Photo 195/365

A pair of galvanized nails peer out from under a layer of lichen on the fence.

Trivia: did you know that moss does not necessarily grow only on the north side of the tree? If you were to get lost in the rain forests of the Pacific Northwest and used the moss growing on the sides of the trees as a directional, you’d walk in circles.

Just saying.

Fences

Good fences make good neighbors.

I don’t know if that is necessarily true, but I can tell you about the fence around our yard. To the north we have an elderly neighbor widow who is not terribly social. She’ll speak if she must, but for the most part I get the impression she just doesn’t want to talk to us. I chalk it up to age and paranoia. She was friends with the people who lived here before us: the ones who remodeled this house but nearly lost the peony gardens in the process. We’ve brought back the peonies, but haven’t done much for the remodeling. We also don’t attend the same church, which is probably most of it. Still, we are on congenial terms and have had no problems sharing a fence.

Directly to the west of us, we share a fence line with two different neighbors. The north end is a 12′ fence that belongs to them but is leaning dangerously into our yard and is constantly overgrown with ivy and some noxious creeper that we tear down off of our side of the fence every year. They do nothing with their corner of noxious weed except to let it grow. All we really know about them is that they love yellow labs and have at least one in their yard all year. Their dog barks more than ours and howls, but it isn’t obnoxious. It did try to dig under the fence last year, but we put up boards and haven’t had any issues since. Murphy doesn’t seem to know it exists, but he’d likely welcome the company.

The chain link fence neighbors hold the fifty feet of western fence on the south end. They are renters and keep pretty much to themselves as well. We were not sure how we were going to like them as one is a “collector” of junk, but the sister moved in last summer, cleaned up the yard and landscaped a beautiful vegetable garden. The brother owns a pit bull that plays along the fence line with Murphy. They used to have a German Shepherd that did the same, but we haven’t seen the shepherd for months.

I have a theory, however: they had company one fine summer day and this company brought a pet bunny over. The bunny and the shepherd were left alone in the backyard together. It did not end happily for the rabbit (but at least the rabbit did not escape to our yard and end unhappily in our yard). We never saw the German Shepherd again after the infamous deceased bunny episode.The pit bull seems friendly enough and Murphy likes it as well as he did the shepherd.

The fence to the east doesn’t border anyone else’s yard: it merely faces the front yard with an imposing height and two latched gates.

And the south fence is co-owned between our neighbors Bob & Virginia and us. Bob & Virginia will stop and gab awhile if we all happen to be out at the same time. Bob & Virginia are long since retired: he was a professor of art at the community college for many years, specializing in welding sculptures.

To the north, the neighbor’s yard is a manicured garden with roses, rhodies, boxed-in beds, small flowering trees, and a neat lawn. She pays landscapers to keep it mowed & weeded now, but for a time did it herself. Before she did it, her husband did all of the yard work. The yard was what her husband left her when he died.

Bob & Virginia’s yard is bare ground under tall fir trees, no rare plantings or pretty flowers or weeds to worry about.

Strange sculptures sprout from the ground. I feel weird taking photos of their yard to post on the internet, so you will just have to believe me about that. I love Bob’s artsy yard. Low maintenance, high iron, interesting to look at. Virginia’s cat perches on the roof of their house and teases Murphy.

Good neighbors. Or at least not bad ones. And certainly not weird ones.

Good fences.

Squirrels

Today’s photo of the day was an accident.

There are four squirrels in the photo. At one point in time, three were in the feeder at one time and that was why I grabbed my camera: to try and capture that. Sadly, I missed that photo op. I still thought I only had three squirrels out there when I snapped this one.

Then the squirrel in the tree (upper left) jumped from the tree to the rhodoendron and onto the house before it ran off.

Where’d he come from!

The squirrel on the ground followed shortly afterward.

The two still in the feeder are veterans.

Looks like old Rooster Cogburn & his mate.

He ducks for one last jawful of sunflower seeds.

He must have some vision in that eye because he was looking at me as I approached.

And there he goes. The mate was too busy stuffing her greedy face to be bothered with escaping.

Just in case you did not locate all four the first time. Two in the feeder, one on the ground and one peeking around the trunk of the tree.

Now there’s no seed left for the birds, but our squirrels are happy.

The Fan

I have been drinking plenty of fluids and sleeping a lot so I do not have much to post. I did get a photo for the day and that is about it. And, no, it is not another photo-shop job of my poor nose.

It’s the ceiling fan.

The strange perspective of waking up and looking at the grey-upon-grey-upon grey layers of the ceiling fan has always intrigued me. The symmetry is relaxing to me. Comforting.

Five blades, flour lights, and a grey that is almost pale blue.

Just a snap-shot of my life.

I am feeling better (the node is not ad plugged, if you know what I mean).

TTFN

Jaci

I Hab a Code

So the photo ob the day is ob my node:

I am going to drink plenty ob wadder and get plenty ob sleeb.

See you tomorrow.

Thank You!

It just takes a couple comments to remind me how everything will be all right and how we’re all in the same boat.

It is all right to get melancholy but it is better to remember that we are surrounded by people who appear to have it all together who are actually sinking.

I am thankful I have a lifeboat of good and wise friends to keep me afloat.

Now that I have said that, I want to segue into my photo of the day (which has to do with high seas and clipper ships). My analogies were accidental to begin with, then I couldn’t help myself. I just started drowning in them.

Stop it, I mean it!

Anyone want a peanut?

Photo of the day:

It is a 6×4x2″ wooden box made to hang on the wall of an office. The little door opens to hide items. My flash kept bouncing off of the little match-box size “book-ends”.

I think there are actually some gummed patches inside the little box labeled such, and they are probably as old as this little desk organizer is. I have no idea how old it is or what it might be worth, but I think it is pretty cool. And I love the clipper ship.

Thank you to my friends for being the “wind in my sails.”

Have a great evening.

Talking to a Self-Portrait

When I get to thinking too much, I plummet into the blues. Rainy days and blues.

I have been thinking too much.

I started out thinking about how I was going to pull together this website and put my artwork up, then I got out my colored pencils and started drawing. And drawing brings out the poet. And the poet looked around at her life which is not anywhere near what she had imagined it would be like at this stage in life.

She sighed. Then she looked back at the drawing she was working on and realized it was a self-portrait. A romanticized self portrait because when you draw, you can remove the moles and wrinkles, but a self-portrait nonetheless. And the self-portrait wanted to be colored in with earth colors: moss greens, autumn leaves, old-man’s-beard lichen, and sagebrush green. The self-portrait wanted to be free of the city, the traffic, the eight-to-five, and the responsibilities.

The self portrait longed to be where there are no boundaries and all the world is a yard and the paths are narrow on the side of the mountain.

The self-portrait didn’t want to know why things cannot be that way, not now, not in this season. She only longed to be free.

So I had to close the sketch book for a few days to silence the siren’s call.

I didn’t really close the sketch book, but it is tempting. It is so hard to not be the person I thought I would be by now, and to know that a lot of it was just life creeping up on me.

If you have watched the movie “Up!” you might know what I am talking about: there was this couple who planned to do all this traveling together, but life just took over. They kept breaking the penny jar to pay for things over the years until she died and he was left alone, haunted by all of her dreams, a bitter old man.

Of course, “Up!” has a happy ending: he decided to pursue her dream of flying around the world after all, and a silly adventure is started. One with talking dogs.

I do not want any talking dogs in my adventure, thank you very much. (SQUIRREL!!)

OK, I had to toss that in to lighten my mood. I know that I will get everything accomplished that I wanted to accomplish, it’s just going to be on a different time-table than I had it on when I was 19 and planning out my life.

I need to remind my self-portrait that even thought I can sketch out the moles and wrinkles, she is still 53 years old and there is still time to do everything. Breathe in, breathe out.

Meanwhile, it is still raining.

Punday

Got all my ducks in a row.

Okay, so that was a groaner.

I am thinking about re-prioritizing for awhile, just to get my ducks in a row. New Year’s Resolution: set up a web page for my art. I’ve been photo-shopping and thinking, thinking and dreaming, and now I have my colored pencils out. I haven’t had my colored pencils out in an age.

The problem with digging out my colored pencils is I want to do more artwork. Now I am all inspired and I have no idea where (or when) I am going to fit all this creativity in between work, little boys, housework, little boys, big dog and little boys. I have to hide the art items from one little boy in particular: give the boy a crayon and he will have you drawing for the rest of the evening. Monsters, cars, stars, apples, puppies, monsters.

Have I mentioned that the little boy is obsessive? Single-minded. Determined.

Back to the subject: ducks. In a row.

I apologize for being a bit vague. I don’t want to get too excited but I have a visual concept of what I want to do. And that is exciting. I have never had a clear focus for what I want to do, and now – in the midst of chaos – it is beginning to form.

It’s hard to be patient.

I still feel like I’m paddling in circles, but there’s a vision now. I think it is coming together.

Monsters

A couple weeks or so ago, I read “Where the Wild Things Are” to Zephan.

I had no idea what a mistake that would be. It launched something none of us have been able to curb: Zephan’s love of the Wild Things. Monsters. Rawr.

Then I rented “Monsters, Inc.” on Netflicks.

And an addiction was born.

Zephan has to watch “Monsters, Inc.” at least once a day. And he begs Baba to read “monsters” to him (“Where the Wild Things Are”). Tonight he cuddle with me and told me stories (mostly incoherent toddler-babble). But even I could make out “Rawr” and “Monsters” and “Story” and “TV”. He wanted me to read stories to him, specifically “The Tickle Monster” by Josie Bissett and “Where the Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak. Especially the latter.

Maybe Zephan identifies with Max, the hero?

I don’t know. I just love how his imagination has taken hold of him and he curls his little fingers up and says, “Rawr!”

I did not read any stories to him tonight. We just cuddled and talked about the stories he thought I should read him. I knew better than to get the books out: Zephan is a bit obsessive. He’d want the same story over-and-over-and-over again and then he would cry if I couldn’t provide that for him.

But talking was good.

As he climbed the stairs to head to bed (or at least, quiet time) with his mom and little brother at 8:00, he peered down through the stair rails and said, very clearly, “Nite-nite Monsers!”

To which we replied, “Nite-nite Little Monser!”

Interrupted

I really need an entire day spent doing nothing but artsy stuff. Really need one.

I messed around on the computer today, but it isn’t as gratifying as dragging out the watercolours or the oils or the colored pencils and drawing. I do have just such a project in the wings: my mind is still wrapping around it and there is some work I need to do on the computer first. I have it uploaded to my computer and part of the first leg done, but…

I had to stop and watch “The Never-ending Story” with a little boy.

He was supposed to be napping while his mom and dad ran to the store. He was very quiet and they assumed he was asleep, so they left me in charge of him.

He was not asleep but he was very tired and a tad bit sick. So he and I curled up in the easy chair and we watched the entire movie together. It’s a cute movie with a great story but the special effects are really dated. The Luck Dragon needs to be recreated digitally. Gmork (the werewolf) is pretty laughable. But, still – for a two year old boy and his Baba, it is a good enough movie.

And it wasn’t “Monsters, Inc.” again. Zephan can watch that three times a day.

So after all the chores were done, dinner cooked & dishes washed, I did not get as far creatively as planned.

But I did get the photo for the day taken.

Still life in the loft, backlit by the sun.