Nature's Beauty

Portal to the Equine Soul

Autumnal Sunset

The gentle eye of the horse, where one can almost see into its very soul. The blazing colors of a gorgeous autumn sunset, skies painted for us as the world slumbers.

Nature's beauty surrounds us all.

Autumnal Sunset was the wonderful setting sun we viewed this evening. The image captured the colors perfectly with absolute no enhancement.

Beautiful November Day

Baby Tomatoes

November Sun Halo

What amazing images my new camera captures, like the fine hairs on a baby tomato. After spending glorious time searching out nature's beautiful November details I turned to walk inside at the close of day. What my eyes beheld was the setting sun framed by a beautiful halo. This stunning halo was created by refraction of sunlight through 6 sided ice crystals in a thinly covered sky of cirrus clouds. Even at the close of seasons beauty can be found!

On the First Day of Christmas...

Fountain of the Ancients

Prince of the Kitten Clan


Mossland, Realm of the Fairies


my true love gave to me...a Canon G11 camera. And what an amazing camera it is! The stunning detail it is able to pick up is fantastic! Far more than my naked eye can see! I have been eagerly working my way around inside and out photographing beautiful details of the many moss and lichen covered rocks, trees in varieties of Paper Birch, Pines, Balm of Gilead, & Cedars, late autumn plants & mosses, plus our variety of animals to build up a wonderful image library for future art projects. And when snow falls there will be snow laden trees, snow flakes, snow sparkles, crystal icicles, snowscapes!

The three images above are a small sample of the many captured today.

Fountain of the Ancients is a beloved fountain beautifully aging in the greenroom. Little birds have said it is the ultimate avian bath when placed into the side courtyard during summer.

Prince of the Kitten Clan is of Prince, one very brave and confident kitten who believes he truly is of royal blood, and thus should be treated so by his older cat and human subjects. Silly kitten!

And Mossland, Realm of the Fairies is a soft, tiny, 4 inch island of beautiful green moss covered in a forest of stunning orange red spikes. This beautiful miniature island is growing in the center of an enormous grey boulder forever resting on the pasture's edge.

Pumpkin Today, Pie Tomorrow

For many years it has been a Thanksgiving tradition for me to create our homemade pumpkin pies. The word create was chosen because I would carefully select the perfect golden orange pumpkin harvested from our fall gardens, then clean, carve, cook, and puree it. Creamy white goat's milk from our Alpine does blended into the fresh puree, along with farm fresh eggs with rich golden yolks, sugar, and traditional spices of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves. This delightfully smelling mixture was then poured into glass dishes carefully lined with handmade dough. After baking, beautiful rich colored, aromatic spiced pies were delivered from the oven with crusts that flaked and melted in your mouth.

Tomorrow the above pumpkin will begin this traditional journey. And even though the locally raised pumkin was not grown in our garden this year, I am positive it will yield the same deliciously flavored pies as the pumpkins before it.

November Gardening

Rose Fountain

November Jalapeno Peppers

What better way to start a wonderful day than to open a door to greet the warm sun, view the beauty of lush green plants, and inhale the blissful scents of a flowering rose. All this and more from the humble greenroom.

For us the greenroom is a wonderful thing. A Northern Minnesota growing season is very short, so planting too late in an outside garden may create beautiful plants right up to the first killing frost but nothing to harvest. Planting earlier is not often an option either as late frosts, very cold or frozen ground, and even possible snow prevent seeds from germinating and may kill or rot them before the ground warms well enough to promote growth. What the growing season will be is often a mystery (I'm sure our wild creatures could tell us).

Though it is best to grow most of the vegetables in outside gardens, planting a few of the less hardy, those that require more time to mature, and something we may enjoy fresh late in the season, in the greenroom is wonderful . This guarantees some harvest of fresh produce to pick and beautiful green plants to look at well into the cold winter months. Some of these are happily growing as permanent residents in the greenroom's warm earth floor, Moroccan Mint (for delicious teas), Egyptian Onions (a delicious little bulb), and a beautiful climbing Canadian series rose (for beauty, aroma, and wonderful rose petal water) are a few. Others are contentedly tucked into roomy growing pots, with Jalapeno Peppers, Cherry Tomatoes, Rosemary, Sage, and even Celery included.

How wonderful to have a little Secret Garden growing right in the heart of ice and snow.

Beauty in the Greenhouse

Climbing roses still blooming in the greenhouse

The rose's greenhouse companion Rosemary


Long, long ago...well maybe not quite so long ago (12 years) we installed a wonderful greenroom on the south side of our home. An antique French door and four window panels in the medieval styled great room look directly into this growing area, and one turn of the knob to open the door sends heavenly wafts of moist garden air perfumed by blooming roses, green herbs, and fresh earth drifting through out the entire house. How refreshing during the long, cold winter months in Northern Minnesota.

Arab in Umber

It was good to work at the art table again after finally coaxing myself out of many months of creative hibernation. The pencils were layed out, glass drawing surface was cleaned, art lights were switched on, and the piece that appeared was 'Arab in Umber', a 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" ACEO created with watercolor wash and Prismacolor Pencil.

This original is now available in my Etsy delarenaissance shop ~