Breakfast

A favourite breakfast of peanut butter, shortening and cornmeal after a cold snowy night.

Lovely Surprises

Some lush flowers arrived from Brett.
They bring colour and the promise of spring into our white, white winterscape.

Thank you son, with LOL.

Some trees arrived.
All the way from Kaite in Australia.
Knitted Trees, who'd a thought!
One snow covered tree, one summer pine and one rusty autumn maple perhaps.
This generous gift has me thinking of how many different ways there might be to make trees with stitch and fabric.
Thank you, Thank you, Kaite.
How you got my address is a mystery to me.
BTW Kaite is very busy nowadays making quilts and taking donations for Emerald, one of the devastated flood towns of Queensland.

Bowing Under the Weight of Snow

Where the trees meet the sky one gets the impression of them bowing to the weather gods.

We are all bowed down with beautiful virgin snow.

The trees are fighting to stand tall and they look even more dignified than ever.

Do you see the three pigeons sitting on the roof? They wait until we are inside before coming down to feed.

Set in Their Daily Routine

We sip tea...
Rusty pups look at us with puppy dog eyes....
Making sure we remember it is that time of day...
The tea cups get placed on the table...
Tails start wagging...
We rise out of our chairs...
And their excitement explodes!
Their pack is off for..
walkies!

Winter's Landscape

The lake has frozen over.
Wonder if we could walk to that top knot of an island.
Not me!  The rusty pups would if I let them.

The snow and ice simplify the landscape.
Living here outside the hustle and bustle of a winter's city, they simplify our lives too.
A season for reflection.

The skies can sometimes still look like a summery day.

As soon as you are out of the sun's rays your body temperature drops.
Time to get the rusty pups home.

Two Beginnings

In her Boro workshop, Jude has introduced the idea of weaving ombre style.....  

and I'm find this fascinating.

Today we had to venture out in a windy snowstorm and REALLY cold temperatures...

to the Dentist of all places.  

In his waiting room I started stitching on the rusty gate... 

My plan is not to add to the design and complicate things, 

but to add the texture of simple stitch...

This will be a slow meditative piece.
So far I am liking the narrow trails being left between the rows of stitch.

Winter Foraging

The big guy on the left brought along two younger lads to nibble at the high bush cranberries that grow along the stream..

Always alert to movement in the house, especially rusty pup barks.

Females heading for the wild rose bush that they like to nibble on.

Hoping to find a forgotten and by now frozen runner bean.

Surfaces

A favourite of mine...not composed I promise...just as it was.
Here's a description of Miksang that I found on the web.  So much better than my feeble attempt at describing it.


Miksang, at its most basic level, is concerned with uncovering the truth of pure perception. We see something vivid and penetrating, and in that moment we can express our perception without making anything up—nothing added, nothing missing. Totally honest about what we see—straight shooting. 

Doors carved in Thailand....so much more than the doors in my home.

A wall with hundreds of repair scars and obviously in need of more.

Rust glow.

Markings.

Thinking that's enough man made things for now...back to stitching and nature!

Shapely Rounds

Balancing act...

Carvings in wood and clay...

Erosion on the pier...

Well rounded.
Just a few more photos from about town...
Now I'm back to preparing my scraps for Jude's boro class that starts tomorrow.

Ode to Rust

When I took a Miksang photography course, 
the last thing I expected was to be told "no nature photographs".
We were sent into town and had to find inspiration among the bricks and mortar of civilization.
Started off wondering if I would learn anything in an environment I wasn't interested in.

What I learned was not to be so close minded and just look.
Walk down main street and simply look for one design element such as line or texture.
When focussing on one element, it starts jumping out at you from every nook and cranny.

The process was to walk, look, and observe my reactions to what I was seeing....
Stop when something caught my eye....
and consider what exactly I had reacted to.

Then click away without trying to create a composition.....
....That was difficult.
Being a rustaholic I photographed all the rust in town.
But I did find other bits and pieces ....... more to come.

Trees in a Blue Snowy World

Stitching continues....nearly done.

It is about 20" x 18".

Perhaps it should be called "Three January Days".

The gathering of trees beneath and beyond the moons are the focus of this particular story....

Think I have managed to integrate the stream that runs through my woods.

Bringing the rocky ground in has been a problem... appliqué rocks made it look too busy...

The simple outlined rocks are perhaps not important enough!

The potted root-bound tree bottom left is my least favourite part....a week attempt at demonstrating how we humans try to control everything.

The bluest piece I've ever done.

Photographing yesterday's snowstorm reminded me how colourless the woods are when winter strikes.

Couldn't resist finding out what the real world and my world look like combined.
Reminds me of Tolle's words
"In the forest, there is an incomprehensible order that to the mind looks like chaos.
It is beyond the mental categories of good and bad.
You cannot understand it through thought, but you can sense it when you let go of thought, 
become still and alert,
and don't try to understand or explain.
Only then can you be aware of the sacredness of the forest."

A Snow Day

Thick flakes of snow drifting down upon us...

Thick sticky snow that clings to everything...

Birds won't come to the feeder in a snowstorm.....
They need to eat .... they loose a huge percentage of their body weight during cold winter nights.
If you look carefully you can see that not one of my cranberries has been eaten...
But they do love my peanut butter and fat balls....

It might look like not a critter is stirring....
We know for sure the mice at least are busy creating a network of highways under the snow...
We will see the evidence when spring melts the snow.