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.

BLISS FELT HERE

I suppose this makes it official. My studio REALLY IS my blissroom. My long-time friend, encourager, enlightener, and fellow artist, Linda, was home for a 10-day visit. She surprised me with this very wonderful banner for my newly cleaned and rearranged blissroom. It is SO Linda, filled with the most wonderful embellishments of all kinds, ephemera, flowers, and uses pretty, pretty pastels which I love. So now when I'm going through one of those non-creative, barren dryspells, I know where I'll look for a little creative inspiration. Bliss.

Is it settled then?

Just how long will we be capable of maintaining our 3 1/2 acres here in Newton? Fifteen years ago it seemed effortless to mow, trim, plant, weed. But the task seems to be getting bigger as the years pass. It's not like we have a "Ponderosa" sized place, but the trees, shrubs, pond, orchard, vegetable garden, perenniel beds make for a lot of work. We love it all, but it's a lot of work. Last week we got this little tree, for free, at Lowe's. It 's the exact same size that Daddy's was when he gave it to me 14 years ago. So if he makes it OK and we let him get to the size of my dad's tree planted out in the front berm, we could plan on another 14 years here, God permitting! Is it settled then? We'll see!

Birdsong

This morning I was sitting in the livingroom having my coffee. It's my AM ritual, something I could never do when I worked in laboratory medicine because I had to be off and running early. All of a sudden there was the NOISE of the yappiest little bird that shows up every spring. A wren! Honestly, besides the hummingbird, the wren is the smallest bird around here, but she has the LOUDEST song. So, she gave me a little inspiration for this (WIP) journal page. That is  not a wren, by the way, but that's OK because then I guess I'd have to call it YAPPY BIRDSONG.

One Last Snow Storm

One week ago today I was out in my yard in 70 degree weather. It felt so good to be raking, cleaning up my perennial beds, and just enjoying the fresh air and all the bird noises. Today we're looking at a 5 - 6 inch snowfall! We've gotten snow in May already, so this shouldn't be a surprise. Hopefully, this is the last of the snow---until November.

Spring Cleaning

I inherited my Grandma Miller's pack rat gene. That, coupled with the fact that as kids, my siblings and I really didn't have much, results in the fact that I have a very hard time getting rid of "stuff". I do the "what if ?" thing. Plus, I see a potential project in anything from a 5 inch piece of lace trim to a 5 foot long left-over vertical blind panel.
Four days ago my studio looked like this. It was getting hard to even walk through it. My stash had grown to a point where it was unproductively sucking all the creativity out of me. I just started sorting and cleaning and junking. I moved from my studio out into the hall which I annexed onto my studio then into the second bathroom from which I "borrowed" a few drawers for art supplies.

Tomorrow, probably, I'll be loading my Blazer with "stuff" and making at least one trip to Goodwill. There are a few things I have to fine-tune yet, but I am so ready to make art in my very tidy studio.