the winter months. It's lovely to see so many trees flowering and covered with green leaves, but enough with the pollen, already! We had quite a bit of rain yesterday - hopefully that has washed away the bulk of the powder.
The flowers are looking pretty and very colourful, but weeds are also flourishing because of the recent rain we've had, so I'm going to have to launch a counter-attack. Some neighbourhood cats seem to think my flowerbed is a huge litterbox just for them, which is extremely aggravating (not to mention disgustingly smelly), so I'm also trying to outsmart them. I read something a few weeks ago about using pine cones to keep cats out of gardens, because the thorns hurt their paws, so Jonathan has been collecting pine cones from our backyard to put in the island.
Bruce and I bought "Seeds in a Blanket" two weeks ago and are now waiting to see if it works. The "blanket" is a roll of flower seeds that you unroll and lay on a bed of earth and then water twice a day until the seeds start sprouting. The assortment of flowers are supposed to attract butterflies and hummingbirds. We put it in the sideyard in order to add some colour to that bare spot, but that area is not very sunny because of two big trees, so I'm not sure if the seeds will get enough sun to flourish. Since this is an experiment, I might find another growing spot next year if this one isn't a success. But I enjoy the experience of planting something and waiting to see what happens, so even if this doesn't work, at least I'll have learned something.
We went to the Dogwood Festival with the Jacksons last Sunday morning. The Dogwood Festival (http://www.dogwood.org/About_Us.php), an arts and crafts exhibition/sale at Piedmont Park in Atlanta, is one of the biggest of its kind in this part of the country, according to Bruce. There were some really incredible pieces on display/sale - made me wish we had oodles of money. There were beautiful paintings, photographs, glass lamps and wall hangings, woven aluminium, pottery, jewellery ... among my favourites: paintings of African wildlife by a woman who draws large portraits of different animals (giraffe, zebra, elephant) and then fills them with tiny drawings of everything relevant to that animal. For example, in a close-up of a giraffe's face, which in itself was beautifully done, she drew a small giraffe in one of the eyes, symbolising the mother's connection to her baby, who was reflected in that eye. She drew the trees that the giraffe pulls leaves from for food, aboriginal drawings found in caves near where the giraffes live, a drawing of a lion, which is the main predator of the giraffe ... the details were amazing and beautifully rendered. If I remember correctly, she even made the parchment, on which the animals were drawn, herself.
Another woman painted lovely depictions of people on hammocks, and then took that a step further by attaching the ends of real hammocks to the edges of the painting, so that they looked like they were joined to the painted hammock in her artwork. That's the same sort of theme in another of my favourites, that I've seen before - a husband and wife team combining painting and photography: the husband takes photos (nature shots) and frames them, and then the wife carries the photo outwards onto the frame by painting the same rocks, trees, etc. on the frame. Such a good idea and very well rendered.
The weather made it a perfect day to be wandering around outside - clear blue sky, warm (but not hot) sunshine and a cool breeze to keep temperatures enjoyable. I'm glad we were there in the morning, before it got too crowded. I don't particularly enjoy having to push my way through throngs of people in order to be able to look at art.
I had more thoughts, but I'll save that for another post - this one is already a week late and Beau is nagging me because it's already almost 10:00 in the morning here and we haven't got walking yet.
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