Lovely Lavender!

I love the smell of lavender! And apparently, so do the butterflies and bees swarming this huge lavender bush in our neighborhood. We pass it each afternoon on our walk and it is literally buzzing with them. It's the butterfly/bee smorgasbord! I pause as we go by to breathe in its heady perfume. It's a bit past it's color peak now, the flowers are starting to dry and the color's less intense, but it's perfect for harvesting, drying, and making sachets (the end of July/1st of August is lavender harvest time in France). I wish I could take some of the stalks, but alas, it's on private property and I don't think the owners would appreciate passersby nipping their plant.

By the way, do you know that there are primarily two different types of lavender grown in France? There's Fine Lavender that grows at higher altitudes and Lavandin that grows at lower altitudes. If you'd like to know more about lavender in France this post Everything You Need to Know About Lavender in 5 Minutes on the Explore France website is worth the click.

If you've never tried eating anything with lavender, please do! I've had it in several different dishes; one of the most memorable was a lavender sorbet! So refreshing! Oh, and one of my favorite chocolate bars is by the Belgian chocolate company Dolfin – a yummy dark chocolate with lavender.

Image Dolfin Chocolate – http://www.dolfin.be/

Any fellow colored pencil artists reading this post, might be interested to know that Spike Lavender Oil is a natural, less toxic (no solvent is 100% safe), and definitely better smelling alternative to color pencil blending than say Gamsol or turpentine. If you've heard of it at all, you might think it's just for oil artists, but no, it works well with colored pencils, too. I rarely use a solvent blender, but if I do I use a tortillon (blending stump) dipped in a little bit of LeFrance Bourgeois Oil of Spike Lavender to blend.

Lavender's appealing qualities just go on and on!