Do you remember walking over meadows?

It was the sweetest most mysterious- looking place anyone could imagine.

Frances Hodgson Burnett

I found this old color print a couple of months ago in a second- hand shop. The painter's name is John McPherson. Flower fields, squirrels, pheasants, big trees and birds in the distance. Can you imagine how it smells? Can you hear the birdsong?

It shows a scene that reminds me of the area where I grew up in Europe. My family lived next to the river Rhine, close to the french border. The natural environment next to this mighty river is very special. There are many estuaries with river-arms stretching into the interior of the country. Along these river-arms abundant vegetation grows.

The whole region is a nature reserve today. When I was young meadows where everywhere. Just recently I read in an article that meadows are disappearing. There is no more room for undisturbed growth.

In my childhood meadows were part of my life. They were everywhere. In front of our house. Even our garden resembled a meadow. On week-ends the whole family packed a picnic basket, squeezed themselves into a blue beetle-Volkswagen and headed for the woods.

Woods are always friends with meadows.

And after lengthy walks all family members would lie on inflatable mattresses or in the grass, eating, drinking, talking or sleeping. Not without the occasional curse when bitten by mosquitoes. My mother taught me how to make a little crown out of flowers.

Flowers of all colors grew in abundance- waist high for a little girl- and playing on a meadow in summer was like diving into fairyland. The time passed quick.

When did you walk the last time bare-foot over a meadow?

Watched a bee......

doing acrobatics

The beloved friend of my childhood " die Pusteblume".

Meadows had dark openings....... food for scary children fantasies

Meadows had delicate flowers

and with their grasses, herbs and flowers they gave you itchy ankles....