Spring's Arrival: Story Time and Hummingbirds

      
Book: Play With Me  
By: Marie Hall Ets
Copyright: 1955

 Spring is here!  

Well, it feels like it, for the most part.  I hope you've enjoyed this book.  

My mom read this to me and my sister when we were growing up.  I've read it to my own children and the many children in my classrooms over the years.

As a child, it always left me pondering.  Could that really be true?  Could you be friends with the wild animals if you were quiet enough, if you really listened?  

I wanted to be that little girl!

Today was a very rainy Sunday.  As I sat and watched 6 or more humming birds came to the feeder.  They seemed to not care one bit about the pouring rain!  Paying close attention, I'm beginning to tell some of them apart.  They're earning names for themselves.  Most of them look very similar.  There is a tiny one with a spot on her throat.  We've decided that the little ones are females.  This may or may not be true, as I don't really know how to tell the genders apart.  Maybe it's a leftover childhood thing, something like cats are girls and dogs are boys.  When you are young and naive, anything is possible!

There is one hummingbird that is far more colorful, a yellow-golden color.  She's fast and kind of a bully, she chases all of the others away from the feeder!  But, she is oh so beautiful.  Her name is Goldie (of course), but she has other color related nicknames as well.  They drink the homemade food like crazy.  They race back and forth between the feeder and the camellia bush next store, where they feed some more or sit for a moment.

They have become more comfortable around me, so when I water the Mama Rose - they fly right above my head.  I laugh and duck a bit, thinking the are the fastest whirligigs ever!!!

Standing in the driveway is like standing on the runway at LAX!!!

I tried to snap a photo through the window and the rain, but they are so fast and my shutter speed is not able to keep up!  Here is one of the better pictures.  The rest they look like grey-black blurry blobs.  They were flying up under the porch eves a lot (maybe because of the rain) and they look like ghosts against the white paint. So nondescript.

See the camellia bush next door?

Photos by NAE @pomegranatetrail ©2012

By the way, the Mama Rose has at least one teeny-tiny bud.  It's about the size of a pencil tip!  It is lush with leaves and promise.  I am so grateful to be able to see it outside my window.

Lastly, here is a related book by wonderful children's book author Jan Brett.  It also speaks of a child's love, desire and impact on the animals in the wild.

Annie and the Wild Animals 

Nature Involved

Tonight I spent way to long looking at these temporary works of art.

First there is danmala where Kathy Klein creates exquisite mandalas with flowers and other natural materials.  

She is also on FaceBook, which is where I saw her first (Quiet Nature, again!)

I noticed that so many of the photos include a cat.  One quite Was looking cat and others as well, along with a few dogs too.

That led me to some wonderful sand art by Andres Amador.  I believe I've seen his work before, hopefully I didn't already post it here!  Even so, it's nice to be reminded.

I enjoyed the video posted on his September 28, 2011 post. 

Amazing to see him at work, watching him think it through.

Hope you enjoy them too.

In Honor & Friendship

This is to honor and send love to Jude and her amazing Was.

No need for many words, loving thoughts are sent your way Jude.

Surrounded with love

Thank you Sandra for beginning the circle. 

Photos by NAE @pomegranatetrail ©2012

Secrets

Photos by NAE @pomegranatetrail ©2012

Tonight this poem spoke to me.

Many Lights

A bit of full moon light.  It comes up across the street and moves over my house during the night.  I like that.  It was actually a very clear night here, but zooming in as much as possible added a bit of blur to the scene.  I like that too.  A bit dreamy.  Boy that's a pretty sight/site right outside my door.

Sometimes man-made light shines just as brightly.  These lights belong to a friend.  It's like the stars have fallen to the ground, lining her pathway, making it easier to find your way.
Sometimes we need help while trying to find our way.  Lightness and friends are good for that.

Yet, sometimes we carry that light within ourselves and are not aware of it.
I sat with the moon last night and stitched a moon to my old green wool baby blanket.  It was a bit challenging to do as it was an old sweatshirt fabric I was working with.  This moon comes with her own story.
Many years ago I was working in a school-aged evening program.  It was a childcare center that had late hours for parents attending the community college.  One of the art experiences offered to the children I had never seen.  It consisted of taking and old t-shirt and placing a section over the open end of a cup (they used Styrofoam), placing a rubber-band around it - making it very tight.  Then you drew a design on that part of the shirt, in that circle, using a permanent (Sharpie type) marker.  After your design was drawn, you used an eye-dropper to drop 7 (maybe it was 12, it was a long time ago!!!) drops of alcohol onto the marker ink.  This caused the ink to spread a bit and soak into the shirt.  Let it dry and TA-DA you have a cool shirt!  The kids loved this project and wanted to do it forever, moving the cups and rubber bands around on their t-shirts.  They seemed to really like counting out the exact number of drops.  I decided to try along with the kids and made faces among other designs.
I liked the way some of the faces came out and have hung on to that old sweatshirt all of these years.
In my "Remove Something March" plan (I am removing at least one thing from my house every day in March.  Trash, donate, recycle etc.), I decided it would be a good time to use 'em or loose 'em.   I cut off the faces and tossed the rest of the sweatshirt, which was really not usable.

So I sat with the moon last night and did some stitching and thinking.  This sweatshirt is old and a bit hard to sew through.  I could hear Jude's  voice in my head saying if a fabric was not easy to sew through, it wasn't worth it.  While I do regularly agree with her on that, this fabric holds a lot of memories for me.  Memories of place, time, people...an era in my life.  So, even though I got some sore fingers sewing the moon on, it was worth it.  It has not only given me a place to keep this moon (and possibly the others), but it has given me more of a feel for the direction of this blanket project.  I've been thinking of totems and rocks and words and my children and many children and trees and wood screen doors.  This may be a good gathering place for all of those things.  But, I'm taking it slow and just looking at this face for right now.

Picture Books: The Sun's Asleep Behind the Hill
-A favorite bedtime book about the sun going to sleep and the moon coming up.
                         Nightdances
-Another favorite bedtime book in our house.  A wonderful tale of a family tip-toeing out to dance by the light of the moon.  It looks like it is out of print now, so keep your eye open for this one!
                         Goodnight Moon
-This one practically goes without saying, but I couldn't help myself!  A favorite for generations of children.  My sister has our original copy and I have the copy my mom gave me when I was 13, so we could each have one!  Because, as I told my neighbor when giving her new grand-daughter, "Every child should have their own copy of Goodnight Moon!"

It seems as if I should do longer, more in depth explanations...but for today I hope you are inspired to seek out these treasures!  These are the related moon books that popped into my head while writing this post.


Photos by NAE @pomegranatetrail ©2012

KONY 2012

                                         If you haven't seen this yet, you may be interested.  I haven't had time to do very deep research, so if you learn something related, please share.

Circle Craft Treasure - Thelma Ruck Keene

                                 Circle Craft Treasure - Thelma Ruck Keene
..."It has to be you.  Don't copy something and think it's good enough.  What we want is the integrity of yourself..."
..."Everything is good for its own sake..."

I've decided to hang this...well, this 'Whatchamacallit' outside.  It's been in various places in my studio.  While I worked on it, I used a PVC stand I made for that purpose.  I haven't worked on it for a long while.  This lovely mobile started as a fan cover, you know the part that covers the blades.  When it fell off for the last time, as I bent down to pick it up, I was not protected!  I decided it would make better art than a shield from quick moving parts.  I basically tied, knotted, wired, fastened, and looped a number of trinkets (OK, you're right...junk!) onto the wire dome.  I attached an old chain from the broken bird feeder...and...WaLa...

a colorful mobile!  I had intended to use it in the yard outside of my classroom.  However, late this afternoon I decided to hang it here instead.  It isn't complete.  Plans in my head had a lot more added to the side opposite the house.  I can still add on to it at any time and will probably do so.  It's rather nice to have this big splash of color when we walk out the door!

Jingly, silly, wild, happy!

We have big winds tonight.  I'll see what's left of this in the morning!

It makes me think of a book I came across in Barnes and Nobel the other evening.  It is titled More by I C Springman.  I've used the Amazon link because it lets you look inside.  Gorgeous artwork with a timely story.  Sometimes more is too much.  Sometimes enough is just right.  Take a look, I bet you'll love it like I did!

Here are some of the buds on my mama's rosebush.  

Aren't they beautiful?

Ahhh...(((sigh)))...

UPDATE:
I came across this, wool for birds ...
maybe I'll add a little something to my wacky wonky mobile!

And then just as I was shutting the computer down, I came across another dolphin video.
I'm sure you'll applaud at the end too!  It reminded me of the Star Thrower story.
A very uplifting way to end the day.  Goodnight.

(both of these were found on Notice Quiet Nature ... 
I'm telling you they've got the best links!!!)


Photos by NAE @pomegranatetrail ©2012

UPDATE

Here is  a new link for you all.

As if the last snow circles weren't grand enough...

today over at Notice Quiet Nature

(gotta say, I love so much of what they post!)

they posted these amazing pieces of snow art

I chuckled at the end to see the creator in his tank top!  Burrrr...

Enjoy!

PS  This is always a topic for discussion.
Now I know where I've left this article in case I want to refer back to it!

Tonight I Really Love This!!!

                                  
 Dana Point Dolphin Stampede Dana Wharf

Saw this on the news tonight...and just WoW!!!!  Wouldn't that be an amazing feeling, out on the ocean among this?!