Weekend At The Gardens

Bonsai

Made my way to our local botanical gardens, Matthaei, this weekend. I got married here and I’m a little embarrassed to say this is the first time I’ve been back since then, even though it’s just a 20 minute drive away.  I don’t intend on staying away so long from now on since this is a wonderful resource for me to come and snap my own reference photos for flowers and various plants. To my delight, I lucked up and visited on a weekend where they were having a beautiful outdoor Bonsai exhibit. It brought back memories of a failed attempt to do my own with a little bonsai tree purchased from our local grocery store. It wasn’t until we got home that we discovered that the poor thing was infested. Word to the wise, don’t buy bonsai from a grocery store. Get them from a reputable nursery.

Anyhoo, here are a few photos from my weekend adventure. 😊

Peony

A lovely indoor Koi pond.

Bonsai

This is how pineapples grow. I honestly thought they grew on trees like apples. Learn something new everyday.

This monstrosity is a Peruvian Apple. I suspect you don’t make pies from it.

Furry cactus. That’s not it’s real name, that’s just want I called it. Amazing but creepy.

This is a Sausage Tree…and that’s all that I’m going to say about that.

These purple beauties didn’t have a sign on them so I have no ideal what they are but from the angle I took this picture, you get the feeling you’ve entered the land of Dr. Seus.

African Senna. I have a feeling these will end up in my drawings.

Little Creatures

​This summer has flew by. Already I’m seeing school buses making their way through my neighborhood. August is here and soon the summer breeze will turn into beautiful hues of Autumn leaves. 

This summer I let my little garden bed of herbs run amuck…in other words I’ve been a bit lazy on attending to it. Luckily herbs don’t require too much care. The Lemon balm was forceful this year, pushing the chocolate mint and apple mint to the edge to bust through and climb over the weather worn wood that boxed them in. Good thing I put my sage in a separate container. I allowed the lemon balm to flower for it was far too much for me harvest for tea, hoping that it would bring in a host of bees like last summer but the fuzzy little creatures haven’t made much of an appearance. Instead there are a bunch of these things…

Unfamiliar wasp like insect on flowered lemon balm.

I have no idea as to what they are but they seem to really like the lemon balm. 

A little beetle hanging out on some apple mint.

Weekend Day Trip

Saginaw Chippewa Annual Pow Wow. (Pictures were allowed during the dances.)

My better half and I took a little day trip up to the Saginaw Chippewa Annual Pow Wow this weekend. It’s been years since the last time I had been to one and I just so happened to luck out in discovering that one was coming up. Stepping outside of your comfort zone and allowing yourself to experience another culture without appropriating or denigrating it can be eye opening. The experience was haunting and spiritual. Even long after we had left we could still feel the beat of the drums pounding in our chests and the songs of the singers ringing in our ears. I brought nothing home with me simply because I feel that some things, especially cultural things, just need to be experienced and not always treated as a product. Maybe next year I’ll get myself some jewelry or clothing out of appreciation and to help out another artist. But this time I just wanted to experience the beauty of another culture and take with me nothing more than a memory…and a few pictures. 😊

Crawling Around

Now that the weather is finally warmer on a consistent basis, I’ll have more opportunities to crawl around in my backyard. I’m not so fortunate to have one of those amazing high end cameras to do incredible macro photography with. I’m just working with a camera phone which I’ve been able to get some pretty decent shots, especially for references. I’m sure this shot will find it’s way into one of my drawings. I’m envisioning a busy little bee on top of this dandelion. 🙂

Morning Meditations