Your Mid-Monthly Dose of Whimsy #2

September-October 2024

Hello my lovelies and welcome to your Mid-Monthly Dose of Whimsy. Since the last letter, the weather has really started to warm up here in the Adelaide Hills and I’m itching to spend every waking moment outside in the garden. The fresh odours of soil, warmth and new growth are truly intoxicating and I often feel as though I’m pottering around in a dream. I’m currently sitting in the dark next to an open window looking out at the last red embers of sunset and breathing in the sweet odour of jasmine. Check out my September garden diary below.

A number of small things have delighted me this month including (but not limited to).

• A Helena Gum-moth who visited us by our back door over a series of nights and slept on the door step during the day.

• Daylight savings! More light in the evenings and an excuse to wake-up earlier and go to bed earlier.

• Dancing light coming through our back windows in the evenings and front windows in the morning.

• Mushrooms! Finding a bunch of saffron milk caps many months later than normal. Feeding friends and pickling them too.

• Music. Rehearsing for our Album Launch gig - Made In B​ö​ö​g Land. If you happen to be in Adelaide on Friday the 8th of November come along to The Metro and watch me play the accordion. Here is the event.

• Harvesting my first ever cauliflower (truly enormous)!

  

  An enormous cauliflower, gardening is so much fun!

  

  

  

  Afternoon light delight across my walls.

Delightful Doodles

I love letting my pen simply play on my paper, it’s the ultimate play and relaxation for me. The characters are born onto the paper and I love making up stories about them. Here’s a watercolour koala doodle I did this month.

Landscape Practise

Admittedly I haven’t painted a landscape every day in Spring like I said I would, but I’ve been trying to keep it up and not be discouraged. Here are some of my attempts.

Limericks by Edward Lear

My partner Kyle and I have a little ritual in that most nights we sit on the couch and eat dinner whilst listening to an Audiobook (currently Harry Potter). After I finish my dinner I grab my IPad and do some drawing on the couch (so I can still hang out with Kyle). I’ve been slowly and surely working on illustrations for a book of nonsense limericks by Edward Lear. This will be my second book by Edward Lear, see The Quangle Wangle’s Hat here.

There was a Young Lady whose nose,

Was so long that it reached to her toes;

So she hired an Old Lady,

Whose conduct was steady,

To carry that wonderful nose.

- Edward Lear

Nature Journal Download

I’m so very aware that I live in a bushfire prone area, which is why I’d like to record in digital form many of my old sketchbooks and artworks in case they burn. On that note, all of of my paid subscribers (just $5 a month) can download and browse through at leisure my entire nature journal of August-September 2024. This journal includes some nature journaling tips, my trip to the Eyre Peninsula along with little poems and other things I don’t normally share. All subscribers will go in the draw to win a little gift pack in the mail (that the Letterbox Legend subscribers get every month). This month,

Sarah

will be receiving a special little gift in the mail.

Also, it would be lovely if you would share my post to someone who you think might need a little dose of whimsy in their mail.

With love and a dose of whimsy,

Zinia King