We didn’t have to wait long enough for me to finish my drawing.
I realized today in the waiting room at a doctor’s appointment with Jon that it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to do one of these drawings.
For some months, last spring and summer, my sketch pad was full of “Waiting for Jon” drawings. It feels good to be on the other side of that. Today we didn’t even wait long enough for me to finish the drawing.
My friend Emily gave me this little sketch book last year. It’s about 3″x4″ and I just started carrying it around in my bag since I used up the last little sketch book.
It has a drawing that I did last January that was inspired by a visit to the Williams College Museum where I saw an illuminated book about the same size. On one page were words and on the other a pictures.
I want to keep that format though out the whole sketch book.
But I won’t just use it for “Waiting for Jon” drawings. I have a feeling it would take too long to fill it up. And that’s a good thing.
We stopped on the way to the appointment for breakfast and I got a piece of sponge cake. It was in a little plastic bag with this tiny clothes pin holding it shut. It was so cute I took its portrait.
I looked into the washing machine and this is what I saw.
How had the fabric, a beautiful old tablecloth, flying pig chef pants, and vintage fabric of girls sweeping from the 1930s, turn into what looked to me like a modern-Baroque, Trompe-l’oeil painting? Those girls with the brooms and dust pans instead of putti angels.
All that spinning spread the table cloth along the bottom of the basin with its flowers perfectly positioned. It placed the other fabric, expertly along the edges.
I just kept staring into the washer as if I were looking into another world. It’s the first time I was reluctant to take wash out of the machine.
The hens were gathered outside my studio, under the bird feeder this afternoon. They stood huddled on a small patch of bare earth cleaning their feathers.
Despite the busy day I got some good work done on my Spirit Owl quilt.
The process of sewing it together is a bit different than how I usually work because I had to do some planning when it came to placing the owls.
In some ways it was like playing Chess. I had to look ahead when sewing the pieces together to make sure they would all fit. Sometimes I had to take the owl “squares” apart to make them work.
It’s coming together the way I imagined it. And just a bit more to do before the next step.
Bud loves to go into his crate at night. But we have of leaving him out to fight off the rat.
I heard the strange ping coming from Jon’s phone first. Then I heard some noise coming from downstairs. As my mind started to go to dark places about who might be in the house, it came to me that the sound from Jon’s phone might have been an alert from the motion camera we set up in the kitchen.
We thought it might be a chipmunk that was raiding our cabinets and eating the crackers out of the boxes. Whatever it was didn’t show any interest in the rat and mouse traps we set and there were no droppings.
But the camera caught what the traps didn’t.
Jon and I lay in bed watching a rat jump from the kitchen counter into the cabinet (which I had tied shut, but obviously not tight enough).
Two days before I stuffed steal wool into the holes around the bathtub pipes then crammed chicken wire around them to hold it all in. That worked for one night, then the rat was back.
This morning the rat left a trail of muddy foot and tail prints leading from the counter to the space behind the bathtub.
But now at least we know what it is and where it’s going.
So we set more rat traps this time with the rats preferred food, crackers. And we set the Have-a-heart chipmunk trap with more crackers.
We thought about leaving Bud out of his crate for the night, but he might just scare the rat away for the night and we want to make sure the rat is gone for good.
The hanger and little pulley for the bird feeder
That all happened somewhere between 4 and 5 am. So Jon and I went back to bed and when we got up it was 30 degrees out and felt like spring.
I knew it wouldn’t last, so after feeding the animals I got out the ladder and hung Jon’s bird feeder in the living room window.
I found everything I needed in the basement.
The metal bracket was a little short so I added on a piece of steel with holes drilled into it. The screw and nut I used to hole it all tougher seemed to need a little more support so I wrapped it with wire.
The pulley will allow us to lower the feeder for refilling it with seeds. I saved the “S” hook from a worn out bungee cord.
I still need to hang the suet feeder. I wasn’t sure how to do it, but as the day went on I decided to hang it from the same rope that holds the feeder only higher up.
As I was working on it a crow circled around cawing. Maybe he was spreading the word that there’s a new feeder on the farm.
Zip visiting the hen house
When I was done Jon and I had breakfast then I went right to my studio. I was eager to get to work on my Spirit Owl Quilt.
And I did but not without interruption.
I was at my sewing machine when I saw Jon and a man in a blue uniform with the word “Sheriff” on his back in yellow letters, walking into the barn. I couldn’t imagine what was going on. They were chatting so easily, I thought maybe Jon knew him.
I was in the barn not a moment later and Jon said that the sheriff was here because someone called the police and said we were abusing Zip by not letting him in the house. I laughed, certain he was joking.
But it wasn’t a joke. Someone had actually called the police on us.
Zip was on the hay bales flirting with all three of us. The sheriff looked at the child sized wicker rocker next to the cat house and said, “This cat even has a rocking chair.”
He had already seen that Zip was a healthy, happy cat, and he was just as impressed with his accommodations in the barn. He couldn’t understand why someone had made the call saying we were abusing Zip.
This was the same sheriff who came the to farm when a bear was hit by a truck and was dying in our pasture. He called the DEC who shot the bear. (Ed Gulley took the bear home to skin) The sheriff said every time he drives by the farm he thinks of that bear.
As surprised as I was to hear why the sheriff was at the farm, I know that there are people who read Jon’s and my blog who feel differently than we do about cats. And ever since Jon euthanized his dog Orson, over 15 years ago, he has been a target for certain Animal Rights groups.
The idea that we are abusing Zip is so absurd it still makes me laugh to think of it.
(Jon was with the sheriff longer than I was and had more of the story to tell. You can read his account of the Zip Incident here)
It was a wild day and my head is spinning when I think of all that happened. But it was a good day too. We have solid plans for catching the rat that has been invading our kitchen. Soon the birds will be coming to the new feeder and Jon will, no doubt, be taking some wonderful bird pictures. And in the eyes of the law, there is no longer any question about Zip being well taken care of.
What a puzzle the owls are. Today I finished framing the last two owls and now it’s time to put them together in a way that creates a quilt.
I began the work of moving the owls around trying to find the right place for each one. I’m still in that process. But tomorrow my day is clear so I hope to get to my studio early and begin solving the puzzle.
I will, of course, ask the Spirit Owl for her help.
Some of the people who come to my art class at The Mansion are regulars. I can always count on them being there. But no one has come to my classes as consistently and for as long as Claudia.
I’ve known Claudia for at least six years, and I’ve seen her art change in that time. It was last month that I noticed how adept she is at creating abstract art.
She seems to have an innate understanding of line, shape and color.
Claudia seems less intimidated by working abstractly, more certain of what she is doing. She doesn’t hesitate the way I’ve seen her do when making representational drawings. In the past years I’ve seen her drawing get smaller and smaller on the page.
But when working abstractly, her intuition kicks in and she cares less about the instructions I’m giving and lets her work go in the direction she wants to take it. It looks to me like she enters that creative zone where the work takes over and tells the artist what to do.
The results are expressive, beautifully composed and confident.
I’ve always known that Claudia was creative, but now I see the artist in her. She isn’t just coloring or copying, she’s creating her own art and evolving as an artist.
Jon was there today taking pictures and observing the class. You can see his photos and read about it on his blog. Just click here.
Moon Sculpture by Ed Gulley is hanging by my studio door.
Just back from a walk in the woods, I called the dogs in from the barnyard and closed the gate. I was ready to get warm, but as I walked back to the house, I heard the chimes.
I stopped to look at the wind chime made from a bicycle wheel, a frying pan and parts of a milking machine.
It made the slightest sound, just a tinkle really, the old teat cups just glancing the frying pan one at a time, at if they were taking turns.
Ed’s Wind Chime
The dried hydrangea flowers on the bush next to the wind chime didn’t flutter, the branches of the lilac were still. So what was making the wind chime sing?
“Hi Ed” I said, as I always do when the chimes ping. But I knew it was more than just hello.
The past few days, since the snow, I’ve been taking pictures of Eds sculpture that we have on the farm. I’ve been meaning to post them but haven’t yet.
I can take a hint.
So here they are, not all of them, but the ones I got good pictures of so far.
The head of Ed’s Tin Man in Jon’s raised flower bed peeking out from the snow
“What’s the need of visiting far-off mountains and bogs if a half hours walk will carry me into such wildness and novelty” Hens David Thoreau
I didn’t think about why I was slipping and sliding so much until I went for a walk with my friend Margaret and saw how steady she was on her feet.
My boots had worn out so gradually, I didn’t know it had happened.
Margaret was my research for choosing to get a pair of Muck Boots. She swears by them for keeping her feet warm, having great traction and lasting years.
So yesterday Jon and I went boot shopping.
I found out it’s not the best time to buy boots, many are already sold out. The first shop I went to didn’t have the one boot I was interested in my size. I gave up looking when the sales person tired to sell me something I’d already let her know I wasn’t interested in.
Tractor Supply was our next stop and although the shelves were mostly empty of boots, there was one pair of Muck Boots in my size left. I knew they mine as soon as I tried them on.
When we got home I went right out for a walk in the woods. I couldn’t believe how much easier it was for me to walk in the snow. It made me aware that I’d been taking shorter walks because it had become harder to walk in the snow.
Now I can’t wait to get back out there.
The only shopping I really enjoy is in thrift stores. And shopping for shoes always makes me nervous. In the past I’ve often had shoes that feel like they fit me when I first try them on but after I wear them a few times I realize they are either too big or too small.
The last pair of boots I bought for myself were hiking boots. I got them online and they never fit me right. I gave them away a year later.
Since then I have given up on the notion that I’m going to need hiking boots. I don’t hike anymore. Now I go walking in the woods. And almost always in the woods within walking distance from the farm.
So I’m grateful to have my new pair of Muck Boots. After wearing them for two days doing chores around the farm and walking in the woods, I know they are just right for me.
