Random Summer Photos

A few random photos from this summer

Red Sun from the forest fires in the West

Evening parade

Backdoor visitor - Got carrots???

Early Summer blooms in neighbor's yard

Unusual Aspen 

Mine opening found in nearby foothills

Mine Tag

Sign at nearby laundromat

Crude but effective

Eclipse 2017

Mother Nature allowed me to view the Eclipse through the shadows of the leaves from the Maple Tree in our yard.

I Think I was a Tree...

In a former life.  All my life I have adored trees. They have always been there for me - to listen to my thoughts, to laugh and sing with my joys and to comfort my sorrows. My first tree friend was an enormous spruce tree which stood sentinel outside the house where I grew up. Birds would call his limbs home knowing they were safe and secure even if they would wave to and fro in the winds. My mother and I would gather his cones in the summer months for use later in the year in crafts. He was a dear friend and it saddened me to find out that he had died after our family left the house.

Over the years I have come to know many types of trees, as one would get to know a variety of people. They all had their own quirks, their own personalities. I got to know two distinguished Live Oaks in Louisiana. There age was old - about 150-200 years. They spoke in a slow and deliberate manner - imparting the wisdom gained over the centuries to those who would slow down long enough to listen.

I have met many magnificent Cottonwoods. Their trunks would curve and arch and bend, translating the energies their roots absorbed from deep underground water sources. This is a reason the Hopi like to make their Kachina dolls from Cottonwood roots, because of the trees ability to find water. To the Hopi, the Cottonwood is a spiritual link to water, the life giving essence in a very arid land. 

The woods of Arkansas was a heavily populated area. Sweetgum, Sassafras, Black Walnut, Magnolia, Dogwood, and Oaks were abundant. Their ability to live together was a lesson for us all. Together they were an impenetrable force to many outsiders.

Many ancient cultures and indigenous peoples believe that trees have souls.  The ancient Celts believed that the spirit (soul) of a deceased person could inhabit a tree (or a plant or a place or even a rock). Cultures all across ancient Europe had customs and beliefs which involved trees. In the Americas, many Indigenous People believed that every living thing had a spirit and trees were revered as being wise  and knowledgeable. Trees were often consulted by Shaman on matters of seriousness.

I recently ran across an article about a group of people in Russia who revere Nature. To them a tree contains a soul in a transitional process of evolution. To intentionally fell a tree is to destroy a living being. Check out this article and accompanying photos for an insightful look at the Mari People.

I, too feel this way. Trees do so much for us. They give us shade and air to breathe. They will listen to our woes and give us the calm to quiet our frazzled nerves. Trees have knowledge. Take a walk at your local park or open space and get to know a tree.  Make a new friend.

Knothole Wonders

The art of Wang Yue

The Faces of Trees

The art of Elido Turco

Road Trip ~ Leaf Peeping

Weird Wednesday ~ Glow in the Dark Plants

What if plants could glow, like a firefly, at night and we would no longer have a need for power consuming street lights?

image source

This is the brain child of Daan Roosegaarde, a designer and developer who advocates the use of bio-luminescence as an alternative energy source.  Roosegaarde promotes the technology of Dr. Alexander Krichevsky, who splices bioluminescence properties into the DNA of plants. Dr. Krichevsky has successfully created plants which will absorb sunlight and then glow for approx. 8 hrs at night. The only drawback, so far, is that the plants have a short lifespan.

Click Here to Read More!

Click Here to go to the Bioglow site!

The Trees Are ALIVE!

The creativity of Patrick Catalde

Elm Tree's Revenge

image source

A couple of Life's crazy stories .....

Wait, What??????     I was at the grocery store walking down the pet food aisle. There was another person, a man, at the other end of the aisle. As I made my way down the aisle towards the bird seed, I glanced at the man who made eye contact with me and smiled. I briefly smiled back - I always try to smile at people I see or meet in public. There just aren't enough smiles in this world! I decided on a 25lb bag of sunflower seeds and bent over to lift the bag into my cart. The man appeared behind me and offered to help me with the bag. I replied, "Thanks. But I got it. I frequently lift 45lb sacks of cement." The guy gave me a funny look and walked off. Later, when I told Hubby about it, he pointed out that the guy was hitting on me. Sheesh! And I missed it!

Pony Possessed     After having various grandkids visit over the summer, the bathroom has had an assortment of little ponies, dinosaurs and barbies cohabitating. Most of them have found their way back to the toy box. But one single pony has stayed behind standing guard on a low shelf in the tub area. One evening Hubby comes out of the bathroom after showering and tells me that the pony in the shower is possessed. He said that it had been watching him in the shower. That the pony had 'those eyes'. You know, the kind of eyes that follow you around the room......  Hhhhmmmm....maybe I need to 'exorcise' the bathroom.

Revenge of the Elm Tree     I have a wonderful neighbor who has a passion for gardening. She wants to turn her whole yard into a garden so she can feed her family off the garden's bounty for a good part of the winter. The only glitch in that plan is that her back yard is shaded by two elm trees which live in the backyard of her neighbor behind her. My neighbor told me that she has often stood in her back yard, stared at the elm trees and pondered how to get rid of them. About a month after she told me this, our internet went out unexpectedly. A cable tech came out. Upon digging up the ground - in my gardening neighbor's backyard - where the problem was detected, the cable tech discovered that an elm tree root had severed the cable which provided both our houses with internet. Never underestimate the ability of a living being from understanding the spoken (or unspoken!) word.

The Practicality of Art

Art. To what purpose does it serve? 

You can Google that very Question and receive 169,000,000 results and if a person was to ask another person that very question, To what purpose does art serve?, there would be more answers than a person might care to count.
Art should cause a person to think, to relax, to feel affirmed, to appreciate beauty, to pause and ponder, to encourage, to appreciate the sheer talent and vision of another. I'm sure you can add your own description of what art does. 
And I would love to hear your thoughts!

With the re-evaluation of Life has come the re-evaluation of my art. To what purpose does my art serve. 
In the beginning, I wanted my art to bring a smile to a face, to make the audience feel like they had met an old friend. I enjoyed creating small folk-artish figures and other tokens of realms unseen by the mortal eye. And while I still want that, I have found myself questioning the actual items I was creating. 

As I clear the clutter, I look at things with a new eye. I have come to realize that so much of what I have made was 'dust collectors'. Items that were fun, that brought a smiles to faces. But they were small bits and bobs that could somehow make themselves at home with the dustbunnies and cobwebs. Was my art collecting dust? Does it sit on a shelf visiting with its neighbor whilst the vestiges of time marched on?

With a more purposeful LIFE, I have felt a need to make more purposeful creations. So, I have begun to delve into something I have always wanted to try. Concrete. My interest began decades ago whilst lusting after garden ornamentation. I gathered books and read.  A few times in those many years, I had tried my hand at some aspect of the craft but without a bit of guidance, I became frustrated and didn't delve much further. 
Until recently. It began last autumn when I made sculpts of leaves for a local decorative concrete guy. This then led me to being taught the art of mold making and the art of decorative concrete work.

My main focus is Faux Bois. Here are two benches which I recently made. My very first two faux bois benches. They were fun. And even though these are a bit primitive, an artist needs to start somewhere.  While the guy I work with has no experience at Faux Bois, he does know his concrete and that is what I need to learn.
Concrete is going to fulfill that need I feel in my art - to be creative but yet functional. I foresee a lot more work in my future.

Babes In the Woods

A new type of daycare has opened in the heart of London - an outdoor nursery located within Highgate Wood. At Into the Woods Outdoor Nursery, the children spend most days outside enjoying fresh air, imagination and a unique education. 

The benefits of outdoor play have a positive impact on children's lives - 

1. There is a certain freedom in outdoor areas. Children playing and learning in an outdoor environment are more active, more motivated, and have a more motivated attitude towards learning. 

2. Children are less inhibited outside. They are more willing to join in discussions and play and come out of their shells.

3. The Out-of-doors is the perfect learning environment. It lets children utilize all four of the means by which they learn - movement, play, talk and sensory exploration.

4. The outdoors allows children to receive the physical exercise which is so crucial to healthy bodies and minds!

The daycare is for children between the ages of 2 1/2 and 5. They spend the majority of their time outside, even in inclement weather! The only time the children will be inside is if there is high wind or extreme cold. 

I saw first-hand how outdoor classrooms assist children in learning. When we lived in Arkansas, we lived next door to a small country school. The school owned 10 acres which they utilized as an outdoor teaching aid. All teachers - math, history, science, english - would bring their students outside to experience Nature. The teachers all said how the kids retained the knowledge learned while outdoors and the lessons taught indoors would sometimes go in one ear and out the other side.

I wish more schools would follow the lead of the Into the Woods School.