wood spirits,cold spells, animal sightings

The cold has turned the snow I had enjoyed into cement, slippery cement. Deezel walks very timidly on the well-packed, icey trails and avoids the areas between the trails. No more woods excursions fro a while.

We took a walk down New Road yesterday, despite the cold and wind. I spotted deer and turkey tracks along the bit of dirt on exposed shoulder. And, for the second time in a week, saw a fisher cat skulking over the snow. He/She must be very hungry to be wandering into peopled areas and in mid-morning.  They are predators as well as scavengers.Its fur was very dark brown and I could understand why they were attractive catches.
 The weather looks like you could be outside enjoying the sunshine, but it's too cold. At least I get a lot of reading done. I finished People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks last night.  I couldn't put it down and yet hated to see it come to an end. I definitely will read March , her Pulitzer Prize winner.
I bought a "Doodle -a- Day" calendar at the Currier. I saved the gone by days, did a couple I like. Yesterday's and today's stumped me earlier today - maybe later.
Clearing out old papers in storage upstairs and organizing paperwork for taxes certainly do not inspire me, but not that it's done, I can concentrate on creating something. I'm hooked on "Zentangles"...                     
                                                     What do you see in this photo?

This is a photo I took a few weeks ago. I call it "The Wood Spirit". I printed it twice- one for the Art Journal and one to cut out the tree to use in some art work alone. I'm sure it'll bring forth some poetry.

"3 air conditioners and new shades" HOT

Thankfully, yesterday's stress test is over - due to my Florida incident, the doctor there and my doctor recommended it - to see if there is some reason for the "elevated enzymes" following the respiratory distress incident. I'm probably one of very few people who have never used a treadmill. It was too hot when I came out of the hospital ( car thermometer read 101) for a stop at the hardware store for expandable rods.

I'm assembling shades to help keep the heat out of the kitchen and living room. I have a small piece of muslin and a leftover from a long-ago project to make them for the kitchen. One has enough length to make up for the shortness of the other.

You know it's unusually hot when we're covering windows ! Last year, we didn't even use the window AC in the living room. It looks like we'll be putting one in the studio this afternoon.

This morning,I even used the sprinkler on gardens 1 & 2. The plants in garden 2 were the worst- brown ferns and wilted bloodroot. I have three plants there that I can never remember the names of, but they wilt due to heat and/or dryness. And the jack-in-the-pulpits were wilted.

Then I hand watered the veggies. Last year we had slugs who enjoyed the lettuce. This year, we're watering twice a day. We use water from our system that collects water from the roof into 10 barrels under the deck. Even that is down about half.

Of course the rain will come in a thunder storm and will be torrential or short-lived and we could lose power.

After a morning dip and before I came in to escape the heat, I did some sketching in my new sketchbook with brown paper. Later I"ll read. The summer 2010 issue of "Surface Design Journal" has fabulous articles.

DAILY HAIKU 2009

July 6

I studied my gardens . The giant host leaves made a frame for the birdhouse.

The sun was trying to break through - I used the spiral stamp over a grey ink pad. I cut a photo for the other elements.

July 7

a single word says

it all - rain - seems constant - rain

soaking the smallest

I used tissue scraps with ink on them. They represent the colors that were in the gardens despite the rain.