Continuing in the theme of old, medium format film photos that I recently had developed is this roll I took at Brian Bixley’s Lilactree Farm in June 2010. Here is a post that I made way back when of some of the many digital photos I took that day.

(Lots more photos below the fold.)

This garden had a profound affect on me. I know it was exceptional because I think of it often, both the individual garden rooms themselves as well as the beautiful surrounding landscape. This particular roll is all about those fields and was taken as Brian lead us to the far reaches of the property to take in the views and visit the sculptures that he keeps there.

As Davin and I have slowly begun to make tentative driving trips out into the countryside as new drivers, I have found myself mentioning these rolling fields of mustard/canola in bloom on several occasions. It’s become a gauge of sorts for how I feel about a particular landscape. “This is beautiful, but man, you should have seen those rolling hills blanketed in the brightest yellow mustard blooms.”

In many ways Brian and Maureen’s story has become a touchstone to our own future dream plans. My dream goes off on its own tangents, but these are some of the areas where their story crosses over with my fantasies: Find an affordable rundown farmhouse embedded within a beautiful landscape. Slowly fix up the house on weekends and summer visits and make use of all of that space to build a crazy dream garden. Fill the old house with books, including a library in the bathroom. As long as there is no shower or tub, a bathroom is a logical place to keep books!

And here are a few photos of that wild mirror sculpture that interacts with the landscape. I love it! Can you believe Brian got this because someone was foolishly throwing it out?