pottering

it has been bitterly cold here the past week. it feels like the Arctic wind blowing. Last night it got down to minus one. Not much good to be doing anything outside. My seed potatoes arrived last week. I will have to get the ground prepared for them. I am also expecting a delivery of fruit trees sometime in the next week or so.. then the perennials will be here. I order them from The Diggers Club - they sell mostly heritage plants and seeds. I always tend to buy so many seeds then spend weeks getting them all started.
Yesterday, I went to the local markets - I bought some wonderful pottery from my favourite potter, Jenny Kantz - it was a batch of her 'seconds' and for $5 a piece, I couldn't resist buying a few pieces. We wandered about the markets for about an hour, buying a hot coffee, hoping it would warm us up. I also bought a few plants for indoors - having plants inside is good for the air quality - furniture, being made mostly of man-made products these days, produces alot of toxic fumes and indoor plants help to filter our air inside and the faeries love to have them around as well - I just have to keep the faeries happy!

*hellebores or winter rose - these plants were given to me by my friend, Peter. that is what I like about gardeners, they are always willing to share*

when I came home, I pottered in my back garden, pruning roses, picking up the fallen mandarins and gave my Lemon Verbena a good haircut. It is hard to work in the garden when the cold is seeping into your bones. My fingers were frozen. It just was not pleasant at all. All I could think about was the fire that was warming my home inside....This week the irises are starting to poke their heads up out of the leaves, the violets are in flower under my apple tree and my hellebores are flowering prolifically ..

*if you look closely at the photo above, you will see the little finches sitting on the side of the bird bath in the background*
I heard the little finches chirping madly, telling all their friends that there was water in the bird bath. brrr they looked so cold while the madly flew in and out of the water... While I was trimming my feverfew, two little birds hovered around..not scared at all. just sitting there watching me. I love that - it makes me feel that I really am as one with Mother Earth and all her creatures.

I raked all the lucerne mulch back around the gardenias. I came home on Saturday after witches school and the English Blackbird had been having a grand old time, looking for worms and tossing the straw this way and that way, the straw doesn't get tossed into the garden, oh no, it gets tossed all over the pathway...but it is fun to watch the bird having fun.

*~* I hope your day is filled with butterflies, magick, colour & fripperies! ~*~