Winter

Rain rain… for three consecutive days, we have been gifted with precious rain.  This is the time when our high desert gets the highest amounts of rainwater, then, during our hot summer days, Nature can go without it for months.  So, I am thankful for whatever amount of moisture we can get these days. 

Which also means, I’m spending most of my days cozying up in my jungle house! 

Watering my ‘plant children’ and making sure they get plenty of humidity from whatever source they can get it.

A few weeks ago, I decided to rescue my potted Norfolk Pine—the same one I had discarded after the Christmas holidays were over and took it outside to let die, because I knew it couldn’t be planted outside and survive our winters, not to mention that it’s not even close to being a native plant…

It happened that the other day when we were at a local gourmet café we like to visit, I noticed a potted Norfolk Pine sitting by the large windows, and it was huge, and beautiful, and looking at its size, I figured the plant must had been several years old.  Which meant they could survive in a pot! So, I run back home and save it. Was it worth it? I can't tell yet, but I like to see it in in this corner of my house…

My new white flowering Kalanchoe is doing great thus far. The Kalanchoe flowers can last for weeks and weeks. I got my first Kalanchoe last summer, and its beautiful pink flowers bloomed throughout the entire summer and fall. And now this white one is doing the same… these flowers last and last…

After my pink flowering Kalanchoe was done flowering, I repotted it, so we’ll see what happens now.  The small flowers look like tiny roses... I love them!

In my gypsy room days are spent decorating, and going through dozens of home and garden books and magazines.

Adding fairy lights everywhere!

I covered the closet door with that same versatile tablecloth I use for everything.  A few weeks ago, it was a bedcover, now is doing the function of some wallpaper.

I love it so much!

Some of the geraniums have started blooming. This have to be one of my greatest joys during our long winters for sure!

And here is that closet door again!

The other day, a huge flock of robins came by again, so many birds, that not a single tree in the garden was devoid of them.  Me too, I’m also looking forward to spring!  Dreaming with it, dreaming with flowers and vines and a strong sunshine to crown my head and warm my shoulders…

I can’t forget, though, that winter has its own beauty to share, and I’m learning to love the natural stillness and effortlessness that come with it, the beauty of snow in the early morning, the melancholy of nights.  Winter is the time for home.  And I’m gathering each of its precious jewels in my soul.  Learning to love what it has to offer me on a day to day.  And how beautiful, and glorious it was this morning as I was coming home from a date with my Fisherman at Starbucks, to see the new day dawning behind snow-covered peaks; winter light, merciful and opaque, reposing over frozen fields. Coming down a steep hill I could see the entire valley below as far as my eyes could reach covered in a nimble haze; smoke from fireplaces slowly and ceremoniously rising up the heavens as horses and sheep received the new day under the great openness of fields covered in winter delight.

OK my friends, I hope I haven’t bored you!  I hope you all have a lovely Valentine’s Day today, and may you always find peace and joy during your days and nights. 

I will be absent from this place for a few days, but if you miss me you can always find me on Instagram!  https://www.instagram.com/gypsycielo/

See you then!