It's about Thyme

Greetings again Everyone,

   As a clever little boy told me once years ago, "Summer is tired".  The days are getting shorter and these last days of delicious warm and shimmering blue sky are each one a such treasure. Every day I try to enjoy each gift of the day as if it is pure gold... a dancing butterfly in the fading garden... the trilling of crickets in the warm fields at dusk... the emergence of the harbingers of autumn - the Goldenrod and Asters which are now starting to bloom. Many of the summer birds have either gone quiet or have gone completely as the migration season gets into full swing. Early September is such a poignant time of year.
    The male hummingbirds left on August 25th. The females 3-4 days later. Now we are down to just a few of the juveniles and every day I watch the feeders in the morning to see if they are still here... and more importantly I watch again in the evening. It is such a mystery how these young ones make it on their migrations. What is it like to feel the call to leave when the only place you've ever known no longer feels right? I've been pondering these mysteries deeply as late summer wanes.

  But before we get too far down the road towards autumn, a few more summery Faerie houses are ready to share!  This house is one of my most delicate and "feminine" houses yet!

I made it from the same twigs that were left over after making the Firefly house (though you can barely see them since the house is now covered in flowers!). I loved the whiteness of the twigs and I knew I wanted to use white flowers too. I had to wait a few weeks till the Hydrangeas and Queen Anne's Lace started to come into bloom, but not too late because I wanted to catch the wild Thyme before it was finished with its peak blooming season. 

  Since I wanted the house to be all white, I used the cleanest White Birch bark I could find in my collection. I wanted it to have a rather formal look, and it reminds me a wee bit of a Chateau or something equally fanciful. The doorway has a sweeping arched frame and the delicate latticed windows have a slightly Moorish feeling to them. I was very pleased with how the house turned out with the little turreted tower added onto the side, but it looked a bit lop-sided so I added the Gazebo which has a floating walkway connecting it to the opposite side of the house. The "walls" of the house are the flat heads of the Queen Anne's Lace blossom heads which were placed face-on onto the walls, packed in tightly together so the entire wall is just the blossoms. Finally, I had made two spiraled pieces of bark into a garden bench just to the side of the house.... the spirals held some slumped glass baubles which added just a touch of sparkle to the whole scene.
   

  Since the wild Thyme is growing in a full-sun, sloped area I knew I'd need some stone steps so I had those in my pocket as I set the house up to take the photos. It turned out that I had to work very fast... the Queen Anne's lace flowers wilted very quickly in the full sun!

    I was very pleased with how it came out and would have loved to linger longer with the happy bees but the sun was hot and the blossoms faded and it was thyme to be going! More to come soon!