life is interesting -- even at kmart

See other new photos here.

chester loomis images on flickr

Today I posted a set of Chester Loomis illustrations on flickr. They're the same images that I used to create the set of notecards that I gave as Christmas gifts a few years back. Several of you have asked for more cards, but with these images you can do-it-yourself!

Most of the images are from his alphabet book, but others are preliminary sketches for his 1892 edition of Mother Goose.

For more info and other images, you can also visit my Chester Loomis page or search his name on this blog using the search box at the top of the page.

memorial day

I got the opportunity to go back out to the old bottle dump near Hathaway's Pond in Barnstable to do some bottle digging with Gordon Starr. We got some fun bottles, mostly from the 1940s/50s, I think. The woods were filled with lady slippers, and the pine trees had just released their pollen all over everything -- there's a slick of yellow pollen on every surface outdoors and indoors. I guess it's a good idea to take a few days off from housecleaning, because tomorrow it will just be covered with pollen again. Yeah. That sounds like a good excuse.

From here on out I'm going to try posting most of my photos on flickr so that all of you with slow internet can read the blog without getting hung up on slow-loading photos. I'll post a few here, and then give you a link to the rest. And there will always be a link in the menu on the right.

So here's what I did on Memorial Day:

More photos here

expecting

A lovely blue jay couple has taken up residence in the rhododendron bush outside our kitchen window. Standing at the sink doing the dishes, we can watch the activity in the nest . The mother blue jay has been sitting on her eggs for the last week. Her mate comes and feeds her from time to time, and occasionally she takes a break to stretch her wings.

Not content to see the action from a distance, I decided I needed to get a peek into the nest while Mrs. Blue Jay was out getting some exercise. I figured that I should probably do this while Nick and Hannah weren't around, since they already think I'm seriously wacko over the whole picture-taking thing. (Well, to give them credit they think it's pretty cool AND pretty wacko, too.) So I got the rickety wooden stepladder out of the garage and climbed up to try to get a few shots before Mrs. Blue Jay returned. The rhododendron bush is in a shady corner of the house, so the light was bad and most of the shots were pretty blurry. It didn't help that I was standing on the rickety stepladder with the warning label that shows a picture of a person falling on their head. I finally turned on the flash, which did the trick, even though it makes the photos look like they were taken at night. I may be wacko, but not enough to go out and do this in the dark.

It's interesting that the nest has lots of pieces of blue plastic fibers woven throughout.

I got several pictures after Mrs. Bluejay came, back, too. She sits way down in the nest with her head pointing up. Looks uncomfortable to me, but what do I know?




Here's hoping she'll let me take a few pictures after the eggs have hatched. Stay tuned.

embracing the blurriness of life

jeffery pays a visit

Jeffery Wilson took a break from his work for FEMA in Iowa and came East to spend a few days with Mom. Nick, Hannah, and I drove to Pembroke to join them for a visit this afternoon -- lots of eating, talking, canoeing, and enjoying the beautiful day on the shores of Little Sandy Bottom Pond. We hadn't seen Jeffery since we all got together at the farm for Thanksgiving 3 years ago, so Nick and Hannah had forgotten how awesome and funny their Uncle Jeffery is. They all helped Mom put a new mattress-topper thing on her bed and make it up with clean sheets, and Uncle Jeffery taught them how to make hospital corners. Does it reflect on my mothering skills that I never taught my children how to make a decent hospital corner? Well, thanks to their cool Uncle, now they know. Their education is complete! Thanks Jeffery! We love you!

The men show off their chests

I think Grandma was telling a whopper of a fish story

Grandma took this one, but cut off a few heads

Then she got it!

Still life with canoe, foot, and flower--
Hannah's artistic shot

a few more flowers

After all the rain last week the flowers and trees have really popped. Everything is gorgeous and ViBrAnT.

I guarantee that I did not play around with the color in these pictures. In the last photo of the neon red azalea and purple violets, my camera actually kid of freaked out -- must be the mechanical version of sensory overload.