Wordless Wednesday

The Mystery Bush

View of the bush from the back door

It was very windy out today so I snipped a branch to snap a shot inside!

The branch ended up on the kitchen windowsill looking out at its former life on the bush

I love the way my cheap little camera captured the screen (yes, the good camera is in Taiwan with Earle)

Ever since we moved here three years ago we've wondered about the magnificent bush near our deck in the back yard. It sports lovely coral colored flowers in the spring, budding out even before its leaves show up. It is a haven for the myriad of birds that flock to our yard. They hide within its branches, undetected by predators, leaping ever closer to the edge where they can fly to the feeder nearby. The bush is also the hanging place for the suet cage, a handy and necessary winter snack for our feathered friends.

We have always wondered, but never knew what the bush was called, so this year I decided to research it online. My research labeled it a flowering quince . The bush shape is right as are the small thorns and five-petaled reddish pink flowers. The problem is the bush bears no fruit. Where are our quince? We love quince jelly. Wouldn't it be wonderful to make our own! I surmise the bush must not receive sufficient sunlight because it grows under the shade of one of our maple trees. It may also just be that it is out of control and too "leggy". If we gave it a trim it might produce. Sadly, since I have seen others like it and have yet to notice any fruit, it could be some ornamental hybrid that no longer produces quince. Well, the flowers are lovely anyway. The bush is one of the features in our yard I like the best. It's a keeper, fruit or not.

Pet Antics

We thought, oh, how nice, what a lovely time to sit out front on the glider and enjoy the peace and quiet and a little cup of tea. Then, along comes dog, and then Truffle. We are no longer alone. Of course, where there are pets there are pet antics: daring high-wire acts to rescue inside kitties from their captivity, a little rolling around in the dirt, and various sniffing and digging of holes.

So peaceful.

Friday's Feast

Appetizer:
Name something you would categorize as weird.

Soup:
What color was the last piece of food you ate?

Salad:
On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how much do you enjoy being alone?

Main Course:
Fill in the blank: I will _________ vote for ___________ in _______.

Dessert:
Describe your sleeping habits.


I haven't done a Friday's Feast meme for a few weeks, but his one looks intriguing! My answers are in the comments. What say you?

More Visitors

Mo, Julia, Shawn, Cyndy

Earle, Me, Cyndy, Mo

Earle's sister Cyndy and her husband Maurice stopped for a few hours yesterday on their way back home to Maine. This was their first time visiting us here since Cyndy is a guidance counselor which ties them to the school calendar and limits holiday travel. We had a lovely time chatting, showing them around the area, and munching snacks! It's great living just off the RTH (Relative Transcontinental Highway)! We are a perfect stopping point for all sorts of family travelers. We'll have to make sure to keep a ready supply of Diet Pepsi and Dunkin Donuts Coffee.

Wordless Wednesday

All of this is right behind our house. We found it over the weekend after cutting through about 100 feet of hawthorn bushes. Hidden treasures! We were wordless, or should I say speechless. 75 acres of wooded, gorge-filled beauty. It belongs to a neighbor on the next street over. He is very lucky indeed. All this comes with a modest old farmhouse with two bedrooms and one bath. I think they must have bought the house just for the land!

Updates

The deck is ready for summer

The view from the deck overlooking the valley and hills beyond

Some early flowers near the deck

Spinach, radishes, sunflowers, and lettuce planted

Did you miss me? I've been outside, a lot. After we cleaned the deck furniture we tilled and planted the garden with the veggie seeds that tolerate cool conditions. I still have to plant herbs in my pots, veggies that we grow from seedlings instead of seeds (tomatoes and peppers), and annuals for the deck planters, but it is a little too early to do that still.

Tomorrow we are expecting visitors from out of state again. This time Earle's sister and her husband are stopping to see us as they travel back to Maine from spending time in Pennsylvania with their daughter and her family. We are excited to see them. It will be their first time visiting our new home!

Shawn has been working a lot of hours at Target. Last week, between his scheduled hours and the extra hours they called him in, he worked 30 hours. He's raking in the bucks! Target is a great store to work for. He really enjoys the environment and the other employees are great. They have an incentive program where managers give out cards to you when they see you doing a good job, then you post your cards on a bulletin board in the back and each week they put them in a pot and draw a name for a free cd. He hasn't won anything yet, but he sure is gathering his share of cards!

Next week he takes the placement test at the local community college and then he'll be able to sign up for courses for the fall. Then, next Saturday is the SAT exam. We have a lot of work to do still before the end of the year and seem to be ramping back up after a winter slowdown. We are contemplating continuing to school over the summer. I would like to cover a short course in British Lit so he doesn't have to double up on English credits in the fall. The courses he will most likely take at the Community College are English and math.


I am putting together and order from The Teaching Company. I received a $30 coupon from them in the mail yesterday along with three new catalogs. I am ordering Early and Late Middle Ages as they are on sale now. I will have to order High Middle Ages when it goes on sale another time. Shawn will be using these as a spine for history study next year along with the recommended text(s). Since I needed to spend just a bit more in order to use the coupon, we are also ordering My Favorite Universe, which we will all enjoy very much! Shawn and I are making our way through Art Across the Ages right now and we think it's great! I am also investigating physics courses for next year. Our faulty start with Chem this year will not deter us from plowing ahead next year with physics. One does not need to precede the other.


Julia is all signed up for her fall courses. On her agenda: Organic Chem I, Creative Writing: Fiction and Drama, Western Civilization, and Ecology. she will be carrying 15 credits, tutoring for bio and chem again, and working as a chem lab assistant. She could be done and ready to move on to a transfer school after next semester if they were offering the programming course she needs for her major, but her professors aren't upset that she's staying the year. They are glad to have her help in the labs!


It looks like Julia will be going back to Kohl's to work over the summer and she may even fit in some riding lessons. That is all after her trip to Germany with Earle in May. She is so excited to finally get to go! They are even planning to catch an air show in Berlin while they are there. She will be the only one of us to go in the warm weather as opposed to Christmas time.


Earle is off to Taiwan and Germany soon. His pics from his last trip to Germany are up at his blog. He got some great shots, as always and ate some very interesting food! Have you ever had veal cheek? Our photo themes are taking longer than expected due to the yucky weather and the fact that the camera travels with Earle. It will be leaving the country for two weeks this time. Flying objects is just about wrapped up though!


A warm welcome to Meridith, another of my nieces, to the blogisphere! It's always good to see another family member join in the fun. I am looking forward to reading about her adventures. I think it's your turn now, Bev. Meridith's sister Vanessa is off on an adventure soon, check out her blog to see where! It is very exciting and I am very jealous!!


Wow, I think I've covered most things. I haven't had time to do much reading or painting, but hope to get back to that soon as things settle down. We took a lovely walk in the woods in back of our property today and discovered a nice slate filled stream and mini gorge. I will post pics of that another day.

Spring at Last!

Hey! Come look what I found!

Spring has finally arrived in New York!

You probably won't see me around much this weekend. I'll be:

• rototilling the garden
• planting seeds
• weeding
• washing deck furniture
• and all those outdoor activities I've been waiting to do!

Or, you might find me here with Earle, enjoying our new glider out front!

Happy Spring everyone!

Wordless Wednesday

April showers, hopefully bring May flowers!

Rocks in My Head

I feel like I have rocks in my head this morning. What I really have is a nasty cold complete with low-grade fever. So, painting and outdoor activities are out today.

I was inspired, in my feverish state, by the post at Socks and Books about their excursion to a rock museum as well as the awe-inspiring rocky landscapes at Short on Words. I've always admired and collected rock. They are infinitely unique in color, size, texture, and pattern. Rocks have made their way into my house and into my art quite often.

You may recall the vignette I set up before Christmas using rocks we had collected in Canada. Over time the little set-up had become rather dusty and the pine needles had lost their rust coloring. So, I re-purposed the rocks and moss to create a new vignette in our pass-through area between the kitchen and great room. Shawn likes to use this area to draw his maps (which I will share with you in another post) and I thought he might like a tiny picturesque landscape in his drawing nook.

Some of the rocks were used in the nook, others now enhance the lovely table-top fountain Julia gave me for Christmas. When rocks are wet, they are at their best. The colors sing and the surface glows.

Our greatroom is full of rocks! Here are some small compositions I shot within the larger framework of some of my paintings that hang in that room.

Humans have been painting rocks and painting on rocks since the earliest know art. Rocks have been both painted on and painted with in the form of crushed minerals mixed with animal fat. From the Lascaux Cave paintings in France, to the open air rock engravings in Norway, people have chosen rocks as a source for artwork because of their permanence, availability, and of course their beauty.

If you've been inspired by rocks as I have and would like to try your hand at drawing some of the rocks around you, here is a rock drawing tutorial I found at eHow.

Surprise Visitors

Savannah Jade rolling snakes and making snails

At 10:30 AM I answered the phone. Earle's brother Russell was at the other end. "Hi, do you want some visitors today? We're about three hours away right now. " Russell, his son, daughter-in-law, and grand daughter live in Michigan and were just returning home via New York from a trip to Maine. They arrived mid-afternoon and I had the pleasure of meeting my great niece for the first time! What a sweetheart she is.

The delicate hands of a future artist

I gave them a tour around the house and her eyes grew very large as we entered the studio. I'm not sure she was expecting her great auntie to be a painter. She wants to be an artist. A girl after my own heart.

Earle flew in from a business trip yesterday around dinner time. Russell and I picked him up at the airport and we all chatted over some Chinese take-out. Then, they were on their way. Such a

nice surprise.

Wordless Wednesday

The many faces of Julia

In the Studio

Background done

Up close.

You can almost smell the wet paint

A beginning, but a long way to go

Next up: watercolor

Lilacs

With the kids gone to visit a friend and Earle in Germany for work, I had the whole day to myself today. I didn't do one iota of housework, unless you count cleaning up a hairball, but that really was necessary. How many times can you walk over it and pretend it isn't there?! Anyway, I spent the afternoon and evening painting. I started work on a new acrylic painting and then played around with some watercolors and a Chinese brush on some small squares of watercolor paper I've had laying around ready to use up.

After the drabness of winter I am longing for color, can you tell?



Tonight I can sit back, put my feet up, relax, and watch part two of Sense and Sensibility on PBS. My back is tired from painting. The couch sounds inviting.



I also finished Miss Clare Remembers today. It is my favorite Miss Read book so far. Time to request the next one from inter-library loan.

Sunday Morning Blessing

I awoke this morning in time to send off the kids as they headed out to visit Seth at college. They left at 7:45 am to make the 5 hour round trip and be back by early evening. Soon after they left some movement caught my eye outside our front window. I wasn't the only one up early enjoying the warming temps and abundant sunshine. An entire flock of Cedar Waxwings covered our front silver maples and swooped down in crowds of six or so to feast on the red berries of our Holly bush. They were magnificent! Though we have an abundance of birds here, I have never seen a Waxwing before. I stood at the window snapping pics for half an hour, berating my inept camera (the new camera is in Germany with Earle). They filled their bellies and sunned themselves on the leafless branches. Then, they were gone. What a treat. Had I slept a few minutes more or been distracted by some task I would have missed the show. Timing is everything.

Fine Art Friday

Friday's Feast didn't inspire me this week, but Shawn's art history studies did. We are making our way through Art Across the Ages, art history lectures from The Teaching Company, and reading through The Annotated Mona Lisa as a precursor to the lectures as well as consulting some of my old art history books from my college days. We have begun this study rather late in the year and are only into the period of Hellenistic art, but no matter, we are enjoying the material.



Today's lecture addressed the Hellenistic period of Greek art, the time period when the great empire of Alexander had moved Greek ideals throughout parts of the Western and Eastern world. One of the most famous and noted sculptures of that time is the Nike of Samothrace. This sculpture is also a personal favorite of mine, so naturally I felt the urge to share its majesty with all of you.




Imagine if you will a niche of rock overlooking The Sanctuary of the Great Gods at Samothrace, a pool of water at the nike's feet representing the ocean. Now picture the fierce wind howling across ocean waves and crashing upon the breast of the Nike as she stands, wings and (now missing) arms outstretched in victory against the very sea and wind itself, a testimony to the hard won naval battle she commemorates. This is the original scene in which the Nike of Samothrace was exhibited. She must have been a magnificent sight in those surroundings. Now, of course, you can view her away from the harm of the elements in the Louvre in Paris. Though from her intended backdrop she has been long removed, her magnificence is still greatly admired.



Read more about her here: Nike of Samothrace

Wordless Wednesday

I don't know how we could have forgotten the whole wheat flour...