Another Dreary Morning

Posted on by Sandy Webster

It is dreary looking out there. The walks have been the same.

The Riverwalk showed this last bit of color.

The cats seem fluffier when the skies are grey. They are waiting for some sunlight.

I noticed how the crows wait for the turkeys to finish before going in to feed on whatever is left. I thought crows were more brash, pushy and less considerate than this. But this day they were outnumbered thirteen to five.

It inspired me to draw a crow in the Bird Stories book.

It takes so much lead to do these these dark birds. So next was a nuthatch.

Today seems like a good day to draw and write. When the sun comes out later I will go for my walk….too drizzly now.

A while back I heard a journalist on public radio talk about the “news” of the day. She pronounced “news” like one would pronounce “noose” or “moose”, or “goose”. Why didn’t she say “news” like “lose”?  Or more closely related, “screws”? Why is it that the words with more of the vowel, “o”, get a shorter “o” sound? My junior high English teacher would have had the answer. She knew everything. That woman would make us recite the prologue to The Canterbury Tales in the language it was written! I can still recite the first few lines and sometimes do, out loud, to myself, just to remember how learning used to be. Miss Willis would rap her ruler on her desk and make us start again if the pronunciation was off even a little bit. One had to recite not only correctly but with feeling! She wore dresses with hems well below the knee and her dark brown hair was in ripple-like waves going away from her face. I never knew where those waves ended up because she was careful to never take her eyes off of us.

Do junior high English teachers know that some of their students will remember sixty odd years later what and how they were teaching?

And for those wondering what the prologue was, here is just the beginning:

 

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licóur
Of which vertú engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye,
So priketh hem Natúre in hir corages,
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially, from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.
Spell check just had a field day with that!
Anyway it is just now a bit past nine-thirty a.m. I think it is time to draw, or write or maybe just read through the above prologue, out loud, with feeling.
Til later

Filling My Days By Making Old Habits New Again

Posted on by Sandy Webster

There are few pastimes that are as relaxing as drawing. Last week I found four books that had not been bound and a whole pad of watercolor paper that could be cut into folios for two landscape format sketchbooks with lots of blank pages just waiting to be filled. Now they are all ready to go.

The morning walks clear my head so I can think things through. I go by myself because it is early and few people are around. I also go alone to avoid hearing anything but bird song, rippling waters and my own thoughts. Once in awhile I hear myself sighing with relief that it is just us, me thinking and me agreeing that whatever is so.

The walks have been cold. Along the dam a few days ago.

And then the river yesterday and this morning further downstream.

And this tiny surprise along the way.

I treated myself to a skim milk lavender latte at the coffee shop on the way back this morning and opened one of the small journals to practice pen drawing again. This will become easier and better with practice. But it is a start. My old friend, Gwen, and I used to sit and sketch together years ago. She kept it up and I dropped off.  Between her posts and another facebook friend from down under, I am inspired to take it up again. The small book and pen will stay in my purse and I will take the few minutes each time I am in a coffee shop or similar place to just do it.

The turkeys, all fourteen of them have taken to coming back in the afternoons to wander around the front door.

I have made some final decisions on the new house. Do I want to step over a three inch wall into the shower or simply step down three inches to a recessed shower floor? I am stepping down not over. What color shingles do you want on the roof? Does it matter? Yes, you have to choose from over ten possibilities. I chose medium grey. The windows for my house have arrived. This is good news as the ones for another house are still being held up. I asked for exact finished measurements of some interior walls that will determine where furniture goes. The more I figure out here the less I have to ponder over later. I want to spend as little time as possible sitting among boxes and rearranging furniture.

Half of the garage will be used for studio space. Carving and printmaking will be done there but all the papers need a dry interior space. Large flat corrugated cardboard sleeves can be labeled and tucked under the guest room bed. Smaller papers and supplies can fill dresser drawers in that same room. If guests require more than a couple of drawers perhaps they are staying too long.

As for the artwork, I have found which walls most of it will go on in the new house.

I am also thinking that I might even have pale colored walls in the bedrooms and den. I can’t remember the last time there was anything but off-white on my walls. A soft pale sage green in the guest room would be nice with al that pine furniture. My bedroom a pale graphite, the den maybe the same or something like a hot chocolate with extra milk. It will be fun to just look at what is out there in paint colors.

Speaking of fun. This one is very good company!

Til later….

Back to Routines

Posted on by Sandy Webster

I took this photo toward my studio at the house while Patrick and I were packing up Lee’s shop tools.

With some wonderful help almost everything was loaded into a trailer or his truck to head north. So many heavy power tools…table saw, planer, router, large stand sander, sand blaster, drill press that belonged to Lee’s uncle, two large tool chests on rollers, and many, many tubs of parts and pieces of even more tools. Then came the wormy chestnut lumber that has been saved in the shed for such a long time waiting for Lee and Patrick to come up with yet another project. What is left in the shop will go back at Christmas in another trailer with furniture that won’t be necessary to stage the showing of the house.

The filters came today for the floor scrubber and vacuum. I put them where they needed to be and the cleaning lady will be surprised tomorrow how well things are working.

I am back on my morning walks. Very cold but got a nice riverwalk in this morning.

The water is way down in the river.

A quick stop at the state liquor store today as I was going to meet friends for lunch.

A single malt compliments of friends in California and a strange little thing that begs to be tried.

Peanut butter whiskey!! Remember when these little sample bottles were only one dollar? Nott now! But I paid my three dollars just to try this concept of flavoring whiskey with peanut butter. What in the world will be next?

Sunsets have been pretty this past week.

And more in the Bird Stories book.

That is about all for now. The trailer made it home to Michigan in eleven hours and is now unpacked.

Til later…..

Tips – This Could Be A Good One

Posted on by Sandy Webster

Tip # 1 – catnip helps cats get acquainted.

Tip #2 – Greek yogurt can be substituted for sour cream and when there is not as much butternut squash as the recipe calls for, add a sweet potato. And rosemary looks as good as chives for a garnish.

Tip #3 – chicken tastes like a more moist turkey and paired with the regulars makes a fine Thanksgiving dinner.

Tip #4 – Appreciate the light around you.

Tip #5 – Learn how to sit quietly and enjoy the flavors of a fine cotes-du-Rhone and a new scotch. And think how lucky you are to have friends far away that think you should buy a good scotch, send you a check to pay for it, and ask you to set up a time so you can have the drink together. The best!

Tip # 6 – Accept the fact that it is so cold at the dam and the wind is giving you an ice cream headache. Turn back at less than 500 steps across to take a shot of the Mars-like landscape and get into the car.

Tip #7 – and this is where it gets really good. If you are like me it does not ever occur to look at manuals. The one that lurks in the glove compartment of the car is certainly the most avoided, or so I thought.

Our Hover floor scrubber just quit sucking up the water it so willingly sprayed on the floor. My cleaning lady suggested I ask Patrick to look at it. As suspected – full of “lint”. Packed from one end to the other with years of cat hair. I estimate that every cat we ever owned was somewhere in all the curved, angled, hard to reach areas. So Patrick took it apart carefully remembering which screws went where.

The tip part of this is the tools I used to clean out the hard to reach areas.

The standard toothbrush.

 

The mushroom cleaning brush was the best for clearing cat hair from the spinning bristles.

And then this! Rosemary stem. Flexible enough to go around corners and sturdy enough to poke away at the stubborn clumps.

So, pleased with our progress on the Hoover, we turned on the Dyson vacuum to assist in the cleanup. Patrick said it whined a bit too much. Well no wonder – same issues! But the filter that I am sure the manual claims should be replaced regularly had completely disintegrated into what we assumed was more packed old cat hair. So we scrubbed the parts remaining.

And they are now out in the sun because deep inside hidden from view was a warning not to put any damp parts back into the vacuum.

While these parts dry I have ordered new filters for both cleaning machines and decided to write this blog. Patrick is now off to the hardware to get a replacement door knob for the door to the garage and more tubs to pack tools from Lee’s shop.

Using the kitchen sink to clean out the scrubber and vacuum have reinforced the idea to get a laundry tub put into the new house. Speaking of which we did stop by on our way home from the dam to take a picture of the lot being prepared for construction.

And there was time to get a new drawing into the Bird Stories book. A junco that is on the left is on my mind because they show up by the dozens when it gets cold enough for them here.  It sure is now!

No more news from here. Lunch will be some of those yummy savoury scones I made the other day and a piece of one of the chocolate mousses Patrick brought down. He will fix the door and go down to the shop to work on the new mantel for the house and I will try not to watch more episodes of Perry Mason, a superbly acted and filmed story of his early life. So good that one would think it is a British production.

I have a bunch of blank books that only need their Coptic bindings to finish them off. Several were found while Marla and I were going through the studio packing things up. I could work on those or go back to my stitching. Maybe I will just watch out the window for juncos and pick a fresh supply of rosemary for the kitchen.

Til later….