Moleskine Exchange Started

I've started a Sketch exchange with Dad. My drawing of a dragonfly started us off. It stopped by a few summers ago, and very kindly hung out on a piece of bamboo that was propping up my summer tomatoes. It allowed me to take several photos...I'd had enough of shooting photos before it ever decided to fly away.

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Lunar Eclipse

Clouds and lens flare all natural...photo has only been reduced in size for Blogger.

The beginning of the eclipse was visible from my back yard. By the time it was around 10 minutes into the main eclipse, it had disappeared behind a building.


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Kickstarter Campaign I'm Supporting

SEA CHAIR: Into the Gyre

Now Here

Striving, struggling, hoping and planning

One foot in front of the other

Collecting, arranging, scheduling and organizing.

Striving to be the hyperbolic human.

Supermom, specialist, expert and fluent

One foot in front of the other

Rising above, forgiving, bridging the clichéd gap.

Still striving to be the hyperbolic human.

Standing anywhere at any time the breeze blows a whisp of hair in my face, across the bridge of my nose.

Irritation.

Leave the hand at your side, and turn your face to the wind, girl.

The lock shifts away.

Inhale and smell...damp earth or hot asphalt or honeysuckle or...

Exhale.

Inhale. Drop your shoulders. Let ease consume you.

Shoulders fall, jaw slackens, eyes close. Exhale.

Inhale...the world's immaculate odor. Fragrant or foul...Earth.

Exhale the body into the Earth...exhale Being.

Release hyperbolic human and be:

At the end of the simple exhalation, cough...gently, and cough repeatedly and softly until all air deserts you. Chuff your wind into the world.

Collapse your Self.

Physiologically and deeply inhale and exhale...now you are primal.

Now you breathe to exist, sweet simple existence.

Simply existing is Being.  Permission and affirmation not required.

I am. I exist. Enough.

Yellow Iris

This Saturday the Harbor Market in Kenosha will be heading outside for the summer...a true sign of spring!

The Four Seasons Garden Club will be having our plant sale at the market. I've been illustrating some of the species I'll be contributing to the sale. This drawing was done from a photo I took a couple of years ago. This year I drained my pond, and whacked about 6 cuttings from the plant. The cuttings are in buckets anxiously anticipating their forever homes. :-)

The illustrations will be going on plant description sheets with growing instructions and some other pictures I've taken of the plants, either recently or over the years.

If you happen to be in Kenosha, WI this weekend, please stop by our booth and pick up some plants! The proceeds of the plant sale will support garden club projects including, but not limited to, the maintenance of the Margaret Myers Memorial Garden on the Kemper Center property.

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Nature Red in Beak and Claw

A slight variation on the true quote, but more accurate to the scene in my back yard this morning. A Swainson's Hawk stopped by for a meal!

Close-up from the photo above.

From the remaining feathers, I think lunch might have been a morning dove, but I'm not sure.

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New Rain Garden

Easter weekend I made this water damming herb garden into a rain garden. Now instead of a pool of water that flows around the house and out to the sewer, I have a garden that claims the water and filters it into the water table. It's still a bit lumpy, so I'll have to do a bit more careful grading to optimize its performance, but there's measurable progress.

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Missing Art

My apologies for missing art within this blog. Much of the artwork I posted was cross-posted from Flickr. Because they are in a changing-the-rules phase, I've decided to limit the artwork I upload there. I also removed quite a bit of art from Flickr. As a result, many of my links are missing artwork.

Slowly but surely, I'll reload the artwork and replace the missing art.

Thanks for stopping by, and thanks for your patience.