Seasonal Inspiration

Hello everyone! I'm back from a brief vacation to my hometown to visit family and friends. While there, I soaked up as much summer fun as I could, with the promise of great memories and inspiring visuals to last me through the working weeks ahead. (I have another week later this season to embark on another chapter of fun in the sun.) Below are some of the snaps I took during my respite: scenes from the family cottage, family heirlooms and the downtown market. All of them shout summer!

This summer tablecloth has been in the family for three generations. The summery flowers and fruits were embroidered by my great Aunt Ortie in the 1940s and I learned on this trip home that it will be mine to inherit. It measures five by five and as you can see by its condition, it's been very well cared for. I may, in fact, hang it as textile art.The Byward Market in downtown Ottawa is always overflowing with greenery. Stalls and stands along the district's roadsides are brimming with colour: houseplants, garden plants, vegetables and all manner of produce. Crafts, handmade clothing and jewelry, homemade desserts and preserves are also on offer all season long. It's a wonderful place to spend an afternoon!

I noticed this little fellow on a leaf at my parents' cottage. The peonies in my mother's garden are bursting open with a riot of pink intensity and incredible fragrance.

The screen door of the porch at my parents' cottage has a whimsical motif in each of its corners.

Wildflowers abound at the cottage. This one had a beautiful, hot-orange that I couldn't resist. It was growing all by its lonesome at the water's edge.A more prolific array of wild flowers grows along one of the embankments next to the cottage.

Wild strawberries also grow on the property, though they are hidden under the tall grasses. They are not particularly sweet and have a somewhat sour taste to them.

I always like to take walks through the forests that surround the cottage, marveling at the quietude and all the lush greenery that grows so freely and naturally anywhere it can. I was enchanted by this fern growing on top of a large boulder that was covered in moss.

The lake at the cottage was so warm and beautiful. I loved how the sun danced across its little ripples and waves.