small miracles

preparing a new solar dye, with a sweet chestnut leaf, dessicated poplar and thistle leaves, digitalis flowers, buttercup and peppermint leaf, the remains of a doronicum flower, soy mordanted cotton

love is black and soft these days

subtle moons as a result of a solar dye

cloth in top image has gone into this pot-of-promise

solar dyeing in action

if you let them the plants will climb indoors

Small Bear has worked wonders in her roof garden, we are all very proud of her

what the snail (or some one else) has done here is beyond my comprehension: a tiny bird bone has been thrust through the cinnabar moth, they have become truly united now

it's a tight fit, but these two have fallen for each other and do not mind sharing small spaces, quite the contrary

happy Rat

the small birds having BigFun on the stairs, hopping down and flying up

having followed their infallible compass these small beings appeared on our doorstep: the more the merrier according to the OldBirdKing

the incredible eating habits of the snail: half of our faithful Shadow dog has vanished!

the march of the tiny toads has once again commenced; a happy event and at the same time for me at least a terrifying spectacle as they are so easily mistaken for a fly or speck of mud* - we see here how small they are, as this one is on my thumbnail - for some reason or other they must cross the footpath in the woods, and no doubt other paths, roads, dikes elsewhere and in doing so countless many are crushed by human feet, bicycle wheels, dogs' paws, cars, tractors....the adult toads made a journey in the opposite direction to mate and procreate a few months earlier on the other side of all of these highways; it is a mystery to me why they should all be travelling back and forth and endangering themselves in this manner, when all of a sudden I realise we humans do that a lot as well: the moving about bit I mean; despite all the risks involved we too think it worth our while to look elsewhere and venture out, I suppose it's all a question of perspective

....and so the dance macabre continues, holding within it a sense of the ludicrous, so I just have to smile with a melancholy heart, a tad sadder, slightly wiser, all in all it has become a bit more bearable after the day full of small miracles....


* and because they are so easily mistaken for a fly, one expects the 'fly' to move as soon as it senses one's presence, but as it doesn't fly up, being a tiny toad it hops at the last possible moment and realizing one's mistake, one has to hop oneself and so find self dancing a strange ziggedy-zaggedy trot on the path and other walkers seeing one from a distance, moving in such an unusual stance must be querying one's sanity, or perhaps they themselves are too absorbed in their own toad avoidance jiggle to notice