Let us paint a happy tree

Who doesn't know him from back in the day: Bob Ross.

The TV artist with his huge head of hair who made beautiful paintings in a short time while chatting calmly and almost zen.

I always loved watching it.

How he did magic with his pallet knife and with a few apparently simple strokes, conjured up a landscape or a tropical island.

Then I thought: 'Hey stop, it's beautiful like this!' and then he continued for a while.

If I were to do that with a drawing or painting, it would quickly become too much. Or too crooked. Or too busy.

But not with Bob Ross. No.

Why am I bringing up Bob Ross?

We live on the edge of the forest. In the middle of nature.

Actually a 'live' picture of a painting by Bob Ross.

A few streaks in the sky every now and then, birds flying by.

Especially when the goldfinches chatter past like a class. Typical Bob Ross dots that cheerfully shoot through the image.

And the edge of the trees.

There where the blue sky (mostly blue, yes) and the frolicking clouds that have been put down as fluff, touch each other.

There on the right, behind some large trees, with dark hanging branches, in a cove where the trees give way, he stands.

No, not Bob Ross.

But our happy tree

Every time I see it, it's clearly a happy tree.

All trees stand still.

All the leaves are silent.

But no, not from the happy tree!

In between all that rigid stuff, he stands shaking and wobbling with all his leaves, like hundreds of happy hands fluttering: 'Happy tree! Happy tree! Happy tree!'

And thinks I'm weird, but then I just HAVE to wave my hands back: 'happy, happy happy!'

And then I hear Bob Ross say as he takes a scoop of green from the paint on his paintboard with his pallet knife:

"let's do something worth over here. Let us paint a happy tree"

However, we are by no means happy with the weather here.

I know, at the moment it's all over the place, wet, rain, rain and more rain.

But sometimes it can be too much of a good thing.

I don't think it has ever been so green here in the Calvados.

My vegetable garden doesn't need water, (I can drain some of it before) the strawberries are absolutely not completely dry, and the beans say: just look at it.

Okay, we have good moments too. But they are just moments.

Shorts on, and an hour later you can look for the waders again.

There are villages where the water washes away almost entire houses.

We see roads that completely wash away over the other road.

Gravel, stones, everything passes.

A torrent of water that washes past a house like a raging river, which is hidden along a road in the depths, and where they better open the back door and the front door so that the water can go straight back out.

Every time we say: we should buy such a water reservoir for when it rains in autumn or winter, good for the plants when it is dry.

But no, of course not yet.

It was already overcrowded.

Come on, I'll put down a bucket.

Now France has finally become code yellow for holidaymakers from the Netherlands.

Only the weather is code orange.

Guests are already arriving in the gite, the first Dutch have already arrived, followed by the French.

In the summer months we are fully booked with mainly Dutch people, and we had hoped to have some activities ready on the fields, but due to the heavy rain and therefore soggy ground again, it is almost impossible to mow everything all the time, with the result that it grass gets pretty high again.

It will be a struggle when mowing is possible again.

We prefer to keep the grounds tidy.

Parking lot weed free, but it's just not doing it right now.

It comes as it comes.

We grab our pallet knife and scrape some yellow paint from the paint board.

To make some rays of sunshine in the sky.

Some white and blue paint to conjure the dark clouds away.

If only it were that simple…

Well there is always something.

How would Bob Ross have solved that?

I don't remember him painting landscapes full of rain.

Or buckets full of water.

Swirling waterfalls.

Well, you've got enough here now!

Only those tropical trees and plants do not surround it and you do not see an orange-red setting sun reflected in the rippled water.

Then paint a happy tree.

Oh no, you don't have to, it's flapping again.

(voor alle voorgaande blogs tm maart 2021 vanaf onze emigratie: ga naar de Engelse vertaling van de website waar deze onder 'blog' staan (in het Engels dus. De oudere blogs worden niet in het NL omgezet)