Poppy cow coffee desk.

the Each Week, One Beast project: week 21

Top half of a great horned owl. My first portrait, and my only job ever commissioned by an actual owl. Mm-hm.

the Each Week, One Beast project: week 20

Mink gone fishing. On a recent hike, Matt caught a glimpse of someone long, dark and slender slipping into the creek. From the opposite bank, we spied the hole it might have disappeared into. After consulting a field guide, mink is what we think... but it's hard to be sure.

Dark things

Just wanted to share a few pictures from the garden this morning... The combination of chocolate vine and gavota tulips is one of my favorites. So many of my favorite things are blooming and happening right now. All it takes is three drops of rain to pop out our first edible mushrooms of the season (dryad's saddle). There are some coming on top of the hill that we'll pick later today. For now, I must go hunt warblers. I mean "hunt" in the passive, watch-them-fly-over sense, of course. B-bye.

the Each Week, One Beast project: week 19

Screech owl in the pines. Everywhere I go, I am ALWAYS looking for owls. That is why I trip and fall so much. And also why I forget the things I am supposed to bring with me. I haven't seen an owl in the feather lately, so I keep a virtual eye on things at the Avian Reconditioning Center for Birds of Prey. Someone there takes great pictures of their birds. I am in love with the little one-eyed screech owl...

the Each Week, One Beast project: week 18

So, I think we all know what's happened here. She was sleeping under the kitchen table, snout resting on mangled old squeaky toy. The fresh scent of newly-spread manure wafted in on the spring breeze. Her nostrils quivered... one eyebrow perked... and she popped up, nudged the screen door ajar, scampered down the hill and into the field, rolled in the poop, had a dip in the cow pond, and now here she is in the kitchen again, having just had a good shake. She used to be a white dog, but now she's sort of... off-colorish.

But I think she needs a name, and I can't seem to come up with one. Help! What do you think?

April flowers

The neighborhood is full of good smells - a seasonal event that one must enjoy before the air grows hot and fetid and laden with city stink. For now, magnolias smell like wine, and there are grape hyacinths, narcissus, mown lawns. Nice to return to this, after having been away.

We spent our first night on the Vermont land. After a day of tromping around in muck boots, cataloging in our minds what is there (two creeks that go underground here and back up again there, hazelnut bushes, coltsfoot and cattails, cold balsam-scented breezes, thrushes singing), we shared French lunch (that's snacks with wine!) with new friends, and later set up our tent. As a storm blew in, we listened to a woodcock doing its breeding display, and the rain and the wind. There is a special kind of insomniac anxiety that goes with spending the night in a tent in a storm, and it's not the kind I'm used to, where you just lie there and fret. This kind of anxiety is more elemental, I think, and I appreciate it, in a way, because the scary weather makes me feel real and energized. While worrying about money and work and stupid shit does not. I love a storm and a tent. I do.