THEY WERE RIGHT

     Early evening on Friday, Jeffrey walked down to the mailbox to check mail, something I'd avoided, as I didn't care to look through bills and junk mail. He walked into the kitchen and handed me a piece of mail and said "For my "published girl". "Told you so, told you that jacket was a keeper". It was my complimentary issue of Altered Couture. I'd been published for the second time within a year. They liked the jacket that I'd altered and submitted back in December. I was thrilled.
    Exactly 2 years ago this very month, I'd reached a point where I knew I wanted to do more with my art. For years I'd dabbled in lots of different crafts. By summer, 2009, I'd made hundreds of greeting cards for church and had made a few scrapbooks. I liked paper crafting and decided I would take it to the next level. Maybe mix it up a bit and play with  mixed media art. In various art books and magazines, artists were referring to their experience as a "journey", as "taking flight". Well, if it was going to be a journey, I had no road map, just a desire to try new things and a lot of encouragement from family and friends.
    Well, now it is 2 years later. I've been published twice, doing a second art exchange, taking 2 on-line art classes, doing soldering and encaustic, got a Facebook account and made this blog! Go figure! The artists were right, though. They were right. It is a journey of sorts, though at this point I STILL don't have a map.  I still make cards for church, still love my sewing machine, have a WIP scrapbook. My only real goal is to some day have the time and money  to attend an art retreat....oh, and to learn to solder better. For  now I'm just doing what makes me happy. I encourage others to do the same. You just never know where it will take you.

THEN AND NOW

    Sometime, back in the 1970's, my mom bought a clematis plant which she planted on the south side of the house in a sunny spot. Weeding the flower bed, watering it everyday with soapy dish water, and occasionally cutting it back a bit was the extent to which it was cared for. It flourished and my mom always took great pride in it.
   In the late 1990's, shortly after my parents both passed away, my brother decided to raze the house and rebuild on the property. What was to become of the clematis? It grew right up against the house. So, I GUESS before the excavators with their heavy equipment arrived and demolished the house and everything in their way, Jeffrey and I went and dug out mom's clematis.
   Recently my youngest sister, Letty, and I were comparing clematis photos. She brought it to my attention that my clematis is actually mom's clematis! I totally forgot about moving mom's plant! I suppose it was the craziness of the time--dealing with a lot of "stuff".
   I found a photo of mom's clematis which she had taken probably sometime in the 1980's. It's a little faded. At first I thought that this couldn't be same plant, but Letty assured me that I had told her about rescuing it. The recent photo of my plant is actually 2 different species of clematis. The darker one is mom's and the lighter buds are from a plant I bought about 3 years ago.
   Needless to say, I'll be handling these two plants with TLC. I'll maybe even use a little bit of soapy dishwater on them.

Finally, Purple Martins

After 15 years of trying to attract Purple Martins to nest in what was once his Grandpa Check's martin house, Jeffrey has finally succeeded! Over the years he's cleaned and repainted the house, put it up, taken it down, shushed away sparrows, cut trees for a better glide path. This spring he even bought the decoy which perches on the top of it. For whatever reason, on Sunday there were 2 pair of martins checking it out, and now they are building nests in it! Yippee!

Running a Little Late

Yesterday, the first day of summer, seemed more like a spring day here in Newton. It was cool, rainy, and foggy. Around 1:00 in the afternoon this guy came strolling up the driveway. He was crossing the road from the neighbor's pond, presumably heading for our pond. About 2 weeks ago a smaller turtle had made the same yearly, spring  trip (with the help of a neighbor and myself in order to avoid the "traffic" on our road). After this photo-op he strolled off heading toward the pond. About an hour later I spotted him heading up the road and another neighbor was helping him out of traffic. Not only was he a little bit late for the "spring" crossing, he couldn't find the pond. She shushed him into the ditch, and hopefully he's in our pond, now, with his  friend. Better late than never.

A LONG TIME COMING

I like to think that I'm the type of person who has enough interests to stay busy, no matter what the circumstances. Even though winters get long around here, Jeffrey and I snowmobile, I do lots of art and crafting, I volunteer for different things at church,  and I still work in our office. In spite of all that, winter seemed never-ending. Then, to top it off, we've had a cold, wet spring. Well, FINALLY, the nice weather is here. I have my vegetable garden all planted, the tulips and daffodils have long bloomed and are drying out, and peonies, bridal wreath, and irises are opening. It's been a long time coming. Admittedly, our 3 1/2 acres is a lot of work, but I love all of it.

Long Days

I love that the days are getting longer. And I love all the activity that's going on in our yard. This is one of the 3 pair of geese with babies that are visiting the pond these days. I think there are 8 in this photo.  Another pair has 5. There is a 3rd pair, but they are still a little timid, so I don't know how many babies they have.

I did a stupid thing last spring. I planted about 7 wild raspberry bushes on the south edge of  my vegetable garden. Well, duh, they totally overtook that end of the garden. I spent 3 hours today digging out MANY tiny raspberry plants. I had to get rid of the original 7, too.

And another event of the day was the return of the turtle. Last spring I posted on my Facebook page pictures of the turtle that comes from our neighbor's pond, crosses the road, and finds her way to our pond for the summer. I was just thinking about her when I was digging out the raspberry bushes from hell. Well, late this aft while in my kitchen baking a cake for my father-in-law, I saw a jeep come to a screeching halt in front of the house. So I walked out to the road to find a neighbor from about 2 miles south on Union Rd. frantically trying to direct a snapping turtle out of traffic! (These days traffic is lots of HUGE tractors pulling planters and othr equipment.) My turtle was back!  I got a shovel from the garage and we scooped her up. Just as we were carrying her to the side of the road, the 4 PM school bus came along, stopped, and the little kids on the bus were totally jazzed about our "rescue"!

Such are the long spring days here in Newton. They're pretty simple, but I love them.

Nature or Nuture?

Jeffrey and I gave this book to my mom for Christmas, 1980. She loved to feed and watch the wild birds. My dad raised and raced  homing pigeons. So I wonder, is my love for bird watching due to nature or nuture? Yesterday around my feeders, I had yellow finches, orange orioles, and red cardinals. Throw in spritzes of brown sparrows, and red wing blackbirds, and it was something akin to an artist's palette. After 5 months of winter, it was eye candy, really.
So, last night I sat down with one of my art journals and colored pens and started listing all the birds I've seen in, around, or flying over our yard. The result was 40 different birds. I started with the littlest one, the hummingbird, and worked my way up to the 4 ft. sandhill crane. So glad spring is finally here.