City Life

Tip-Toeing in Good Luck

Back again.
The yard of this old house is famous for its four-leaf clovers. Yesterday, the little boy next door (who is quite nearly nine) sleuthed out a dozen. All have been duly pressed in a telephone book with a brick on top.

Smiling Winter Rainbow

It's the night of the second full moon in December, the blue moon. 
HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Clothes Peg Dolls

Me & Gary as a pair of clothes peg dolls. I sanded several millimetres off my feet so I would be in the correct proportion to Gary's height.

Yet Another Window Ice Pattern

They do fascinate me!

White Pine Christmas Tree

It's snowing flurriously, and too fluffy to do anything but delight in.

Window Ice Patterns

We've been whoomphed with snow. It's beautiful. After supper (which includes squash from the garden now residing in the pantry) I'll go out and shovel the steps and paths again.

Balsam Christmas Tree

I found this tree discarded at the side of a snowmobile trail after a trail-clearing crew had gone through. It rode home in my backpack. The moon on the wall behind is a calendar.

Holly Winterberry

Holly Winterberry (Ilex verticillata) glowing rosy under newly fallen snow.

Green Sloth Travelling Long Distance

Many species of algae flourish in the thick, unruly fur of sloths, giving the creatures a greenish complexion. Perpetual, gravity-forced sloth smiles are a quizzical and engaging feature.
I suspect Dr. Seuss was inspired by sloths when he invented The Grinch.

Window Ice Patterns

Brrrrr … it's c-c-c-c-c-cold. I regret wearing my two-loops scarf and not my five-loops scarf today.

Cedar Branch

I decorated a cedar branch one Christmas, trimming a tree that itself was a tree-trimming. Dental floss helped to anchor it.

Blue Flag Iris

Swamps are exquisitely beautiful places. It is where the wild blue flag iris blooms. Irises photosynthesize on both sides of their leaves.

Breakfast

A Tree and A Star

Here is a Christmas tree. It's branches are alive with songbirds, and it is topped in a star.
It snowed last night! This morning I shovelled the front steps and tried building a snowman, but he crumbled apart like soft gingerbread. Sigh.
December has two full moons. The second is the Blue Moon and it occurs New Year's Eve. Tomorrow is December's first full moon. Walking home tonight under the near-full moon I again saw a moonbow, but only segments of it, when wispy scraps of cloud blew across it. 

Typing Cat

Learning to type on a loud, cast-iron, manual typewriter, I used to wonder if I typed fast enough in the dark, would I see sparks fly? 

(This post was intended to appear yesterday.)

Florentine Iris

2009 is my third year of gardening. In a jumbly garden, on a rainy day in early June, my first iris unfurled. It grows beside spindly roses and rambunctious oregano.

Willow

This drawing was done on black scratchboard, using a utility knife to scrape and scratch out the white bits. The black ink chips off in specks like finely ground pepper. The result is it sounds like I'm blowing out birthday cake candles (to clear the dust) when I'm working with it. Scratchboard drawings can resemble engravings.

Scratchboard is made from poison ivy leaves and causes frantic itching. Although that last sentence is a fib, it does sound plausible.

Old House

On a sunny, bird-happy day this past August, I took my umpteenth photograph of an old house. This one, on St Joseph Island, is encircled with daisies and long grasses. It would look spooky in moonlight.

Bean Skiing?

Pen & Ink with a splash of watercolour is a classic technique. This was reduced considerably from the original drawing and printed on paper embedded with coloured flecks for pizzaz.
Pole beans make the best skiis.