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.

last friday in august

Friday from my little part of the world.

Nothing much has changed, though Wally is working like crazy organizing cars for the flight squadrons, crew and support staff who are performing at the air show in Greenwood this weekend.

Wally has free tickets but I won't join him as it truly is his thing and not mine.

a crystal and beach stones on a window sill

Muji watches me take the picture.

Then it's off to the front porch to check the mail. Yes, we still get home delivery here. Sweet.

The lilies are spent in the lily garden but the mallow keeps blooming.

Muji has been waiting for me to come in 

and then he hears Babu clunking around in the kitchen.

Could he be cleaning up?

Muji was once an outdoor cat and the world outside continues to hold great fascination for him.

He continues trying to make The Great Escape through the bathroom closet, kitchen cupboards and the basement door. Some things never change. 

This is where I left off this morning at the kitchen table.

My ancient box of Eagle Prismacolor coloured pencils is getting a good workout these days.

The Jane Davenport set lays to the left. It is also useful for its unusual colours.

I don't usually use a mechanical pencil but I've bee working on a sketch of Botticelli's Venus and finding this fine graphite easier to work with, easier to rub out with that school grade eraser that has worked amazingly well for me on the cheap paper of my little sketchbook.

a bunny sketch in Derwent Black pencil with that marvelous "light green" Prismacolor that fairly glows in the background

and that picture I showed you as a work in progress 2 days ago, now complete.

Done in coloured pencils with some fine Pitt pen outlining.

I played with a similar fantasy background in the fox picture I showed you earlier this week.

It's a fun way to fill in the background but this time I had to subdue it with sepia pencil because it competed with my main characters- hence the extra outlining as well to help bring the characters forward. I have no purpose in having them petition the cat with open bags. I call it Collecting.

The weekend is upon us. So is cooler weather. I hope yours is pleasantly spent.

in peace and presence my friends

morning of the solar eclipse

Perhaps because I was self-employed most of my life, Monday mornings don't hold the usual dread that they do for many people who differentiate them from weekends. I tended to look at my down time in terms of seasons and winter became a haven for me from the rigours of business. But today, this Monday of all Mondays, is supersaturated with relevance, for today,

Western Europe, Northeast Asia, Northwest Africa, North America, much of South America, the Pacific, the Atlantic and the Arctic 

will have a solar eclipse!

If that don't beat the Monday blues! We live such little lives on our beloved little planet and cosmic phenomena really serve to remind us the relative importance of everything. There won't be another solar eclipse in my part of the world, eastern North America, til 2025.

After another rainy Saturday and a hot and humid Sunday,

it promises to be bright though hot again today.

Muji would rather be outside with me

Babu would rather share the window with Muji

The hayfield looking ESE already promises heat as the dew lifts this morning.

So far so good with the grapes ripening

The beans grow in rows like a curtain

A brown butterfly suns itself on a fallen maple leaf

What a clever landing pad.

Raspberry for breakfast

Our new mint patch

a new stalk of gladiola

a nest of hens and chicks

a tall weed with its pretty little blossoms

We're inveterate, or should I say, "veteran" sales hunters,

but this ten cent cabbage takes the cake,  my best deal in years.

Muji hops down from the window and is at the door to greet me before I've got it shut.

Babu isn't far behind.

The middle section of my sketchbook has two signatures of cheap kraft paper which I'm enjoying for its mid tone, allowing me to use a light cream colour to effect. Outlined in a brush-tipped India ink Pitt pen and coloured with coloured pencils, I'm still working with multiple images for more interest. The heavier, gold-dotted kraft cardstock that I collaged on was harder to tear and therefore left some really nice edges.

 

Smitten with that gold-dotted kraft card, I found a place to lay it down in this coloured pencil extravaganza. It's been so much fun not to work to anyone's expectations but my own and see where my intuition will take me. I haven't been able to work like this since the '80's.

Giving myself permission has been a long time coming.

"Let freedom reign. The sun never set on so glorious a human achievement."

                                                                                    Nelson Mandela

peace on earth

Early Autumn in the Garden

And the beat goes on-

the grinding of motors, the house vibrating and what must the trees think?

On the 19th of September the water and sewer trench was dug

though we won't actually be hooked up until everyone beyond us is dug out and connected as well.

That means Free Water! for now, though, of course, we pay for our filtration and softener.

I must say the novelty has worn off as the grind of heavy equipment takes its toll.

Wally came home on a gorgeous Friday evening past to find me in bed with a book, windows open to get some fresh air, despite the house and the aluminum tool shed rattling for 3 hours worth of rolling the temporary street's gravel before this long weekend past. It's enough to make a girl crazy.

A few days later, Wally called me over to see this marvelous visitor

Out on a Limb- of Dill Weed.

I guessed it was a swallowtail butterfly caterpillar and upon researching it, it is,

and what do you know, the first reference was someone finding one on her dill!

Dill is a lovely herb, the seed heads so pretty. I enjoy it in yogurt with garlic, a quick tzatziki which I serve with almost any savoury dish, especially nice with enchiladas or any bean dish.

All lined up like chorus girls, I call this the Dance of the Dill Seed Heads

I turned to the garden, the kale looking hardy, with the tomatoes ready to pick

Two Cucumber Buddies that we hoped would grow bigger. Don't let the picture fool you; these are quite small.  They become bitter the older they get (well, isn't that just like some people)

but they still work in a salad or juiced.

Cropped from a blurry photo of a bumblebee, these are wild asters that my camera likes to bleach out.

Really, they are such a rich pinky violet.

That same afternoon, the wind-tossed trees across the hayfield.

The lighting, the heaving of the trees like lungs, this grips me with its melancholic beauty, the last breath of summer.

Meanwhile a pen and ink drawing of a bunny that I cut out and place on a page from the same book from which it was torn, a book I plan to "alter" as the latest expression goes.

For now,

let us plant ourselves in the Now,

the only time we've truly got.

peace