Flowers, Raindrops and Wine

The Spring flowers are bursting out now. More Daffodils, Hyacinths and Primulas. Lovely little Violets, buds on Clematis “Freda” and bright blue little Muscari. I love checking on them each day to see how the show is improving.

The sky has been beautiful too. We are lucky to have some lovely tall Silver Birches and a gorgeous flowering Cherry as a backdrop behind ours and a neighbour’s garden.

It rained this morning. The garden needed it and I love to take photos of flowers and leaves with glistening drops. Here’s a few I snapped today.

I saw a Butterfly resting on the house wall but sadly it has a very damaged wing.

Winter takes its toll on the wildlife in the garden but this may have been attacked by a bird looking for a meal. It seemed able to fly even with the damage and was flitting about among the Hyacinths.

You may remember the parsnip wine I am making. It looked very cloudy when I put it into the demijohn to ferment but now it’s clearing nicely as the yeast settles. The bubbles have subsided and soon it will be time to rack it off. That means drawing it off without disturbing the yeast at the bottom. Then it goes into a clean demijohn to finish maturing. Looks promising and I’m confident it will be a lovely golden wine for next winter, if we can resist it for that long!

This is how it looked at first and then how it is now.

So if you’re having a go, I hope by now yours is looking more like the finished product. All it takes is patience and attention to detail while you’re doing the various stages.

Talking of patience, you might recall the landscape painting I put on last time. It was one I had painted with acrylics from a photo I took on a visit to Arley Arboretum. I decided to redo this scene with gouache. A much smaller version. I’m quite pleased with the picture. I think it captures the light through the trees better than the acrylic version.

Here’s the original version painted with acrylics on a canvas board.

Spring is a wonderful time of year. I hope you have the opportunity to see the buds swelling and the fruit blossom preparing to burst out in a couple of weeks time. If you can’t, then here are some buds in my garden. The Lilac flowers just peeping out from the bud and the Pear fattening, ready for lovely blossom.

Stay safe, take care and enjoy the little things if you can. With you again in a few days.