Vintage Art Appreciation: In the Garden by Jindřich Tomec

The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something.
Don’t wait for good things to happen to you.
If you go out and make some good things happen,
you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.
― Barack Obama

This is the real secret of life --
to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now.
And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.
― Alan Watts
Painting is titled "In the Garden," (?) c1920s by Jindřich Tomec (1863–1928). Originally found on Wikimedia. Digitally enhanced version of the painting as a 11" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG here.


Digitally enhanced reproductions of public domain fine art are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

My Photo Journal: Sunny Possibilities

Listen to the mustn'ts, child.
Listen to the don'ts.
Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles,
the won'ts.
Listen to the never haves,
then listen close to me...
Anything can happen, child.
Anything can be.
― Shel Silverstein

The bright sunbeam-yellow Black-eyed Susan blooms have been a staple in every garden I've started in the last 20 years. Originally a native wildflower of North America, this perennial cultivar is easy to grow, drough tolerant and attracts pollinators galore!

I currently have two clumps of Rudbeckia fulgida var. sullivantii 'Goldsturm' (originally just one clump but divided in its second year), and one stand of Rudbeckia hirta 'Prairie Sun' (outstandingly prolific this year) but am always on the hunt for more varieties as I expand my existing garden beds.

Photo © FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved.

My Photo Journal: To Live (1)

To live is the rarest thing in the world.
Most people exist, that is all.
― Oscar Wilde

I may not have gone where I intended to go,
but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

Finish each day and be done with it.
You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in;
forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day.
You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit
to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Warm and sunny day down by the waterfront at Kiwanis Heydenshore Park in Whitby, Ontario. Heydenshore Pavilion (with the lighthouse a stone's throw away) is located within 15 acres of scenic parkland in Heydenshore Kiwanis Park. The park is on the shore of Lake Ontario adjacent to Whitby Shores Waterfront Trail, with a spectacular view of the lake from its open patio.

Starting in 2023, the historic Pump House on Whitby’s waterfront got a new lease on life when Town Brewery was awarded a five-year food and beverage pop-up licence to open the Waterfront Beer Garden. The restaurant is now closed for the season (re-opening May 2025) but the park remains busy with families that want to savour the still-mild October days.

© FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved.

Vintage Art Appreciation: Joys of Spring by René Lelong

Joys of Spring, (ca 1890-1900)
by René Lelong (1871–1933)

Love is that condition in which the happiness
of another person is essential to your own.
― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
― Marthe Troly-Curtin, Phrynette Married

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of.
You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.
― Albert Camus

Attitude is a choice. Happiness is a choice. Optimism is a choice.
Kindness is a choice. Giving is a choice. Respect is a choice.
Whatever choice you make makes you. Choose wisely.
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

Vintage Art Appreciation: On an Apiary by Aleksandr Makovsky

On an Apiary, 1916
by Aleksandr Makovsky (1869 - 1924)

The happiness of the bee and the dolphin is to exist.
For man it is to know that and to wonder at it.
― Jacques Cousteau

It is so small a thing to have enjoyed the sun,
to have lived light in the spring,
to have loved, to have thought, to have done.
― Matthew Arnold

And we should always remember that, in matters of evolution, nature will select for the ability to adapt and survive, not for maximum convenience to mankind.
― Phil Chandler, The Barefoot Beekeeper

Don't Just
Don't just learn, experience.
Don't just read, absorb.
Don't just change, transform.
Don't just relate, advocate.
Don't just promise, prove.
Don't just criticize, encourage.
Don't just think, ponder.
Don't just take, give.
Don't just see, feel.
Don’t just dream, do.
Don't just hear, listen.
Don't just talk, act.
Don't just tell, show.
Don't just exist, live.
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart