Putting Your Heart Into It!

In these times of economic stress for everyone, it is heartening to find that people are pulling together and helping one another out. I have been learning that people not necessarily related to you are sometimes more of a family than others. It has been my great good fortune to be associated with a group of Plein Air Painters called "THE PAINTED LADIES" who not only have faithfully taken art classes with me through thin economic times, and painted in various plein air venues with me, but have become great friends!

We have all suffered through this economic downturn in one way or another. We have lost jobs, moved, been through swine flu, marital and family crises, and laughed, and sung, danced, and cried together. Painting together has become secondary to our friendships now. And I value this above all else.

So them I say....I heart you. You are the best!

Just Bees

With all the talk about the loss of our Honey Bee population, I was thrilled to discover that they have become attracted to the bush I have near my front railing up to the porch. The shrub there is one that is unknown to me. It has small waxy leaves and the tiniest fuzz of a flower, yellow, and the bees love it! I plan to take a small branch to my local nursery to see what kind of shrub this is and plant more!

Feasting on the bush, I saw fat bumble bees, orchard mason bees (a NW type of honey bee), the American Honey Bee, a few Italians, and a smattering of Caucasians. Bees. They actually have races within their types. We are used to American and Italian Honey bees mostly around here, but the Caucasians are interesting because they are white, not the usual fat black and yellow striped ones. They are all very very very busy gathering nectar while they can.

I don't know why I am so pleased that they found me here in my new house, but I am really glad they did. It sort of restores my faith in our future. I kept hearing horror stories about bee populations dying off, hives being deserted, and more and more signs of climate shifts and disaster waiting to happen.

So along with warmer weather, longer days, I am very happily content just to know that the bees have returned. At least for now. Makes me smile.

Birds and Bees

I was thinking about the small things in life that make me happy. I wanted to share how important and relevant those things are in my life - how their art touched my heart. Take the tiny blue and white Tree Swallows that are building a nest in my eaves just outside my front window. I had to look them up to see exactly what kind of swallow they were. Growing up in Kansas, I was more used to the rufus faced barn swallows, but these litle guys were all blue and white. And they are just very cute.

In justifying my geeky obsession with them, I could make references to aerodynamics, the importance of metaphors that watching fledglings learn to fly might make in my life, and many more philosophical reasons, but the truth is, it makes me happy just to watch them.

When it’s safe that is. I can see the early morning and late evening comings and goings of the two parents from my front window, but if I go outside for a closer look...I get dive bombed.

And, like very typical parents, those mommy and daddy birds are quite determined to protect those babies! One of them actually got close enough to move my hair around coming that close to my head! That was an experience! Wings partly tucked, they zero in like they have laser-sites in their beaks. Fortunately, I have thick hair, so they missed my actual head!

This week the dad has been coming and going more often that mom. I think she is sitting on the nest more of the time. I haven't heard the tell-tale peeps yet, but am getting as anxious as the parents are for the blessed event. Between about 06:00 and 08:00, they are both doing their aerial acrobatics across my front lawn preying on the burgeoning mosquito population, and having quite a feast. They repeat the air show in the early evening almost daily. They would put the Blue Angels to shame. I am sure they come and go during the day as well, but I am not there to see those flights.

I tried to take a picture of their nest, but it is crammed up so far into the eaves, between the roof and the facing, I can't quite see into it. So I have to just watch and listen patiently and be satisfied with the air show for now. I think the real fun will begin when the kids come out to play. Now that will be an air show!