Diary of My Country Life-January 2nd, 2026

The original source of this blog: https://www.lotusandmichael.com/blogs/diary-of-my-country-life

01/02/2026 Friday 23-33F Mostly Cloudy

It flurried a bit last night, covered the trees, the ground with a light layer of snow. The snow was dry, easy to be swept by my coconut garden broom. After cleaning all the paths, I passed my Yule-Tide camellia—all its buds were still small, it seemed like this winter I would get no flower from it; then I went to check my prunus mume—deer ate a lot of its leaves this summer, which might have a negative impact on the coming flowers in March.

Once before I had a great ambition that I would paint a portrait for each flower growing in my garden, but this ambition was discouraged after I painted the Russian sage, the iris, and the epiphyllum—each painting took me days to finish, and I have nearly one hundred cultivars of flowering plants. Afterward in late October, since I needed to submit small artworks (which I had none) for a holiday group show, an idea occurred to my mind—why not paint my flowers? That was the start of my small work journey: I found it was much easier to paint simple objects on smaller canvas (mine is 14*11”) because I didn’t need to set the whole scope but just one theme, which could be a bug, a rose, and no matter how small they were, they could be perfect fine by living in their own world. This way was bold, focused, and very specific. If paint a larger painting was like writing a novel, all the roles and stories must have a meaning and be consistent therefore it holds more seriousness; painting a small one is like writing a poem, which could be as simple as just one or two sentences. Or a larger painting is also like a big feast served with many courses, while a small one is just a snack.

I like feasts, but also like snacks. Since then, my meyer lemon, my jasmine, my chrysanthemum, my sinensis all had found their home on my canvas; beyond that, I purposely gave each of them a companion so they wouldn’t feel bored there (The collection of my small/bite-sized paintings): Meyer lemon was with a spider, jasmine with a frog, chrysanthemum with a bee, sinensis with a cricket… In this straightforward and poetic way, I felt it’s very possible to fulfill my ambition one day, but I might need to found more inspirations regarding the flowers’ companions—except for the butterflies, bees, birds, grasshoppers, crickets, cicadas, frogs, ladybugs, who else would visit my garden?

Last July we visited Savannah. Among all the touring sites we visited, I remember Garden of Fragrance and the Old Pink House the most. Why? Because Garden of Fragrance was a beautifully built garden; due to its relatively compact size, there weren’t many plants in it. During our visit, only some roses and butterfly bush were blooming, much less than the flowers in my own garden, which bore both fragrance and prettiness. If one day I must pick a name for my garden, I would name it “Lotus’ Fragrant Garden” as I am always obsessed with scent.

The Old Pink House was a restaurant. That historic building was decorated with many Oriental elements, and we were told by the restaurant manager that Savannah was the first port in the US to initiate trading business with China (though later on I checked with Google, and it said that actually the first port was New York Harbor). We visited all the floors of that building; at the staircase and in front of a large portrait of Chinese Emperor and Empress, my husband took a snapshot of me.

Why did I mention these? Last week I just finished a painting by converting my husband’s snapshot onto canvas—in fact that was my husband’s idea; he thought it was funny to have me standing in front of ancient Chinese. Fine 🙄, as least it made him happy.

By the way, besides the delicious fish, the biscuits served in the Old Pink house were very good, the best ones we ever had at that time, but not now—since after that trip I started to make my own biscuits; ACCORDING TO my husband, the last batch I made three days ago was equally as good as the Old Pink House’s. Here I chose to believe him 🤫 (My YouTube video about how to make southern biscuits).

My daphne is bearing a lot of buds now; most likely it will be the next star on my small canvas. My spring orchid (Cymbidium goeringii) has three flower buds, one of which looks like it is going to give me twin flowers. I look forward to the blooming day of my prunus mume, since a picture is fermenting in my mind: On a snowy day, a lady sits by the window, looking out at the flowering branches of mume. 

I happened to read an old poem this morning regarding mume, here is my translation:

“Pinewood is burning in the firepit,

A branch of flowering mume pins on the paper screen.

Hiding insects rustling all around,

Perceived only by my futon.”