Friday, June 19, 2009

Olive Trees and Poppies


Olive Trees and Poppies
Originally uploaded by linfrye
Travel Journal
La Romita, Italy
Olives and Poppies

For all the time we were in Italy, we kept trying to find a place to pull off the road to take some photos of the last blooms of bright poppies. Finallly, on the last day in La Romita, a number of poppies bloomed against a few old olives and a backdrop of hazy mountains .. YAHOO! This is the scene I see when I close my eyes and imagine Italy.... orange/red poppies against gnarly old trunks and the blue/green/grey leaves of olives ... and sitting in the cool of a shade tree, crunchy bruchetta on a plate, sparkling water in a glass, the day's promise rolling out before me ....

That won't be the case here today! Our temperatures, cool and wet all week, will now climb to almost 100F with a blistering sun to finish drying off any of the damp places ...That kind of heat coupled with high humidity certainly saps one's energy ...I need to get out in the garden early this morning - the wind and rain have knocked down every tomato cage and the weeds are having their way with the flowers ....

We gathered the first cherry tomatoes at the Arboretum yesterday .... that means mine will be ready for plucking in about 2 weeks -- Tomatoes! The offical sign that Summer is here!

Stay cool ... !

6 comments:

Patti G. said...

Lin, the poppies and olive trees are wonderful!!!!!!! The colors are glorious together.

Soon tomatoes for you. YUM! My favorite thing is fresh garden tomatoes. AND, I am sorry about your extreme heat and humidity! Hang in there doll!!!!!
Hugs,Patti

Teri said...

It is a wonderful landscape Lin! Love those poppies and glad you found some to paint.

Anonymous said...

Oh those gorgeous old trees again. How beautifully you paint them. And the poppies in front are a terrific addition.

Same weather here; rain, rain, rain and now sun and very high humidity. YUK.
Stay cool.
Hugs,
Lorraine

Joan said...

Oh, Lin!!!! This is lovely!! I wish I was there right now with my sketchbook. What a lovely view. When I went to Italy I kept looking for fields of poppies and never saw them until we were on the train right near Rome. Of course they were gone before I could pull out my camera!!!

Laure Ferlita said...

I have always wanted to see the fields of poppies - be it Italy or France! And lavender too! Your painting is absolutely gorgeous and such a wonderful image to hold in your mind!

Lin, I do have a technical question for you - how do you get the small type under your images to stay small and under your images?! I can't for the life of me figure that out!!

Ivona Hrvatin said...

Beautiful romantic scene. Great combination of colors.