All the Fluff

It's cottonwood fluff season in the neighborhood. Well, I suppose it's cottonwood fluff season all over, wherever there are cottonwood trees. There are huge old cottonwood trees behind the houses across the street and yesterday they started sending out their fluffy seeds. Today they really got in the swing of things. I ran an errand this morning and noticed that the gutter is filled with fluff and the edge of the lawn is full of fluff too. I'm just glad that it's not warm enough to have the air conditioner on so that the fluff doesn't get sucked into it and clogs up the vanes.

The female Oriole stopped by a couple times that I saw. She must feel like there's the correct place to sit on the jelly dish because she flew over, hopped on the orange, then fluttered up to the crook, and finally settled down in the place she usually sits and had her jelly fix. I haven't seen the male since I got back home a week ago. He must be off vagabonding around leaving her to tend the nest.

The male Cardinal showed up and drove all of the House Finches away from the platform feeder, as usual. I noticed that one male House Finch drives off any extra females when he and his mate come to feed. Are all male birds bullies?

I saw the male Goldfinch on the feeder back by the retaining wall and took a picture but it was too far away and turned out blurry. Later on I saw that one was on the near feeder, on the back side of course, but I managed to get almost all of the bird in this shot.

I didn't paint today. I know, scandalous. But I did draw a few critters out of 20 Ways to Draw a
Jellyfish. I was intrigued by the nautilus shell with its various stripes and dashes. I know that their shells aren't like that in real life but I like the way it looks.

At Friday Night Knitting I finished the Cashmere Sophie--finally. Unfortunately I ran out of yarn a few inches from the end so I decided just to bind off and make the one end blunt while the other one is pointy. I don't think anyone will judge me for that.

While I was out taking pictures of cottonwood fluff I took a look at Dad's rosebush and noticed that there are buds on it and one is looking like it's getting ready to bloom pretty soon. I can't wait.

The Sparrows and Starlings are working very hard to empty the birdfeeders that ED and I filled last night. I wish I could figure out a way to discourage the Starlings, they're the ones that really throw out the seed that they're not interested in. They dig and dig until they find a peanut half or a sunflower seed but I am not going to start filling a feeder with just those. I think that'd only bring more of them.

I spent a couple hours working on the manuscript today. I so want to be done with it soon. It's getting to the point where I'm not seeing the words, I find myself skimming which is not helpful.

--Barbara

Just Missed 'Em

There were interesting birds at the feeders and on the patio today, I just wasn't fast enough to get a picture of them. The female Oriole was back at least once pecking away at the jelly and the Bluejay stopped on the patio after I filled the feeders because there was quite a bit of seed spilled. The neighbor's 2-year-old is very interested when I'm out filling the birdbath or the feeders and she was outside so I asked her to help. Seed was spilled but the feeders got filled. These House Finches were the only birds that posed long enough for me to snap a photo.

I got a text from DS this morning that he was brewing and did I want to come visit? Oh yes, I certainly did. He was brewing a strawberry sour beer that sounds rather dreadful but since I'm not a beer drinker what do I know. The big story this year is Brewer For a Day. More than 30 people have plunked down their money and reserved a spot. He said that he's scheduling into October! And that people come in asking if there are any new BFD beers on tap. This is the little (well, little as compared to the big silver tanks behind it, this one is as tall as I am which isn't very tall but still...) tank that the BFD beer gets put in to ferment. He has two of them and is ordering a third. This is an idea that's going places!

Today I turned to the next project in Ink & Wash to draw and paint butterfly bush. I really like the way it turned out. The extra on this project was to turn to the back of the book and add a Monarch butterfly to the page. Oh, I'm not ready for that just yet.

I got a package today. It was my new/used embosser and folders with the designs. Naturally I had to get it all out of the box and play with it. Luckily it even came with the manual. I cut up a couple watercolors that were kind of meh and tried it out. I can't wait until LC and OJ come over so we can play with it. I ordered blank cards that came with envelopes so we can glue the watercolor pieces on the cards and have something.

The blue star flowers keep opening. This plant is opening little buds at a fast rate. Maybe the warm sunny day encouraged it to speed up blooming.

And the purple salvia is doing its best. This color is reddish purple so I like it better than the blue stars or the blue grass.

Here's today's Gratitude Journal page. I didn't have any trouble thinking of things to put on it today. In fact there were a couple things that didn't make it but I drew the first things too big so I ran out of room.

DS was wearing a new Zambaldi shirt today commemorating their 4th year in business. Four years! Man, it doesn't seem that long but they opened up just a few weeks before the lockdown in March 2020 so four years it is. I wanted one and he even let me buy it. Now I have a new Zambaldi t-shirt to wear.

 

OJ had his first soccer game last night. He's not real sure of how to play but he runs around with the other kids. I guess the teams don't keep score so the kids learn to play but evidently the parents do keep score. OJ's team won 4-3, but who's counting. I've got the schedule so I'll try to make a game now and again. Should be fun.

I almost forgot. I got an email from Audible yesterday and couldn't figure out what it meant. Was it a scam? I'm kind of skittish about email scams lately. Anyway, I looked at it closely and it's my first Audible royalty payment! I sold an audiobook and got paid for it! Hooray! And I've got Horizon's eBook free for the last 5 days and have "sold" 22 of them! Holy moly! Now I need people to read it, like it, and buy other titles. That's the plan anyway.

--Barbara

A Whole New Bird

I saw a flash of red out on the suet pellets and saw a bird I'd never seen before. It stayed long enough for me to take a few pictures and once it had flown away I looked it up. It's a Red-headed Woodpecker. Not to be confused with a Red-bellied Woodpecker. This one is black and white without stripes and has a full ruby red head and collar. A good sized bird so it showed up well on the pictures. I was thrilled.

The female Oriole has been visiting the grape jelly every day since I got home and refilled the dish on the feeder. I haven't seen the male but then I don't spend all day staring out at the feeder.

I did see this male House Finch having a nice long orange snack this afternoon. He was very focused and spent quite a bit of time pecking away at the orange half. He also hopped down to the grape jelly but after dipping his beak in a couple times went back to the orange.

I realized this morning that I forgot to post yesterday's watercolor effort. I tried my hand at a yellow iris. The background is a little too dark, I think, but I'm pretty happy with the way the flower turned out. KA commented that she thought I did better on small pictures so I'm working on the postcards again.

Today's watercolor is of the bleeding hearts. It's okay. I like the colors and the shapes of the flowers but it may be too detailed. That seems to be my style, actually. I struggle with the more impressionist style I'd like to be better at. But in its defense, it turned out the way I imagined it.

The Gratitude Journal for today is pretty simple. We had a full sunny day after days and days of dreary, rain, and overcast. Then there was the new bird to look at. And I spent a little time excavating the floor of the linen closet. It's one of those catch-all places that doesn't get sorted out much so things have been piling up down there for a while now. Today was the day it got unpiled and mostly tossed. I didn't really need six elastic bandages, now did I? Two is plenty.

I had the second to the last Novel critique group Zoom today. I got some good comments and, I hope, gave some too. This has been an interesting and profitable experience. I'm glad that I decided to sign up last winter. Afterward I worked more on my hook sentence and wrote the first draft of the blurb. That's a funny word, isn't it? Blurb. It sounds like something you'd have to mop up.

--Barbara

More Rain

We had off and on rain today, mostly in the afternoon AFTER I finished my errands. Whew. I risked life and limb to climb the steepest slope in the backyard to take a picture of the lone French Iris that's blooming. There are more buds but this one is the early bloomer. I was so afraid that the wet grass would be slick, afraid that I'd fall, so I clung to the retaining wall with one hand trying to be casual about it but keeping my balance and feet under me.

You can see the raindrops on the purple Iris flowers. I tried to take pictures of the blossoms that are upright, not tipped over but so many of them are flopped together that it was a challenge.

Another tiny blue star flower opened. I was interested to see the buds behind it standing up straight waiting for their turn to open. I wonder if these early bloomers will stay open until the rest of the flowers join them.

I forgot to show you the Ladyslipper Orchids that were blooming up at The Clearing last week. They were just starting to bloom so it took a bit of searching to find them, except for this clump which was right next to the door of cabin #5. I had doorstep Trilliums at cabin #2, they had doorstep Ladyslippers.

This is Kari our watercolor teacher with the art gift that the class made for her. She showed us how to cut unsatisfactory paintings into strips and weave the strips together to make something better so one of the painters had the idea to cut plain paper into strips, gave a strip to each student, and then wove them together and mounted the weaving on another sheet of paper. We each signed our strip so she knew who did what. She was very pleased.

I did errands after lunch but before the rain. Went to U Bake for Goldfish crackers (way discounted), to Family Pet Center for birdseed, etc., to the Shell station for gas, and to Meijer for a few groceries. I can't carry the big, 40# bags of birdseed in from the garage anymore but I can drive around into the backyard and park near the patio so I only have to carry the bags a few feet to put them in the cans where they belong. It's so much more economical to buy the big bags, I just have to make sure I've got the cans stocked before the snow flies.

 

I got the June 1 Writing Progress email written and ready for Mailerlite to send out on Saturday. Every month I think that I won't have anything to write but when it comes time to write the email/letter I manage to fill the page. I tried to put on a picture that I painted of birches but it wouldn't copy and paste so I guess I'll just slap it on here. I think this was my best painting of the week and I did it on last Monday, the first day of class. It was kind of downhill from there.

I have to keep reminding myself that tomorrow is Wednesday and I have Novel critique group at 10am. Yesterday felt like Sunday to me and today feels like Monday even though I don't work. I'm still confused so I'll have to set an alarm so I get up, eat breakfast, do yoga, and get dressed before 10. I suppose I could just comb my hair and put on earrings. No one would know I was Zooming in my pjs since I wear a hoodie over them. Oh, bad idea. I need to be dressed. Right?

--Barbara

Flower Day

I went out this morning with my phone to take iris and bleeding hearts pictures so that I can call them up when I want to paint flowers and have something to look at, something to refer to. First come the yellow irises. They're so bright and pretty. I'll try my hand at painting them tomorrow.

 

Then there are the purple irises. They're pretty too but they're less bright and shining in the gray light of a cloudy day. They're also kind of in a jumble there are so many of them all together.

I want to try painting the bleeding hearts too. That little arcing row of pink hearts with the lighter pink drops should be a challenge.

I tried my hand at painting the purple iris today. It didn't turn out too badly but I realized that the lower petals go up and then arch down so I'll have to see if I can't do that the next time. 

In bird news the pair of Goldfinches were on the finch feeder this morning posing ever so nicely for me.

And the Bluejays, yes, plural, two Bluejays flew around and one landed on the ground to peck at the fallen millet seeds. I hoped that they'd both land under the feeder but only one did. Oh well, one is better than none or one blurry one that's really too far away for a picture.

The sun shone for a few minutes this afternoon so that made it onto the Gratitude Journal page today. You know I'm always grateful for sunshine. I spent a few minutes pulling some weeds from on top of the retaining wall. What I thought was one of the new plants turned out to be a gigantic clump of some sort of picker weed. I was glad to have leather gloves on.

Oh, I almost forgot. One of the blue star flowers bloomed. Just one little tiny star about the size of my fingernail on the clump of buds but I thought you might like seeing it. It's kind of pretty.

I spent part of the afternoon dozing in front of my manuscript. I managed to read through and micro-edit about 50 pages in between snoozes. I'm semi-convinced that it's done but I'm not quite ready to trust the feeling.

I won the eBay auction for the embossing machine and embossing folders so it should all arrive next weekend sometime. I had to order blank cards and envelopes to have something to put the embossed cut up paintings on. Oh, and I need to buy Elmer's Glue to stick them together. No, I don't. I just remembered a place to look and found two bottles of Elmer's. Score!

Tomorrow's supposed to be another rainy day. I thought for sure that it'd clear right up as soon as the holiday weekend was over. Evidently not.

--Barbara

Good Thing I Mowed This Morning

'Cause it started raining just after lunch and it hasn't stopped yet. I was impressed to see the female Oriole sipping away at the grape jelly even in the rain. She kept ruffling her feathers as if to shake off the drops. I was also impressed with myself because I mowed the whole yard without a break in the middle like I usually do. I knew if I stopped I'd have a hard time starting up again so I just kept going. And of course it's raining. I don't remember a Memorial Day weekend lately when it hasn't rained at least one day.

Yesterday when I filled the feeders I brought the Hummingbird feeder in because it was moldy and looked like no Hummingbirds had visited. I was going to try to clean the feeder but I ended up tossing it because it's plastic and very difficult to clean. So I moved the old finch feeder down to the crook that the Hummingbird feeder was on and one of the Goldfinches found it today. She's not bright yellow like the males but she's just as welcome to stop over for a snack.

A male Oriole visited a couple times that I noticed. He's so bright and pretty. He hopped around from crook to feeder and back to the crooks a couple times until he landed on the jelly dish just right.

I decided to try my hand at another hollyhock painting today, making the flowers bigger and more ruffly. It kind of worked. I'm happier with this one than I am with the ones I painted on Friday. Maybe I'll take a stab at tulips tomorrow since I wasn't thrilled with Tuesday's tulips last week either.

While I was mowing I noticed that one of the poppy buds opened. I'm glad I took its picture when I did because I suspect that the rain has beaten it down. Darned rain.

I even managed to draw a Gratitude Journal page this evening. I mostly put the rainy afternoon on there because I like the way I draw clouds and raindrops. Silly, don't you think?

Last week the watercolor teacher suggested that I seem to do better on smaller paintings, that they're my size paintings so I went over to Michaels and picked up a couple smaller flat and round brushes to facilitate painting smaller papers. A 1" flat brush is just too big to use on the little postcard size papers so I splurged on a 1/2" one. I tried it out on the hollyhock painting and it worked like a charm. Good buy, Barbara.

I also checked on eBay and found an embossing machine and plates for not a lot of money. I should find out in the next hour if I've "won" the bid for the machine. I had such fun with the embosser that KA brought to the Schoolhouse for us to play with. I cut up old paintings and glued them onto card stock that she brought too. She even brought envelopes. I decided if I could find some used ones for not too much money it'd be a fun thing to play with and for the grandkids to play with too. Time will tell! It would be a good use of the stacks of watercolor paintings and postcards I have laying around here.

--Barbara

It Was a Great Week!

I had a fun (and tiring) week watercolor painting at The Clearing in Ellison Bay, Door County, Wisconsin. We painted morning and afternoon with the teacher and then went back to the Schoolhouse to paint without her after supper. By yesterday I was pretty much exhausted and my paintings that day were the worst of the week, even worse than Tuesday's tulips. They're supposed to be hollyhocks but the blooms aren't big enough and they just look like dots. Not my best work. In the afternoon KA showed us how to paint conifers at my request. I think everyone else just did their own thing but I practiced and the one tree painting I had time for turned out pretty well. The page in my sketchbook isn't as good but I'll keep practicing. I'm stubborn that way.

 

Our instructor, Kari Anderson, brought in a basket of her fused glass pieces yesterday and let each of us choose one. Naturally I picked the one with the red glass in it. I need to find some fishing line or a chain to hang it somewhere in the light. Isn't that a cool gift?

Last Sunday while I waited around for time to leave for The Clearing a Bluejay flew down onto the ground under the feeders and stayed long enough for me to take about five pictures. This one is the best.

When I got home today I saw that all of the grape jelly was gone from the Oriole feeder. I was afraid that meant that the Orioles wouldn't come back but I filled the jelly dish anyway and when I came upstairs from carrying my suitcase down I saw a female Oriole on the feeder. She flew away as I reached the top of the stairs but I'm so relieved to see her at all. I put out a new orange half too.

When I got home this morning just before lunch I looked out the patio door and saw that the iris buds from last week had burst into bloom while I was gone. Many of the stalks have tipped over from the weight of the flowers but just look at the line of blooms. Beautiful!

And the yellow iris are blooming too. All of these flowers are on the part of the retaining wall that's behind the rental side of the duplex but they're still my flowers so I get to take their pictures.

Next to the iris is a purple/blue perennial salvia (I think). They're okay looking, not as flashy as I'd like but once again I didn't choose the plants, the landscaper did. They're the wrong color and wouldn't be my choice. Ah well, I did let him pick, let him plant them, and paid for them so I have to shoulder part of the blame.

One of the most exciting aspects of last week was that I sold six books. Six! One of the other watercolor students bought one of each title, another bought Horizon, and one of the poets bought The Seaview. And I swapped two titles for these books from two of the poets. One is a book of poems about Moby Dick and what comes next, and the other one is a Young Adult novel. Pretty cool, huh?

On my way out of Ellison Bay this morning I stopped at Kick Ash which is a coffee shop/gift shop/bookstore. They make amazing granola so I bought a bag, found some scented gel pens for LC and OJ, a packet of small napkins, and a pair of earrings. 

 

I bought earrings at The Clearing's bookstore on Thursday afternoon when we don't have class but I'm wearing them so I didn't take them off to take their picture. They're a square of brass with a tiny leaf dangling in the center and a blue gray bead hanging from the bottom. I also bought this 5-Minute Watercolor book thinking that it'd give me some tips. I've paged through it and think it's interesting. Further study is required.

It was good to be away for the week even though it was only really warm enough to not wear a hoodie one afternoon and it threatened rain a couple days. We had a big thunderstorm blow through one night but no severe weather and no tornado. Thank heavens because we'd have had to go into the basements under the cabins and they look like breeding grounds for giant spiders and platoons of mice. No thanks. There were five of us who had been in class together before so it was fun to get reacquainted.

Doesn't it seem too early for Memorial Day weekend?

--Barbara