Happy Valentines Day

Hearts Popped Up All Over

Love to All ❤️ 💕 

By the Way…

Away

I am not by my computer, on which are my trip photos, which is is why posts stopped temporarily. 

Here is a morning view as the sun rises.

Garden Walk

 Clicic Grounds

The clinic is situated on a site of "intersecting earth energy lines," and it gets its water from a mountain spring (which means it is structured water and very healing). This particular area has been settled for thousands of years, with artefacts from ancient Celts and Etruscans found there. Ancient peoples, including early Christians, were much aware of healthful sites and waters, and built their homes and worship structures on or by such sites. The church in Santa Maria was built over such a site. 

The grounds of the clinic use the old stumps for sculpture and decorative purposes. 

Old stumps among the chestnut trees

Old Stumps with decorations

Old stumps growing new trees

In many places we saw these puffball bushes. They caught the light quite beautifully.

A chestnut still in its protective outer shell. How would you like to harvest  thousands of these by hand before gloves were invented?

Old stumps made sculptural

Old stumps from trees that grew through the stone walls that line this area.Trees are tougher than rocks here.

Old Stump Man

Convoluted old stump. This shows how trees tried to keep growing despite being cut down any number of times.

Old Stump brothers. You have to look hard, but they are there.

Old Stump decoration

Old Stump cousins

Interesting bits in nooks

A sculptural piece by an old stump

Rocks on an old stump

An old stump that was once a magnificent tree

No rainbow needed; gold in an old stump

The garden path among the old stumps

In the Mountains

 Graubunden

For the next several posts, I will share some of the photos from our week in the mountains. 

These mountains are very sharp and jutting.

Habitations are nestled into valleys between the peaks. A few hardy souls build on the precipitous slopes.

This was the morning view from our balcony.

Doesn't this look like normal food? It wasn't. Nearly all of the food was vegetarian, some was vegan, and  there was no gluten or cows' milk or sugar anywhere, and very little meat to be found the whole week of three meals a day. But we did eat mountains of vegetables of all kinds in various creations. The cook was quite excellent. This dessert was called "chocolate pudding." It wasn't. And yes, there were precisely one and half blueberries adorning the dribbles.

Every afternoon after diagnostics and treatments, we went hiking. 

Almost every day, we ended up or started on this path to the little nearby village of 

Santa Maria. The health clinic where we stayed was around a couple of sharp bends in the narrow road up the mountain, away from the the towns.

Some of my photos decided to get out of order, so you need to see context below.
This was little chapel shrine on the path to Santa Maria. Everywhere were such little shines in various states of repair, and with various qualities of interiors. Most had some frescos, or remains of them.

Looking toward Santa Maria

This is the exterior of the chapel above.

These little chapels often had a gate in front, not necessarily locked. Note the construction of this one from rebar. The roofs of chapels, houses, and most edifices were slate.

Below this chapel was a chicken coop.

Looking down the mountain into the valley (an upper valley, far above the main valley below) was the town of Castaneda. The word means chestnuts. This whole area was a chestnut growing area. Poorer people used chestnuts for everything, ground into floor, sweetened for desserts, in savoury dishes, and whole roasted. We saw chestnut trees all over.

This is the path below the road. The road is the upper left, and it was that steep.

To be continued....(I am using my computer for this again, after a few years of only posting from my iPad, so I need to relearn the systems.)

Watercolor 546

 Hiking Trail

Winter Returns

After Sunshine

Last week’s sunshine is a pleasant memory. Last night we got snow, not a lot but enough to whiten the landscape. 

But inside, on the stair landing, where it is quite chilly, a brave geranium decided to give us Valentine red blooms to welcome February. (The plants get stressed, but I don’t like to cut them back until the flowers are done, and some are really hanging on this winter.)

I am still awaiting technical help to transfer my trip photos from the camera. What used to work doesn’t any more. Then, when that is done, I will show you the sunshine of last week. 

Watercolor 544

Santa Maria

I am back from a week away in the mountains. It wasn’t a vacation, and now I am doing a six day get-this-stuff-down-your throat cleanse, preparatory to even better stuff. But while we were away we had some free time, so I did a few watercolors from our daily hikes. There was no WiFi there, I had no iPad, so the trusty old camera was put to use again. I plan to share pictures, because it was a very scenic area. Here is a view of what one sees arriving up the mountain on the switchback roads, across high bridges spanning very deep gorges between very high mountains. 

There is actually a village of stone houses and cobblestone paths below that church and tower. You might wonder why anyone would put a village so high up the side of mountain. It has actually been settled from many centuries before the time of Christ. The ancient Celts and Etruscans had habitations there. Again, why? It was because ancient peoples were attuned to energetic places, and this place happens to have very energetic meridians crossing in the area and active springs of healing waters. In our modern and postmodern times people have been so focused on the material and physical that most have forgotten that we and all creation are energetic beings that need to be kept in tune. 

Winter

Welcome

Though we haven’t had much winter, we are getting some snow and cold this year, which is an improvement on other recent years.

On our Welcome sign, I put a seasonal filler, but needed one for Winter. So….

Using an old practice sheet that someone did for a “let’s do art” session…..

……I added this and that to make this.

Welcome Winter

Watercolor 543

From December