last days of september

It is a dark and gloomy day ...

but Boy! Is it welcome!

It's been quite the drought these many weeks. I don't remember the last time it rained. July?
The irony is not lost on me, considering the devastation that wind and rain have brought to so many this last month while we have waited longingly for a bit of that rain. Nature, for all her beauty, well, I have my reservations.

One can't help but admire her, keeping a huge amount of respect in reserve.

Here, one evening, we pass the Agricultural Centre on our way into town. This is where I saw a fox nosing around on the lawn a few weeks ago, oblivious to the cars; a rare sighting.

New Minas is a big box town, full of little plazas and a mall. 

Since this is one of the few pictures that turned out on this balmy evening after the heat of day, I thought I'd share it, especially as the moon and the sweet light lend a beauty to almost anything.

A grand Victorian that stood on the market for quite a while

is most wonderful when it is decked out for Christmas. The rest of the time it is a little spooky as some Victorian houses are wont to be.

Little houses like this one on the main drag get bought up for business,

this one by a discreet professional.

I've been promising myself to remember to bring my camera when we go out in the evening as we see the most amazing sunsets across the wide expanse of parking lots, this one at the mall.

The primordial roar of triumph!

After Wally assembled the first wall unit, we searched for months for the dowels, bolts and brackets for the second one til Wally finally searched the hardware stores for the missing pieces, even travelling to Berwick for them. In the meantime, he stripped wallpaper, patched plaster cracks, sanded, primed and painted the room, researched the best way to preserve our vintage linoleum floor and proceeded to clean it as well.

Imagine his chagrin when he realized that he had assembled the first unit with a top part on its bottom and now had 2 bottom parts with which to assemble the second unit. Patient, dear Wally replaced one of the "tops" with a bottom on that first unit and proceeded to assemble the second unit with a proper top and bottom. Hence his out-of-character rejoicing! He holds my father's mallet that came in handy for pummelling the dowels into place.

This narrow room once was our guest room. Then it was where Wally set up oil painting. It began to fill with more and more random supplies til it was a holy mess. I measured the units, each 6 feet long to run the length of the room, but it only exaggerated its narrowness and created a corridor where a planned table is to go. It is actually an "L" where it turns to the left by the half revealed window and opens into a closet that creates the ceiling of the stair landing below. How to keep it open and welcoming, functional and cheerful, that's been the question. I'll show you what we come up with as it progresses. I have a feeling I won't love it so much as I do when it's empty.

Now we move onto my boys. Babu looking most fetching.

Muji admiring my art,

then hunkering down for a nap

Babu on another day, licking his chops after breakfast

Try to get this boy when he's not moving.

oh-oh, two little monkeys squaring off. These little tiffs don't last long and often break up with a licking session or just plain obliviousness. You know, the cat kind where "it never really happened".

Muji was feeling particularly needy this day and needed lots of cuddles.

I forget just how small he really is until I see him in context like this.

I've been pulling out my watercolours lately. This one embellished with white details with the uni-ball Signo and outlined with a fine Pitt pen in black india ink. The busyness of the washi tape border gives me a Persian miniature vibe that I really like.

Then, as often happens after I use a lot of colour, I turned to the monochromatic palette of a mechanical pencil, but ended up adding some paint pen because I can't help myself. It was interesting going over the bright pink roses in her dress with more graphite to help them recede.

And now I must continue restoring the new studio. Hopefully I'll have some pictures to share of it by next week. Til then, be well, be centred, be present for everything you do, you see, you hear.

It is the gift.

a smile and a song

Good July Morning to you.
Or at least it was when I first started this post. After a relatively brief time in the garden and a ridiculously extended time correcting my over/under exposed pictures on this fabulously sunny day it is now late afternoon.

The morning started as it often does with seeing yellow birdies flitting back and forth across the garden like I'm Snow White

in Walt Disney's famous first feature length animated movie

Then, to add to the magic, I saw the pheasant!

You would have laughed to see me run for my camera.

The shadow and light, the breeze and a moving subject, made it nearly impossible to capture a good image when he surprised me by coming back.

A lovely, handsome fellow, I'd been wondering what happened to him when the hayfield was mowed on the first of the month.

Clearly it was much too open for him to linger

so he headed back for shelter.

I had no intention of putting much up on the blog today, so I grabbed this bowl of lychees, a favourite treat this time of year, often on sale like these- not quite ripe- because I think the local produce people have no idea what they are. I thought they made a beautiful study in colour and texture.

This gorgeous little bowl is by Ontario salt glaze potter Paul Kaye.

The joyous morning drew me into the garden. That was my first mistake.

Once I begin shooting flowers, it's impossible to stop.

Here, the aromatic flowers of lavender.

The slightly deeper colour of what Wally informs me is not Salvia, but I've yet to discover what they are.  It is a reliable standby in this corner of the composter garden.

On the outer corner of the same garden, the Echinacea are getting ready to take over the world with their leader, the only one blooming, standing out front as a leader does.

It is absolutely hypnotic as only a charismatic leader can be.

As I wandered around to the back, two yellow warblers followed me!

a little closer

I was amazed by their boldness.

Looking back at the massive hydrangea stand.

I call it a stand because it doesn't appear to grow from one plant like a bush, but from many, many stalks.

In a corner, the clover is blooming.

Walking to the back of the yard, the warblers are chip, chipping - much like that cardinal did last week when it saw the ginger cat. But I'm not convinced he's afraid of me as he appears to eat the little berries while he peers at me from overhead.

Pink Lupin is still blooming on the hayfield perimeter 

though much of it has gone to seed

Lupin seed heads amidst the cow vetch on the hayfield perimeter

Like crop circles, the hay mower left these "islands" of grass and weeds in the middle of the hayfield.

I can see the little tree on the left which explains that  one, but the rest...?

Wally has been mowing a patch behind Forget-Me-Not Cabin. At the back of it, the giant rose bush has lost many of its little blooms, and the hedge behind it is begging for a haircut.

In the foreground the little maple tree that we can't seem to remove is shading the honeysuckle.

Pink and white blossoms on the Honeysuckle

The yellow warbler is still watching me as I step back into the yard

probably my best shot yet 

though this one seems clearer

altogether too many of these shots

I leave you today with this drawing done in graphite and Sharpie gold paint pen done from a picture of a stone bust of Eleonora d'Aragona made around 1468 by Francesco Laurana,  a wonderful Renaissance sculptor whose work seems like a precursor to the stylized paintings of women by Modigliani ( who in fact was smitten with Egyptian art).

Yes, done on the 2nd, I didn't mean this to be connected with Leona, yet that was her birthday and I do miss her so much. I cannot believe it is only 4 1/2 months since she passed.

"Everything is ecstasy, inside... Close your eyes, let your hands and nerve-endings drop, stop breathing for 3 seconds, listen to the silence inside...and you will remember..."

                                                                  Jack Kerouac

fair weather

When we say "we're having some weather", we mean something more severe than usual.
When I hear about tornados in Ontario where I'm from originally, my memories from before we left come up short. The damage and devastation can be frightening if not tragic.

I'm glad to swap them for our severe weather here in Nova Scotia in the form of hurricanes and blizzards, and the outrageous heat that comes to the Annapolis Valley. So far, this summer has been fairly kind to us.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,

Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.

     So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

     So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

William Shakespeare wrote this- Sonnet 18- over 400 years ago. There is an exquisite beauty in his words that touches me to my core. This is the greatest lesson of being human- to come to know beauty beyond the ravages of time, to know the essence of life beyond physical beauty and recognize that as the truly beautiful.

Muji has been fussy about eating lately, but eventually he caves in and gets what he needs.

He's rarely playful. Babu has taught him to play tag.

But here he takes an interest in my bag folding.

His long "fingers" latch onto a compact triangle that interests him.

Then he strikes an "I don't care" pose that makes me think that's the end of it. 

Ah, but the hunt is not over.

Muji makes another reach

and he reaches out again

A bite is much more effective than a finger grab, and he pulls it off the table.

the Look.

I've never heard of, let alone used, an 8B graphite stick, so I was happy to get my fingers dirty playing around with this.

fair weather to you dear viewers,

and when it isn't clear sailing

 let us keep an even keel

cherish this moment