This afternoon, light streaming through living room window. 

Autumn and all is gold.

 Lovely time of the year. Walks through suburban streets lined with crimson and gold robed trees - filtered sunlight soft and warm. The calendulas are blooming in the garden, so I collected the petals, dried and steeped them in jojoba oil for over a month. Then the petals were strained through a fine sieve, squeezing out as much golden oil as possible;  the liquid funneled into a small amber bottle with dropper.  The calendula smells faintly citrus, with a woody, musky undertone and colours the jojoba oil a golden yellow. Feels divine on the face, glides smoothly and doesn't clog the pores. Calendula flower is known to soothe and heal skin and has been used for ages as a magical herb. One old legend claimed that, if a young woman touched fresh calendula flowers with her feet, she would be able to understand the language of birds! Does that count  middle aged women too? 

This must be Liquid gold! 

this morning....

 Protea flower basking in morning light. 

The petals are as soft as velvet. 

An absolute miracle of nature.

Backyard scenes as the year winds down.

Autumn feels like she has arrived.

 

 

Seeing as we had to leave my last hand made garden trellis behind when we moved, I got around to making another today. This time with some experience under my belt, the process was easier. I made use of some pruned branches of plum sapling and cotoneaster and after about two hours it's nearly there. It will look a treat smothered in beans and flowering plants.

This backyard was a sorry neglected space when we first moved in , however, in six months a transformation is already taking place. Where there were bare garden beds are now flowering herbs, massive rhubarb, tomatoes a plenty and a sprawling pumpkin vine. Baby lettuces, a globe artichoke in its infancy, chives, oregano, borage , nasturtium and cosmos. Maybe the most satisfying thing of all is when not only the bees, but the blue banded bees visit as well.