Thank you to Tina Schell of Travels and Trifles, host of this week’s Lens-Artists Challenge, Favorite Images of 2021.
First and foremost, let me begin by wishing everyone a Happy and Healthy New Year. As always, the turn of the calendar page to January 1st brings with it an opportunity to begin anew – having learned lessons, accomplished some of our goals, or perhaps having simply survived to start a new day. Whatever our thoughts about the year just passed, we once again have a chance to make the new one even better. — Tina Schell
Without further ado, here are self’s favorite images of 2021:
Despite the pandemic, self managed to do quite a lot of things in 2021.
For the WWE Challenge, hosted by Jez, self picked an image from this past summer. California was slowly opening up after more than a year of lockdown. Self drove to the central coast for a change of scene.
Long ago, son was a student at Cal Poly – San Luis Obispo, so self headed there and spent a blissful few days visiting old haunts.
The garden’s pretty much done with flowers. Except for the euryops in the backyard. It started blooming BIG TIME about a week ago.
They are such homely flowers, but wow. This bush. It is monstrous. And the flowers have a sort of silky texture. Which isn’t the case with most euryops.
Much thanks to Cee Neuner for her Flower of the Day (FOTD) Challenge!
Backyard Champion, Reliably blooming year after year!
Still playing catch-up with the PPAC Challenge! Self spent last weekend in Carmel. One of the main purposes for the visit — aside from meeting an aunt she hadn’t seen in 20 years! — was seeing Robinson Jeffers’ Tor House, which had just re-opened for tours. Self is a lover of gardens, and the garden of the Tor House has been featured in several gardening books she owns.
To get to it from the north (the San Francisco Bay Area), you take 101 south, then 85, then 17 north, and finally pass through Salinas. Driving the 25 miles through Salinas to the Carmel turn-off will take almost an hour, because this area has perennial stop-and-go traffic. You will see fields, many fields! All in all, the drive took self almost 3 hours. She arrived about 15 minutes before the 1 p.m. tour she’d signed up for.
The tour of house and tower takes about an hour. Our guide was David, and he was really good. It will make you weep when you learn that Jeffers bought his lot for something like $200.
The views from Hawk Tower, right next to the house, are spectacular. Watch your step, the stairs are very narrow.
To think Robinson Jeffers built the house and tower all by himself! Tours cost $12.
The house is truly unique. Don’t miss, if you’re in the area.
(1) Show something starting with a “T.” See below: Trellis
Gamble House, Palo Alto
(2) Show a favorite that starts with a “T”: Christmas TREE.
(3) Show a Top of a Tree: Monterey Pines grow in Fowey, Cornwall, who would have thought??? The story goes that Fowey Hall used to belong to an old sea captain who traveled to California and brought Monterey pine seeds back with him.
Self is waaaaay behind but she’s still manfully posting. Someday she will catch up.
For this PPAC Challenge, self wanted to focus on outdoor art.
Stanford campus is full of outdoor art, but this one, in a grove of oak trees near the entrance to the Anderson Collection, really spoke to her.
Reaching Toward Warmer Suns by Kiyan Williams
This one’s just outside the de Young Museum café, in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. She doesn’t know who the artists are. An interview with the designer of the sculpture garden talks about the concept of the design, but not the individual artists whose works are pictured, which is a crying shame.
Finally, a little garden shed in a very wee garden store in Woodside. Self will just keep the name of the store to herself for now, but it’s been featured in Architectural Digest, and ever since then, it’s been impossible to find parking, unless you go right at store opening.
The minute California started coming out of lockdown, self threw a few clothes into her car and drove south, listening to The Bangles and Wilson Phillips on her car radio. (“Someday somebody’s going to make you want to turn around and say goodbyeeeee!”). She passed all the old, familiar sights: Paso Robles, Atascadero, San Miguel, San Luis Obispo!
Posting this for the Past Squares challenge, hosted by Becky at Life of B.
Kanlaon 