Relaxing At Dacha - Nature in Different Looks

Going to my parents is a total relax for me in a sense of being close to nature. My dear Mum and Dad have wonderful place to be in any kind of days, hot or cloudy. This place is called dacha. And it means a world to me - a connection to flora and fauna, to what nature gives and for what I have to be thankful for. The place my parents own needs loads of care, anyway whatever they are able to accomplish in a year brings much of satisfaction and happiness, I just follow the flow. My and my D could enjoy these sweet raspberries straight away from the bush.

And these juicy berries called "irga'" in Russian, they color your tongue... you know what I am talking about :)

Oh yes, the flowers called after my name "Anyuta's eyes" got a wild card entry this year - self-sown.

A mayor flower with a bee collecting the pollen. Cannot invent a  more summery picture!

Always used to like a blossoming potato plant...

Thanks to my parents once again, but they created a perfect place living for lizards - a pile of stones in front of our dacha house. We saw many lizards during our last weekend stay at dacha and I always associate them with Goffman's tales (though he had green snakes actually).Amazing creatures used to be living close to humans.

This year we have even got some mushrooms, though not good for purpose of eating.

My Mum collected gifts of nature and embellished the house with them in the main room...

and in my and my D's room.

 In the night we had a candle lit dinner as the electricity still hasn't been provided at the area. I don't complain at all. My mum also liked this unplanned Gothic chic. Same flowers looked magical then... Okay, not everything what is candle lit is called Gothic, but forgive me my mood that night, especially after few  glasses of red wine.

Perhaps I will stop here with my last weekend impressions and let you to enjoy, decide, judge, adore, whatever I offered to your attention today. I am still with my parents and will have few more days to soak my native place's spirit for the next year ... I didn't abandon my crochet completely, so will share some small work too later on.

Blessings to all of you and sorry for not being able to check out your blogs! I will do this very soon :) Thanks for all lovely comments you left on my last post- I appreciate you are with me :) Good night, my dears!

Flowers of Parents' Dacha - My Home

Ages.. It's been ages since my last post! The reason is that I went to my native country and dived into all the deals and events here straight away. I was missing my blogger community a lot and I am so sorry for not having time for it. Some of you even contacted me asking if I was fine, which was very pleasant, and thanks so much for your concern! 

Summer has been quite cold here. However my parents have beautiful flowers at their dacha this year. Here are some of them. 

Calendula flowers have layers of petals and I really like the look of them.

Californian poppy. It is open during the day and closes in the evening as if goes to sleep.

This chamomile is a wild plant, and there are many of them in our garden. Wonderful flower!

Delphinium beautifully decorated with stones around - simple yet nice idea.

A single red rose. It looked so touching with the rain drops among the petals.

I hope you all are doing fine and safe these days as I can see that the weather has gone mad in many parts of the world. As soon as I have more of free time I will make more posts with tales about my country, and of course will get back to your blogs, my dears! Last year I made many posts about my trip to parents, here is one of them.

Have a nice summer/winter and enjoy your family time!

Calendula and a Cheshire Heart - Friday Garden

Good evening, my dears! It is late evening here now, I am almost sleeping, as the day has been a little hectic and I'm going to office tomorrow. I was making my D ready for a trip to Rishikesh - a must destination for many tourists who come to India. This is a holy place as well as a place famous for adventurous sports like river rafting, biking and camping. So I wish he would enjoy all these and will have some interesting photos to share. And speaking of me, he promised to take me there too, but this time it was strictly only employees' entertainment. 

So I am being a nice wife, continued my gardening and crocheting, and D, being a caring and attentive husband, brought these flowers from his office yesterday. Calendula was always a necessary  flower at my parents' dacha, I hope to continue this tradition.

 

This type of Calendula has cute fluffy blossoms. They were looking fine today after being planted into a pot...

What I can't say about this one, perhaps it shouldn't have been taken out of the soil while still having flowers. Though I hope it will get accustomed to new environment.

I have no idea how a stripy heart got into a post about garden :) Today was my friend's birthday, so I gifted her a new version of my Cheshire heart - with little bit of beads and sequins. I've gifted already many of these hearts and I enjoy making them a lot, and now to embellish, why haven't I thought of doing it before? "Good thought comes afterwards" according to a Russian saying.

Aha! Now I know why the heart decided to pop up here - it pretended to be a fruit on our citrus tree. How clever of you! The pattern for this heart can be found here.

Now I have to think of what I am going to do this weekend, as my D will not be with me. This is not an issue as soon as you have hobbies and projects in progress. Or friends who might take you out. Let's see how it all goes.

Have a great relaxing weekend wherever you are!

Yellow Marigolds, Bean Pods and Other Veggies - Friday Garden

Hello, my dears! Hope your week has been good and there is such a reason for more happiness - a weekend! My week has been slightly hectic and I have to work on weekend too...Yea...sad :(

Whatever, I am here again with my Friday Garden! Come along, sit on the bamboo chairs and look around.

First you will notice marigolds. They are supposed to be at least three times taller, and flowers - three times bigger, but not very rich soil and hot weather must have prevented them from growing more. There are these yellow blossoms thought which bring joy to the eye in the mornings.

Then you will see the bean pods hanging from the bushes. They seem doing fine, aren't they?

 Now - not exactly MY garden, but some veggies which were planted by my FIL. Happened so that we both have different gardens and each waters his/her own :) The eggplant looks fine, but probably it'll take time till it starts giving flowers.

 Tomato plants are pleasantly green and strong, so I look forward harvesting our own tomatoes in a few weeks. Dreams come true! :)

 The Russian lettuce is finishing the cycle of its development, and we will be able to have our own seeds soon. It grew quiet well this year because I sowed it very early. Otherwise lettuce doesn't appreciate high temperature at all, and the leaves droop straight away under the hot Indian sun.

That's all for today, dears. Tomorrow I am going to take my camera to the place where I have to work this weekend. It has lovely gardens, and that's why I can still bear being there:) Wishing you to have a great, sunny and happy weekend!

Beans, Marigolds and Little Roses - Friday Garden

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The working week is over, our minds are planning something for the weekend, and one of this plans is to simply take a rest and enjoy sunny days. Here they have become really sunny and hot, though nights are still pleasantly cool and slightly windy. In many places over the globe (including my native country) the winter is not willing to give space to the spring and persistently surprises with snow and cold winds.

However, there is a way out. As I am a big fan of the weekends (oh yes!), I thought of making a weekly Friday post about my little Indian garden in order to create a "pre-weekend" relaxing mood for myself and you, dears :)

What do I have in my garden these days? Same favorite plants, which as I have noticed, grow best in Indian weather conditions. This year I sowed beans, marigolds and fennel earlier in January, so that they will have enough time to develop before the heat starts. I have made some kind of a garden journal as well (a paper one), and keep a track of all the planting activities in it.

My beans have started giving little flowers of a beautiful lilac shade mixed with white. I feel like becoming a tiny fairy and spending a day in the green thicket of bean plants...

 Each and every bean I sowed grew into a good bush. You can also see two onions, which grew from the market onion bulbs.

Marigolds haven't achieved their height yet, but the buds have appeared already.

 

An earlier picture of fluffy fennel, marigolds made a nice company to it. 

The rose bush grows in front of our house and this year again is cheering us up with its little roses. Such a pleasant view when you leave in the morning for office!

Friday garden made me very happy, hope it made your day happier too. Have a nice weekend wherever you are, dear friends!

Rainy Days Happen Too

Hello, dears! Thanks for all your wishes  for my good health :) I'm better now physically and mentally. I was a little disappointed as the full Moon didn't charge me with strength and energy as usually.  May be the weather wasn't as good, because the days kept on switching from sunny and warm to rainy. Yesterday was so gloomy and wet, but today it's sunny and the sky is clear. Now I look forward to seeing what happens tomorrow, may be the rain fall again. 

Being away from blogging for a while I decided to take the snaps of what I was up to yesterday, because the rest of the week wasn't remarkable. Here comes the cloudy sky. I was not up to it, but I was standing under it, amazed by the force which was accumulated up there. 

 My dear lettuce however was feeling well, since it was gaining more juice into its leaves. You can see that the soil wasn't able to soak such amount of water anymore as it never dried in the past three weeks. I thought that all my small plants will simply rotten, but they seem keep up fine after all.

 Another treasure from my parents' dacha - fennel. I do love different herbs, so I hope that this fellow will be able to make it to a fully grown plant, if the sun will be merciful in March.

 Yesterday I finally threw out the roses my D gifted for V's day. No, actually I didn't threw all of their parts and left these beautiful petals. I'm drying them now, having no idea for what purpose :) I simply like their look and color.

I took that picture of the lettuce in the morning, and in the evening I made a simple salad out of it with beans and garden grown green onion. The salad was almost purely made of our own veggies, if consider that I used few beans of our harvest too. My Mum suggested me to make such salad with a very simple dressing consisting of vinegar, olive oil and some herbs. You can also add mustard, but I preferred to go without it. I liked the salad, my D didn't eat it, he doesn't like the taste of lettuce anyway. Rest of the family tried it, but no feedback so far :) 

Me and my D are planning to have a short trip somewhere. I really want it, got tried of the city and I hope this dream will come true.

The Crochet Lounge meet didn't happen last Sunday, and we are planning to meet this Sunday, I hope for sure this time. It appears a little more difficult as it seemed in the beginning, but we will break through. I have reached 99 followers so far, and my D promised that we would celebrate when I reach 100 :) Isn't he sweet? Thanks to all of you, dears, who actually make my blogging possible and so much enjoyable.

Have a lovely day! Just two more days of work, and then a weekend:) Yey!

A Long Yet Productive Weekend

Long weekends in my case happen unexpectedly. After our happy V's day, I simply had to add a bit of cold, cough and a little fever in our life, so that we don't relax. Hey, I haven't been that badly ill, but unwell enough to skip my office yesterday. I hate being in such condition, because you can't actually do anything properly. Even crafting becomes so slow, and I didn't feel like doing any new posts. I'm sorry if I didn't comment on yours; I tried to visit your blogs and see what was going on there. And there were crafty things, homely things, flowers, colors, thoughts, books...I  enjoyed all those!

It's been my aim for a long time to create lovely covers for the boxes, in which, you know, you keep all those bits of this and that. I had made one, but at that time it took me so much efforts to crochet it, and still it came out way too broad for a box. Now being slightly more experienced in crochet, I made two of such covers in just a couple of hours, and they fitted perfectly well. Don't even ask me what I keep in these boxes, but everything is very useful :)

So those I made during first two days of my long weekend. How was Monday remarkable then? I had a Russian style lunch prepared with my very Russian hands! Indian food is very tasty, but honestly, I got bored of it these days and searched for a change in taste. The salad in smaller dish is sour cabbage, which is a Russian recipe too. It is very simple yet tasty product rich in vitamin C, and I can easily make it out of Indian cabbage and carrot. Those lettuce leaves is my garden's pride.

You must have looked at my next picture by now, but this isn't just a dishcloth you seeing. I've been dreaming of starting a crochet group in our city since the day I discovered all the advantages of this craft. Finally the first steps were made, and we had a gathering of the Crochet Lounge last weekend. There were only two of us, me and my friend J, nevertheless we enjoyed interaction and had such a great Sunday afternoon. We hope that our friends will join us this weekend.

This dishcloth is the first project we had as a home task (hehe). I never tried to crochet in the back loops before, so here is my wavy dish cloth :) Let's see what J will make.

Here is a poster I created for our Lounge. I might add more details about this project later or even change it, but it's going to be like this for the time being. I guess I will be making a weekly post about our activities and projects. I know there are many lovely crochet groups and communities out there, virtual and real, but there is nothing like this in our city,. Let's see how it goes, I'm very excited!

 Thanks for your nice comments on the last V's day's post, I'm happy to take you along with me always. Now I'm off to reading "Anna Dressed in Blood" story by Kendare Blake... yea, it's not only flowers and butterflies and... crochet :).

Have a nice day, dears, take care!

Hearty Crochet

My dears, hope you are doing great! I shall admit that I've been a little busy lazy in the first half of February. Perhaps the waning moon made me such, and  I hope it'll give a charge of new strength as it's in its growing phase now. I also put a moon phases widget on the left side bar. It is very useful for choosing the best days for planting. My little garden hasn't been productive so far, the beans didn't give any valuable harvest, and I'm waiting for this weekend to plant them again. 

I had pretty nice marigolds last year, so I sowed them again, but found out one sunny morning that the birds, who are living on our citrus tree, impertinently pulled out some sprouts and plucked first tender leaves from others! This was the moment when I turned to an angry bird myself... and covered my precious plants with thin cotton cloths. Now I do this every morning, and remove the cloth in the evening.

Hey, but I gave a crochet title to this post and still chatting about my garden issues. Well, to the business. Tomorrow is St. Valentine's day, and I just couldn't stop making hearts the whole week. After the first stripy heart, I made two more. I took the pictures in the morning. It was windy, and hearts kept on swinging, so I was able to catch only few still moments, when finally settled them on the cloth. 

This blue heart is filling my cupboard with eucalyptus fragrance... sorry, I don't have lavender in my stash now.

This one was gifted to my friend today. What I like the most in making of these hearts is that you can use leftover yarn, combine any colors - they seem to look nice together anyway. By the way, I made a pattern for these hearts as well. A Stuffed Cheshire Heart Sachet pattern is a free download which you can find here if interested.

So, this was my hearty crochet and hearty wishes of a good day to you, dears!

 Have a fabulous 14th of February (and other days too;)), have fun, Love and Be Loved!

United Summer and Winter

Winter has come.. oh really? Not in my city! At least, not such, that everyone has an imagine of... This season in the North India (I am not talking about Himalayas, as it is -16 in some places there already) is like some of the Summer days in Kazakhstan. The trees are green, some are blooming, it is above 20 in day time...and yea, my garden is still producing vegetables. There has been a significant change since my last garden update - now you can see the pods on the bean bushes! I planted seeds of some salad few days ago. It has already given second leaves. Ahh... so cute :)

 Just look at my lemon yellow marigolds in their full bloom! My first attempt of making a flower bed. Though marigolds are not quiet like those which my Mum had, I feel so good when seeing them every morning. There are about 20 of them as of now, and these are the most fluffy ones.

In spite of really Summer like days, I don't forget about coming up holidays and their attributes... like snow! I found this Linda's Snowflake Potholder on Ravelry and tried the pattern straight away. This potholder went to my colleagues home, as I gifted it to her for her b'day. I definitely want to make more of them for gifting.

Hope you all having a good week! Happy Thanksgiving and wishing you more Summer like days!