Summer Pleasures

It has always seemed to me that summer really starts sometime around July 1st. Maybe because it's Canada Day on July 1st (that's Canada's birthday--147 years young!) and a public holiday in most places in Canada. It's also my birthday today! By this time of year, the school year feels far behind the girls. The garden is lush and the weather is hot and humid.

Some summer pleasures that I am thankful for today:

♥●•٠·˙ I love being able to walk out the front door and pick a huge number of beautiful serviceberries from one of our shrubs. They are at their peak right now. Meeko accompanied me while I was picking and got the occasional berry (he loves them!) for his companionship. Look at those beauties! For those of you who haven't tried a serviceberry, they look very much like a blueberry but are redder in tone and slightly sweeter in taste. We have several serviceberry bushes and trees in our yard and share the harvest with the birds.

♥●•٠·˙ Last night, Emma and Chloé had tickets to see a live version of the satirical radio show Welcome to Night Vale. My husband and I drove them downtown and decided to have a pre-birthday dinner together while we waited for them. We had a restaurant in mind but it was full so we walked a few minutes and ended up in an area called 'The Village'. Several blocks of the main road are reserved as a pedestrian mall in the summer. It is lined with terraces and decorated with garlands of pink balls (les boules roses). So beautiful. It is a diverse, lively, colourful neighbourhood of Montreal. We live in the suburbs and don't get downtown enough. It made my heart happy to be there.

The pink ball garlands or 'boules roses' kind of remind me of serviceberries. 

♥●•٠·˙ I received some lovely, thoughtful gifts from my family today--many of them from fellow Etsy shop owners. Some of the purchases are still in transit so I will be enjoying an extended birthday when I check the mailbox each day in the next week.

♥●•٠·˙ I am thankful that we have a pool in the backyard. Did you know that Quebec has more pools per capita than almost anywhere else in North America? Odd when you consider how short our summers are. But when the temperature is 32 degrees C (89.6 F) with a humidex of 42 C (107.6 F) like it is today, it is a very nice thing to have. Meeko also is thankful for our pool. He is an avid swimmer. (This is a video of him swimming in my in-laws' pool this past weekend.)

♥●•٠·˙I am thankful that there is a delicious looking chocolate layer cake waiting for me on the kitchen counter that was made by Emma. We will eat it after my birthday dinner which will be cooked by my husband Jocelyn.

I hope that, wherever you are, you are enjoying time with friends, family as well as the pleasures of the season.

Here's a watercolour I did of a serviceberry branch last year. I have it available as a print here.

Berry Bandit

We have a number of serviceberry (amelanchier) shrubs and trees in our yard. They are lovely plants with four seasons of interest (spring flowers, early summer berries, pretty autumn colour and an elegant winter silhouette). The berries are like a blueberry but even better (according to me). As much as I love them, it is a race against the birds to eat any.  One of my favourite Canadian garden writers, Lois Hole, wrote of the 'bird tax' you need to pay when you grow any berry-laden plant in your yard. So true.

There is a large serviceberry in front of our living room window and it's hosted a bit of a who's who of our backyard birds in the past few days.  I've seen American goldfinches, house finches, cedar waxwings and many robins. I was really lucky to get a number of shots of this young robin.

The above photo kills me. Doesn't he look absolutely amazed by the feast that surrounds him, as if he doesn't quite know where to start? "Wow! Am I ever glad Mom and Dad live here."

I took the photos by removing the living room window screen and sitting on the floor. My constant companion Meeko sat beside me (of course) but was very quiet and didn't scare the robin.  My robin friend certainly provided enough poses for me to try another bird painting one of these days. I like the pose below probably the best.

Despite all of the bird banditry, we did manage to pick a few for ourselves.  I made this wonderful salad with mesclun from our square-foot garden with some serviceberries thrown in for taste and colour.  (If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you will have already seen the photo.)

This week has been broken up with lots of taxi driving of my two daughters who are now both officially on summer vacation, but I managed to finish one painting.  I painted one of the French breakfast radishes from our garden. I wonder if they call them that in France? It's the first time I've used handmade Twinrocker watercolour paper: both Geninne and Diana Sudyka recommended it to me. Just the deckles alone make me swoon. It was lovely to work with and this particular paper has one hot-pressed side and one cold-pressed side. Very nice paper. (Emma picked out the radish-coloured nail polish for my thumbnail.)

French breakfast radish:  Watercolour on Twinrocker paper

And I started another painting of a serviceberry branch.  The past two days, I've been painting slowly with many interruptions--to the point that the berries have been ripening in in my studio.  Note the difference in colour between the painting that I started two days ago and the the branch. The berries start out a mottled yellow-pink, kind of like an apple, and then they become red and then red-purple. I'll try and finish the painting tomorrow and then I can reward myself by eating the berries, while they are still good. :)

Serviceberry painting in progress (on Twinrocker cold-pressed paper)