About today...

ok, so a very quick post to share my gratitude for Spring beginning to arrive in earnest, and being on the land with fellow plant people! Today we were finally blessed with some real warmth and sunshine, after a few really cold and dismal rainy days.

"маргарити" - new to me- these sweet little daisies are blooming so early!

I'm so grateful to have landed back in a more familiar and beloved kind of place for me- the small homestead of the Ukrainian village... just as the magnolia and haskaps are blooming, rhubarb is starting to push through the earth, and primroses and daffodils cheerfully announce Spring-- Vesna!

I'm so absolutely thrilled to be hosted by straw artist (and pysankarka, and weaver, and multi-faceted artistan) Mariia Ivanyshyn and her husband in their home.

They've been caretaking for this hillside for over 20 years, and it shows- with their established stand of nut trees, berry bushes, rows of permaculture style mulched beds for vegetables, rows of gorgeous green rye, and well pruned fruit trees, interspersed with a wide variety of interesting fruits and shrubs I've never heard of before (for instance, today I met a Japanese quince ;), and some I know, but am learning their names in Ukrainian. It's a great pleasure to be immersed in the language and place... to have the chance to share the simple joys of so many overlapping interests, and be able to speak and to understand...

(young shoots on the black currant (last year's growth) trimmed by pan Andriy for a delicious and aromatic tisane)

We've spent two days looking at a million miles of extraordinary straw plaiting, a dizzying variety of techniques and compositions, sharing stories of people and places, and that has been wonderful; funny how I am just as excited (if not more ;) to have them share this beautiful spot on earth with me, their little piece of heaven that they've created. The studio they've also recently built, a humble shed, but also a portal into a traditional Ukrainian village home, outfitted with such beautiful heirloom treasures-- handwoven kilims, lizhnyky, embroidered pillows, old wooden butter churn, ceramic milk jugs, carved wooden spoons...

To see how they've created a life with this humble parcel of land, abundance and diversity out where there was once a patch of brambles and piles of garbage...

It's care and creativity on so many levels.

Anyway, I have indeed been learning some techniques from pani Maria, and have had the chance to see all of her work, which is truly an extraordinary collection amassed over the years, and to enjoy all the various crafts in her home.

learning to weave birds

selfie....

couple of birdies...

Straw plaiting kit pani Maria designed to accompany her new book. (More on this amazing book later!)

Now time to sleep...

News of possible rockets overhead tonight... the madness.

April 3, near Lviv, Ukraine.