all there is

 November fog is my favourite. It holds you close in a comforting embrace. Far away is forgotten. Nearby is all there is.

dust

Sun shining through the living room window doesn't mince words. 

It looks you right in the eye and says what must be said. 

"Dust!"

along the river

 

We followed a path along the river yesterday, certain that around the bend would be a trail leading down to the sandy shore. We followed a path along the river with our eyes ahead on the next bend, and then the next. We followed a path and followed a path and followed until very suddenly and unexpectedly, there was no path at all, and twinkling through the trees was the expanse of river. Not a grain of sand or shore in sight. 

The day seemed warmer, the path dustier and longer. Back we trudged. Back and back we trudged. And there, at the beginning, the grassy verge tipped over the sandy bank, down to hard packed shore and then mud flats along the river. 

Every wild animal that lives in B.C. had left its prints in the sand and we added our own.

xoxo

 

twice as nice

 If crocheting with one color is pretty, two is twice as nice.

she asked

 She asked for a bucket hat, green and goggle-eyed.

Elphie

One afternoon I had a yen to create a tiny elephant. He stitched up lickety split.

 A pair of patched pants seemed called for and there he was, little Elphie.

 

But isn't a friend a wonderful thing?

tide pool green

A small pot of chicken soup simmered on the stove. Snippets of carrot and seashell pasta tumbled and bubbled as I dropped in a frozen puck of spinach and then rashly and unwisely added a second. That soup became a tide pool, darkly green.

little friend

 

country cousin

"Would you like a white mouse or a gray one?" I ask.

"A gray one!" she says, emphatically."I don't want a TAME one!"

Ahhhhhhh, a little wild mouse.

Makes me think of the story of the city mouse and his country cousin.

Sleeping under a leaf seems a given and for that matter so does a basket.

 

 

little mouse

 Goodnight little mouse.

one down

 I found a marvelous doily, circa poodle skirt era.

Oh those flowers!

Up-cycling to the resuce! 

A few snips and I had gathered a bowl full.

One down, 43 to go.

random red

very

 

What does a very, very long bulletin board in the children's section of the library need?

A very, very long list of characters to fill it from one end to the other.

I started in the centre, cutting my characters from discarded book pages. 

A knight on horseback.  

A fearsome fire-breathing dragon. 

A bridge to nowhere.

Then I added to the left and right, left and right until the space was spanned.

A towering, flag festooned fortress.

A wizard and his wise owl. 

A leaping wolf and prancing unicorn. 

Puss’n boots. 

Mary Poppins and Alladin’s carpet on a collision course with a crescent moon. 

A prince and princess.

These all became a back story to the action up front.

Black silhouettes of a cottage, dimly lit. 

A maiden between a mushroom and a gnome. 

Peter Pan and Wendy aloft. 

The tortoise and the hare. 

A swan watching a mermaid dive and fish leap. 

A dancing frog and fairies three.

 A reader (of course). 

A trio of children. 

A maiden in a tower. 

A mysterious mouse, and birds of every kind flying high and low and left and right and up and down.

(The blue background paper had been around the block a few times and there were signs galore of tape doing what tape does best. The placement of more than a few characters helped to hide the past life of what was now, blue sky) 

Re-use, Re-think, Re-tape.

great day for ducks

 

Whenever it rained,  my father would declare, "It's a great day for ducks." Good to know isn't it, that someone is happily paddling about as the rain sluices down.

Downspouts gurgle and purcolate. Wet windows waver like antique glass, and a thousand tiny squares in the window screen hold water droplets: abstract art, cross-stitched in silver threads. 

P.S. My mind seemed determined to paint a chick instead of a duckling and I had to scrub out a couple areas and things got a bit muddy and murky. Just like a duck pond?

wonderful family

My grandchildren

My husband and I

My pandemic ponytail

Family photo

My son-in-law and daughter

 

My oldest daughter

We've gathered to celebrate a winter birthday.

A wonderful family adventure, even if it is only cardboard.