Sketchbook

I wake up early every morning–even on the weekends. I have 2 small children, 4 dogs, 2 cats, 2 aquariums full of fish, two snail houses, 2 bird feeders, rose, herb and veggie gardens to tend and breakfast to cook. My eyes open and my feet are already touching the floor. I slip on my jeans and boots, put on the kettle and start the chores (sometimes I even get to comb my hair and teeth). I usually have breakfast on the table before my sleepyheaded family ambles up the stairs to see what’s on the table and then I finally get to sit down for that much needed first cup of hot black tea before I have to hop up and clear the table, wash the dishes and get the kids dressed.

I would like to say that things slow down in the summer and that I get to sleep in or go to five star hotels on the beach where my breakfast is delivered to my door while I am still in my pajamas and my dogs are all relaxing at some doggie day care/spa but unfortunately that is just a fantasy. My routine isn’t that different during the summer. My husband is a school teacher so he is home for the summer but he doesn’t keep school teacher hours in the summer so I am still up alone in the morning prepping the house for another day even though no one is off to school or work. We talked briefly about a vacation this year but with gas prices what they are and my growing brood of beasties to board, we decided to stay home and work on the house and play in the tacky blue intex pool killing the grass out in the yard and go to state parks and local museums with the kids. Hmm. I have been a little sad about that. I could have used a morning or two when I am not expected to get everyone up and dressed and fed and out the door before I get a moment to myself. I would have liked to have read a book by a pool somewhere or gone out to dinner in a restaurant where the wait staff doesn’t all know my children’s names and what we all want to order as soon as we walk in the door. I wanted an adventure. I wanted to see something new. I wanted to escape the doldrums of my daily routine–but it just couldn’t happen. Oh well. Maybe next year.
Over the past couple of weeks I have made an extra special effort to get up and do my chores quietly so as not to wake anyone just so I can be alone. I put the dogs out so they won’t leap on the children and lick their faces to tell them mama is up and I sneak off into my yard for a few minutes of quiet while the sun burns off the fog and dew of the morning. I live on five acres nestled in the middle of a suburban neighborhood. It is easy to forget that there is a freeway 10 minutes from my house and a Starbucks at the end of my road. It is quiet on my little island in the city and I love that. I hear hawks screeing overhead and cicadas warming up for their daily symphony. I hear birds doing their morning thing and I hear the creek rushing past my back meadow where I know the herons are feeding because they just cast a great shadow over me as they headed down there.
I usually water the garden first after feeding the dogs. I pick tomatoes and peppers and weed around the lavender that seems ever crowded by weeds. I check the bird feeders to see who has come out for breakfast and then I walk down to my blueberry bushes to pick as many blueberries as the birds have left for me. The bushes are always dripping and I come away with wet sleeves and dew in my crazy morning hair. I love the birdsong in the walnut and mulberry trees nearby and the rustle of rabbits and squirrels in the underbrush scurrying off once they spy me. I can see morning glories and rose of sharon peeking out from the woods and the sun highlights the lacy spider webs in the black cherry trees behind my blueberry bushes making them look like Victorian doilies. It’s all so lovely–and peaceful.
My silence is almost always broken by my neighbor’s tractor starting up and that is my cue to head back to the house. He starts putt-putting his way down to the pump house to cut on the water supply that feeds his garden and his racket stirs the crows which kick up a big fuss. Once he reaches the lower meadow the sun is usually up and I hear my dogs barking at him and my kids calling me from the front porch, asking what’s for breakfast. I call back that I am coming and I turn and head back–slowly–to start my summer  day with my family. The blueberries will be put into some muffins –or maybe oatmeal for breakfast but I manage to nibble a few on the little walk back. Those first few are just for me and they are oh so sweet. They are cold and fresh and full of life. They are perfect–just like my morning–the closest thing I am getting to a summer vacation this year. My morning walks and snacks are small but are much appreciated summer treasures.

This is something new made from something old. I made the entire sculpture from found objects and tossed out materials from my kitchen (i.e. cereal boxes, newspapers, packing material) I stuck it all together with glue and then painted it. It cost me nothing to make and yet I feel it is one of the richest things I have made in a long time. This is just a detail but I like it because it feels like an image from a story book. I want all of my work to feel that way–like details from an interesting story.

In response to Shutter Sisters what dreams may come

please click for larger image

My girls and I go to the park near our house and feed the ducks and geese. Some of them stick around year round and some migrate. One quiet day when we were walking around the lake we saw a mama duck waddling by on her way back to the nest she had made under a tree. This is her nest. My kids were so impressed. So was I. She was very sweet and took bread from my daughter’s hands and then she followed them a few feet away from her nest to ask for more. I took that opportunity to photograph her beautiful nest. That same day we saw some goslings paddling by right behind a lovely mama goose out on the lake. It was a great adventure.

In response to Shutter Sisters adventure near and far.

In response to Shutter Sisters: Iconic Summer

This beautiful but dying magnolia bloom was perched so regally at my eye level begging to be seen and remembered. It no longer glowed that ghostly white new magnolia blooms do. Instead it had the patina of rust–of old age– of the earth. It was beautiful. A wind came and blew it apart soon after I took this photo. I saw it though and I photographed it. I will remember it.

And now for a more abstract mystery:

In response to Shutter Sisters sweet mystery.

In response to Shutter Sisters “the good old summertime”.

My daughter saw this photo that I took of her hand in the pool and said, “I have a diamond ring!”. Indeed she does–sort of.