Looking At What’s Outside

The turkeys this morning with only one surviving chick. They are so vulnerable to predators when they are too small to fly.

Also along the new trail:

Heavily trafficked by the deer.

Lovely old stump skeleton.

An old treasure tossed over the bank.

After a turkey dust bath.

And last week in the early sun I photographed my school of wine fish outside my studio window. I miss being down there watching them gently sway with breezes.

And a pink lotus!

Attracting the first katydid of the season. Now our nights will be so noisy with their arguing whether katy did or didn’t.

 

 

And when was the last time you received a brown paper package tied up with string? A lovely and thoughtful gift for Lee all the way from Australia, three pairs of Bamboozled socks. I helped him put on the fox ones this morning. These kindnesses come from places never expected which makes them all the more memorable. And it brings up the absence of kindness from expected sources. The Covid virus has brought us all to new places in old comfort zones. A neighbor up from Florida brought over chicken soup the other day. Hotter than Hades but we ate the soup with gratitude. I am going to share some of my Second Best Malted Cookies I Ever Tasted with her.

We had a good chat on the walk outside about how we are both writing books about childhood memories, my Stoat Book and hers about journaling. I gave her one of my small kangaroo hide journals to use for illustrating the one that the book is about.

The Stoat books are all cut to exacting sizes and ready to glue, fold and make covers. It will take a while as I can only give that kind of concentration when the caregivers are here. A friend brought over the perfect color of lokta paper to do almost all of them….another kindness.

Most of the books will head to Australia. It will take a much longer time with Covid. I noticed my latest anonymous card took almost a month to get here from Tasmania. Probably fewer planes, fewer workers.

The drawings a day continue.

Stunted little grapes

sharing the stems with stunted

dried and curling leaves.

 

Is liriope

pronounced with every single

syllable or not?

 

A strange lavender

blooming vine crawling along

appealed to some bugs.

 

Prickly thorny stems

producing dried up berries

and shriveling stems.

 

That is about enough this morning. Lee has been dozing out here on the porch as we watch the trail blazers at work.

Til later.