Sunny Report

I've been spending time outside on the deck this weekend, enjoying the spring blooming that's happening. And reading a gigantic Stephen King library book, Fairy Tale. 

Our olive tree finally got moved. Well, DH and DS dug it up and moved it. The change in location didn't just happen on its own of course. We didn't expect the tree to get so tall, I think it was supposed to be a dwarf version? But it was almost hitting the power lines, so off to the edge of our garden it went. Fingers crossed it survives the transplantation. I think the gray-ish leaves will look nice against the dark redwoods.

The lilacs are going crazy this year, it smells really really amazing.

The cherry tree is in blossom too, and I'm so pleased it didn't fall over in the storms.

One of the dead branches came off of it, but that was fine. It's soaked up all the rain and burst forth. The bees are Very Busy.

Four ravens overhead, silent while they glide the currents.their shadows enough to bring me out of the 600 page book.
 

Sun Break

 

 

No sewing pictures today as I am too busy being outside enjoying the sun. We had lunch outside on the deck which was quite lovely. Now I'm going around checking on all our deck succulents to see how they're doing with all the rain. Some are just fine, some have nearly drowned.

Two new additions to our exterior decor.

The bird feeder which has now been discovered by a squirrel for the first time. Now it will have to have security measures installed or maybe even be moved elsewhere. This morning I heard a commotion out there and it was a squirrel vs. blue jay battle which was quite entertaining. The blue jay temporarily won, and Meg got to bark at the squirrel, but I'm sure he'll be back.

August?!?!

August?!?! I keep being surprised today that it is August **ALREADY**

I don't know why I'm so surprised, it probably has to do with the whole "time is a flat circle" thing we have going on during all the strangeness of the ongoing pandemic retreat.

That's what I'm calling it now, since it's not longer a quarantine or a shelter-in-place, it's a retreat from the pandemic. Maybe/probably because it's been going on for us since early to mid-March. That's a long time in dog years or human months.

This month marker photo was made with SnapSeed, and is a combination of the following two photos:

One of my collages from the last week of ICAD.

And a photo of the new bird feeder right before the birds flew in and gobbled the contents right up.

I'm taking a before and after picture every time I refill this, and I'm going to stitch them all into a movie with action shots with the birds that are showing up. It's a gawdawful mess, but the new faces are welcome around here. It's gotten to the point already, in about a week of having this thing set up that if it's empty and I step out onto the deck, the birds come and yell at me. Pretty funny.

Birds Birds Birds

I've been spending a lot of time working out on my deck so I've been able to take some cool videos of some of the bigger birds we have in our neighborhood. This year we have a pair of red-tailed hawks that have been hanging around and at least one raven, there may be two of them but I'm not sure as I've only ever seen one at a time. 

So one day all the little birds went crazy, all of their alarm calls went up, and sure enough one of the hawks was in prime hunting position on the old oak tree trunk stump. I watched it sit there and preen for a few minutes and was lucky enough to take this video when he (or she?) finally dove downhill. I'm assuming it was to hunt something, but who really knows.

Pretty soon after that, a large black bird flew up the hill and I could see that it was the raven that hangs around here. He (or she?) then took up the same position on the old oak tree trunk. Maybe it was an attempt to see if there were going to be any scraps left from the hawk's hunting? Pretty exciting stuff for our quiet neighborhood. The two pairs of bluejays went into action soon afterwards, a lot of frantic noises because they're in nesting mode.

My son has been doing the vegetable gardening so he noticed one of our two pairs of bluejays were reusing the same nesting spot as last year. Four little babies! It's under our deck, so when we're out there, our dog is very very interested in this exact spot above the nest. You can hear little noises and Meg can obviously smell them. They really look like mini dinosaurs in this state. The parents made a huge mess on our patio bringing down branches from our apple trees that had moss on them. It was like a building materials staging area which they then picked The Best twigs to use in making the nest. Or maybe it was like a decoy nest? I don't know bird behavior at all so I'm just guessing here.

Here's how they look as of yesterday, already blue and barely all fitting in the nest. Photo credit to Alex on both of these pictures.

Covered Up

This has been my only sewing for the past week.

Two cheap-o terrycloth towels sewn together on three sides to put over our rear-view mirrors.

All three cars' side mirrors were getting used by the birds as their toilets. Bleah. There was a last straw situation when my DH washed the car, took the dog for a walk, came back and the mirrors were coated *again*.

So these worked out and were very easy to make, certainly not worth all the applause I received. I made six of them, two for each car, no closures or anything, we just slipped them over and pushed the mirrors back.

Sorry not sorry, birds.

Rainbow Crow

 Posting my Bag O' Stuffquilt the other day reminded me that I'd never posted the incredible one I received in this round of Baggos.  This awesome piece was made out of my gallon zip-lock back of random stuff.  Pretty amazing huh?  The artist is Dolly Smith, who is a FiberPirate and a very talented artist and quilter.  The quilt measures 17"wide x 39"high and is entitled Rainbow Crow.  She also sent along the story that goes with it which you can read at the bottom of this post.  Little did she know how much I love mythology, Native American stories and crows.  I count myself very lucky to have received such a beautiful quilt.

 Beaded snowflakes

 The beaded gift of fire and one of the rainbow feathers.

 The rainbow crow in all his beaded glory.

 The layered details are so fun to discover, I swear I find new ones every time I look at this quilt which is hanging up in my studio.  Very inspiring!

This is the story of Rainbow Crow, a Lenape Indian legend.

When the earth was young, Rainbow Crow had the most beautiful plumage and sweetest song of all birds. The land was warm, but it began to snow and all animals did not know how to live in the snow. Rainbow Crow flew to Sky Spirit for help.

Sky Spirit gave Crow the gift of fire. Rainbow Crow flew to earth with a stick of fire. The smoke darkened his feathers and burned his throat. When he landed on earth, fire melted the snow and all animals were warmed.

Crow wept. His sweet song was now a rough "caw" and his beautiful feathers were black. Sky Spirit came to Crow and said, "For your selflessness and generosity I give you the gift of freedom. You will never be hunted, for your meat is burned and smoky, your feathers are black and will not be wanted, and your voice is not sweet and soothing. But when the sun shines, all will see the rainbow in your plumage."

Crow was content. 

Thanks again Dolly!

Nevermore Redux

Since it is Edgar Allan Poe's birthday today, he would have been 200 today, don't miss seeing this "special" raven cake over on CakeWrecks.

And oh, here are the other postcards I've made so far for the Raven Postcards Challenge.

This one has machine embroidered leaves and other machine embroidery on top of cotton scraps and upholstery fabric.

This excellent logo from a bookstore snagged online, printed out on cotton, surrounded by cotton scraps including some of my older discharged works. I'm finding I like this one diamond stitch on my machine. It is repeated three times, so the stitching is substantial and stands out.

Nevermore

One of the first activities I do in the new year is to use one of my many tarot or oracle decks to choose which animal guide will be accompanying me through the turn of the year's wheel. This year I chose the raven. Or the raven chose me. Whichever way you look at it, it is then no coincidence that there was a raven postcard challenge announced in the first week of the new year. I've gotten right down to work with one easy one made today.


This is my first 4x6" raven postcard made for the fiber artist group celebrating Edgar Allan Poe's 200th Birthday.

You can still join in if you'd like, over at: theraven_postcards yahoo group. They're due by the end of this month. I'm planning to make several more.

Most of the group is donating them to the Collage Mania FiberArt for a Cure.



The Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia is having a big birthday celebration with all kinds of events including a seance where they'll try to contact the spirit of Poe.

Early Morning Quail

Yesterday morning I was awakened by the distinctive call of the California Quail. It sounded like it was practically in my room, but that was just because I had the windows open. I peeked out the window and there they were, the cutest quail couple sitting on the top of the garden fence.

Then I heard a rustling and saw another one poking around on the ground in the excavation for the patio area, and then another appeared. Pretty soon I realized there were about 10 quail out there in the backyard. My goodness, a covey! I can't remember ever having quail running around in the fenced-in backyard, usually they hang out in the uncleared brushy area next to our property and occasionally come out on the hillside where we can see them. But not in our backyard! So I grabbed my camera and started shooting some pictures from the deck. The sun was exactly wrong though, so I knew I needed to try and sneak out in the backyard to get a better view without disturbing them. Can you see the five quail here?

They were all in a group except for the two on the fence who must have been outpost lookout sentries. As soon as I came out the back door they began squawking frantically. None of their cool calls of "Chicago", just an all out *watch out danger coming* kind of noise. They all flew up to the top of the bunny hutch and looked at me very warily, topknots a-bobbing, then I moved a teeny bit closer and poof they all took off up into the trees in all different directions, all squawking down at me. I was really surprised to see them fly off like this, as usually they stick so close to the ground, but I guess I got too far into their comfort zone.

Sorry quail, come back again sometime.

The Bluest Blue

Sometimes the sky is even bluer than you think it can possibly be.

How is that possible?

Do we forget that this color is there for us to see?

I always remember the color of the earth,

and note the hue of leaf or blade of grass.

Looking up to check the color of the sky

Just to see if it is different today.

This picture was taken at Montezuma's Castle outside of Sedona on our trip last month. I think the two birds are hawks, they were circling around,riding the air currents the whole time we were there. I was glad to get both of them in the same picture.

This Year is almost over

By that I mean the end of the school year.
And when that happens, you know that the end of the school year craziness is going on!
The usual whirlwind of class parties, field trips, last-minute school projects, dances, etc.
Oldest son, Zach is graduating from middle school! Yahoo, on to high school for him!
And youngest son, Alex is off to science camp for the final week of school. Weird, huh? He decided he finally wanted to cut his hair to "freak people out on the last day". Which worked quite well! So I cut it for him. Yes that is the same young man, hard to believe, huh?!

The quail are making crazy, ill-advised maneuvers these days. This family literally jumped out in front of me on our street, mom, dad and all the little bitty babies scootling around and then hiding in the bush on the left. Luckily I was paying attention and didn't smash them all. And I had my camera handy to get this picture. Click on it so you can see the teeny babies.

I've taken Joanna up on her Green Smoothie Challenge for June. Thirty days of drinking 32oz. of a green smoothie, inspired Victoria Boutenko's Green For Life book (which I just bought yesterday).
Here is one of the first ones I've enjoyed. It is worth drinking just to experience this green colour in person! Wow! I need to figure out how to dye this exact shade. Electric, vibrant and oh so very tasty. This was made of half a bunch of spinach, 3 leaves of kale, 3 leaves of chard, 1 banana, 1 cup frozen peaches, some water and 1T agave, 2T of FlaxSeed Oil. Yummy, and I'm so full, I can't snack or anything. I'm not planning on turning into a raw food advocate, don't worry. But I have been trying to figure out how to eat more dark, leafy greens and this is working for me. I do have to share what I blend up with Alex, he loves these!