mindfulness

Bench for contemplating

~ Eva the Gardener ~ 1 Comment

For my inner eye, I could see this special bench long before it was built. The 80 year old pear tree… Hexagonal bench… View towards the lake… Cup of coffee in my hand… Summer leaves trembling in the faint breeze above my head… YES, this bench was a MUST.

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And one day the opportunity was there. A friends husband do carpenter work as a hobby, and today the whole family came over to build my dream bench.

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Really, P was super professional! He started out in the gloomy noon, with the rain hanging in the air.

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One afternoon later  the sun was shining and the bench was there.

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And of course we celebrated with a  Swedish “fika”! Coffee and homemade blackcurrants pie, a taste of summer 🙂

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Now the finishing job is mine: to paint the bench. But until then, I enjoy the view of it. I have a feeling this will be a favourite place of mine! And if you are inspired and want a bench of your own, P told me he would love to go to another country and build his special bench there (“Spain would be wonderful,” said the Swedish hobby carpenter).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A very Merry Christmas from Eva the Gardener

~ Eva the Gardener ~ Leave a comment

Sun shining, temperature a little above freezing point, red ribbons and Christmas decorations inside and outside – there is an atmosphere of what is soon to become Christmas Eve, the great celebration day here in Sweden.

I hope you will all have a Christmas holiday with lots of peace, stillness, mindfulness and joyful meetings with nature in this freezing season. I wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

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Beauty in the blink of a moment

~ Eva the Gardener ~ Leave a comment

Some wonders of life are visible only if you are present in the “now” of life.

This morning I was up with  the sun and started the sprinkler in the lower part of the garden. I stood there watching the water spraying over the high grass with the sun beams IMG_0868coming in from the side. When the water hits the grass I see a miraculous sight. It is like a little cloud of dust letting go from the top of the grass, flying through the air, landing on the ground.

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What on earth is this? Then I understood. The grass was ripe, ready to let go of its pollen. It just needed a little “push” from water or wind – and I happened to be there right at that moment. It was so so beautiful. I tried to catch it with my camera.

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The pollen dust, like an invisible spirit passing by …

 

 

 

Food for squirrel

~ Eva the Gardener ~ 1 Comment

The “clonk” revealed it.

Some weeks ago I bought a squirrel food feeder (www.vivara.se). The construction is a little box with a windowlike front and a roof or lid that the animal can push up with its’ head to fetch food. I put it up in a birch tree, positioned so I will be able to see the feeder from my window.

Well, the weeks passed and nothing happened. But a friend told me it could take some time before a new feeder is found and accepted by the animal. So I waited. And one day when in the garden I heard the “clonk” sound – wood smashing against wood, the sound the feeder makes when the squirrel drops the lid of the feeder back in place. This was so exciting, finally a squirrel!

I shot a video and extracted some photos from it. Sorry about the quality, but it was shot through the window, so as not to disturb the squirrel.

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Acrobatic snail

~ Eva the Gardener ~ Leave a comment

This morning, after having watered the flowerbed below the veranda, I noticed this acrobatic snail. Perhaps he escaped the water sprinkler by climbing up the name tag stick in the flower bed. And right on this photo he is trying to climb down again …

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Listen to your ants

~ Eva the Gardener ~ Leave a comment

Exactly. Listen to your ants. Have you ever realized it’s impossible to hear the sound of one single ant marching through the forest? But if you bend down over thousands of ants building and repairing their anthill in the warming sunshine of spring – then you can actually HEAR the ants. Try for yourself.

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Decorating for Christmas

~ Eva the Gardener ~ Leave a comment

With less than one week to Christmas, I am full of decorating inspiration. Everyone coming near me will experience that. Even the guys digging in our area for water and sewer cannot escape it 🙂 Every week I serve them a cake for their morning break – just for the fun of it – and today they got a Christmas cake decorated with delicate fir branches sprayed with the finest sugar to make it look like snow. And dotted here and there among the branches were small bulbs of marzipan colored with red eatible cooking color.  And I am so sorry, but I did not take a photo of it, before bringing it down to them, you will have to use your imagination 🙂

For the rest of December I will bring in some decorating inspiration on my blog.

By us here in Stockholm, there have been some cold days. Every morning I feed the birds, and give them new lukewarm water. That means I take away the icy cake that has formed during the night.

I carefully remove it and place it on the veranda. After four cold nights there are now four beautiful round ice sculptures leaning towards the glass wall of the veranda. In the day, the sun reflects in it, and in the night the light from the lamps inside the living room give them a very special glow. A pity there will soon be warm weather again and they will melt. But that is life with ice sculptures … isn´t that the essence of mindfulness: to live in the moment?IMG_0571