Decor.

From rq: Wallpaper, wall art. This is an abandoned school down the southern half of the country. The first is layers of wallpaper/paint (couldn’t really tell), the second two are a local artist’s work for a nature-focused show that used the building as canvas and location. Click for full size!

© rq, all rights reserved.

Advantages of an Unkempt Lawn

On a short mown lawn, boringly green,  you do not get to see these. The orange flowers are Hieracium aurantiacum, which is to my mind the most handsome dandelion relative growing here. It is also an endangered plant in CZ so we are mowing the lawn in a way as to allow them to flourish. There are only a few patches around where it prospers.

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

Z Is For Zinnia.

Zinnia.

Zinnias make for wonderful summertime garden flowers, attracting all kinds of pollinators and many birds which feed on their seeds. Snails (and slugs) also seem to like them, not only the flowers but especially the seedlings. It’s kind of a spring tradition for me, sow zinnias and hand-pick snails and slugs around them every night until they grow to a certain stage or until snails estivate. This photo was taken in November, when snails are active again, and some zinnias are still standing.

Oh, what a poignant and beautiful photo! Click for full size.

© Nightjar, all rights reserved.

X Is For Xerophyte and Xerófito.

Xerophyte. Xerófito.

Xerophytes are drought-adapted plants, commonly found in environments where water is scarce.  An example is the cactus Opuntia ficus-indica. The fruits, seen here, are delicious but harvesting and peeling them can be quite tricky because of all the small spines, it is almost guaranteed that at least one will find its way into your skin no matter how careful you are (speaking from experience here). Bonus wasp!

The wasp looks so tiny! Click for full size.

© Nightjar, all rights reserved.

The Beautiful Town Idstein – Part 7 – Doors and Windows

There was a wide variety of doors and windows to be seen, some looking more authentic than others, some being very evidently modern. And of those modern ones some made a better job at concealing this than others.

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

I think that maybe the two doors at the castle gate (Alte Kanzlei) were truly authentic, or at least very old. Wood and iron can survive centuries when kept dry  and these both were good hidden from immediate reach of the elements. The one on the left was on the back side of the  building, the red one on the right on the inside of the gate arc.

 

What I found interesting however is the aforementioned mixture of authentic looking and modern. I am not very well informed on this problematic, but to the best of my knowldedge in CZ if someone owns an authentic historic building that is listed as such and is protected by law, then all repairs must be performed with technology authentic to the time the house was built – at least on the outside, or on the specific part that is being protected. Once I have talked with an old lady whose house had authentic wooden shingles on the roof and she complained about how difficult – not to mention expensive – it is to find somene to do repairs that are confirming with law.

It seems that in Idstein not all houses have such strict protection , although some perhaps do. There was definitively a visible hint of plastic here and there.

 

 

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.