And then...

...here's a bit of color, to leave you with that not-so zombie-apocalyptic feeling.

Black rain of death...

...that's what I think I'll call this picture. Dark December days can be so macabre.

Winter wedding invitations

I had a lot of fun working on my first commissioned wedding invitation suite, partly because the bride is sweet and lovely, and partly because I got to draw chickadees in birch trees. Who doesn't love a chickadee? And when you put it in a birch tree... it's a nice little color-coordinated bark-'n'-bird set.

Outside, inside

Frosty in the garden/steamy in the house.

Creatures

Matt and I took a long hike yesterday on East Mountain. I like to go out into the woods on Sunday during hunting season - a day of quiet, no shooting allowed, and so I do not have slow-motion fear-visions of bullets ripping our bodies apart. We found a beautifully patterned fossil in some exposed rock - a few feet long and maybe six inches wide - which I declared a dinosaur tail, and Matt thought more likely to be tree bark. With help from google, Matt's ID was confirmed - a dinosaur-era, tree-like clubmoss (they were much bigger back then), and apparently a very common fossil in Pennsylvania. On our way home, we watched a beaver climb out of his pond onto his tiny mudpatch, fold his tail under and out in front of him, roll back on his little round butt, and give himself a good scratch - belly first, then behind the ears.

Still stuck in last week, but this week seems to have begun. I've added three new originals to my Etsy shop, all black foxes, some wilder than others... Happy Monday, everyone.

Black fox

Listening to the book Swamplandia! and dreaming of its dark magic Everglades landscape... This fox is not from the story, but my own gray December imagination.

For Illustration Friday.

Recharging

A weeklong vacation to Vermont, good for recharging drained batteries. Food, drink, family merriment, walks. Is it possible to store a reserve of relaxation within one's core, to be drawn on while barrel-assing through the next six-month-long to-do list? Hoping so.

That last picture is Rosalita, but you can call her Petey-Pot-Pie. I do.

Patterns and light

Every year, November coincides with my word bank running empty. Three sentences. That's all I got.

Owls and fiends. Oh my.

I don't think screech owls would gather together all in one tree, in nature. But if I had my way, they would. Each backyard would have a tree for roosting owls and a tree that grows croissants on its branches, and all the leafblowers in the world would be sucked into a dark vortex, and all the people who used to have leafblowers would be punished by having to rake leaves. Ha! Owls, baked goods, and just deserts, those would be my three priorities.

New owls-in-the-snow holiday cards are available in my shop. Also, Fiends of the Kitchen Garden prints!

Happenings

It's been a whirlwind of a week! It was a huge thrill, last Thursday, to have my work featured on Design Sponge, a fantastic blog that has introduced me to so many artists who I draw continual inspiration from. Wow! Thank you! It was also a huge thrill to wrap up a whole slew of packages and send them out into the world - some went local, others as far as Ireland, England and Australia. I am still happily basking in the glow of that.

Then we got to spend some time in sunny, warm Virginia with dear friends (check them out here and here), who took us hiking, fed us awesome food, and told us funny stories. On top of all that, they tolerated our dog, who petrified their cats by her very presence, and did some disgusting things which I won't mention (and which a house guest should never do).

Today is a drawing day. Chickadees are involved. Chilly fingers call for hot tea, because if I continue to drink coffee, my head will explode.

Harvesting wild cranberries

Some things, like planting garlic in October or picking ramps in April, can only be done with icy-numb fingertips. There is always wind and snow and little whips of changing weather. Now I add picking wild cranberries to the list. Four of us went to our quiet little berry bog on Saturday, and filled our baskets. When we left, the lowest part of the landscape - sphagnum and wintergreen and briar - was still studded with a whole constellation of plump red berries. We didn't make a dent. The next morning, tart cranberry waffles + puddles of buttery maple syrup were deemed a success.

Anyone have a favorite cranberry preparation? I'm looking for ideas...

My Etsy shop is open!

Do you have ducks, chickens, raccoons, cats, rabbits, butterflies, moths and crows? If not, would you like some? I have them for sale in my brand new Etsy shop.

It doesn't seem possible that I've toiled over this shop all summer long, the amount of time it might have taken me to remodel a real bricks-and-mortar shop, but there it is. I've drawn and fussed and typed and photographed until my eyes have gone crossed and my buns have flattened in what could be an irreparable way.

The shop is open and stocked with prints and originals. More to come within the next couple weeks, including woodchucks, the sort of dog who pees on your Most Prized Plant, and notecards!

Zoe Tilley Poster on Etsy

Please do feed the wildlife

When farmers market and gardening season winds down, it's time to go on vacation! And that's where we've been. Matt was so pleased to be reunited with Lake Superior, he took off all his clothes and jumped in.

From Duluth, Minnesota, with Matt's dad and step mom, we drove to the end of the Gunflint Trail in the Boundary Waters, to wait out a night of wind and snow flurries at a lodge where Matt's friend works as a fishing guide. In the morning we had Close Encounters With Wild Foxes, which all revolved around buttered toast.

We paddled into Duncan Lake, and gathered firewood, and hiked on the Border Route Trail, overlooking Canada. I made acquaintance with the tiniest chipmunk I've ever seen, and offered him a small selection of mixed nuts and dried fruits, from which he chose two peanuts.

I'm pretty sure that Minnesotans don't normally haul along their winter tent when camping in the autumn, but if they are hosting a Pennsylvanian, they (very graciously) do. There is a little woodstove in the winter tent, which makes the whole experience deluxe. We kept cozy and cooked lots, and heard the sounds of the wild north country: owls, loons, wolves and wind.

Our new northland

We bought land! Click the weeds to make them bigger. The open space is ours, plus the nearer of the trees. The hills beyond are not ours, but we do get to look at them. I intend to do that, a lot - when it rains, when it's sunny, when it's cloudily dramatic, when my eyelashes are weighed down with snow. I intend to do it with coffee, with whiskey, in my underwear, and while walking my ducks.

We've been making a lot of trips to Vermont. We've been looking at a lot of acres, talking and weighing and searching, and now, we've gone and done it. This ten acres of gently sloping, southern facing stumpy scraggly northland is to be our home! On Monday we picnicked there with my parents, and spilled a few drops of champagne on the soil. We heard a rooster crowing, and the wind in the pines, and not much else. I am already a little bit in love.

This is the beginning of a long haul for us. While there is already a lot on this land - chickadees, asters, balsam firs, bear poop - you might notice there is no house. So we have to put that there. I intend to document the process here, so if you'll stick with me for a couple years, you can see the "after" picture then. (We'll remain in Scranton, at least part time, until it no longer seems practical.)

Hopsecutioner, or Hop Wallop?

That was Matt's question, standing in front of the refrigerator, considering nachos-on-the-porch night. It was a tough decision, so I made it for him. I said Hopsecutioner! because it sounded more brutal.

A dachshund

I love dachshunds! This one was was drawn in response to a call for illustrated breadhats by Loaf, a comics zine of "thick sliced fun" for kids.

Incidentally, I know someone of roughly this fellow's size and shape, named Ozzie, who is Unbelievably Cute, lives in the South, and Sometimes Wears Glasses.

The unexpected

Last week was full of little highs and lows. There were migrating monarchs on the ridge where we walk - more than I've ever seen... clouds of them billowing up off the Eupatorium when we passed, quickly settling back to their task of nectar foraging. Fifty feet down the path, kids tending a little fire, for their own task: burning the coating off rolls of electrical wire, to earn a few more cents per pound at the scrapyard.

I've been sitting here for ten minutes trying to explain my dismay, and the irony of the contrast, but when it comes down to it, all I can say is, This shitty old city.

Friends are getting married. Lots of them (but not all to each other). So there was and will be baking going on downstairs. M made little braids, wheat sheaves, ciabattas, dense ryes... Little sister made matcha cupcakes in black papers (gorgeous). I ran up and down the steps with coffee and frittata and toast... And on my way, out the window at eye level, I spied...

...a parakeet! On the porch railing, wet, green, and gold, and watching the rain.

Golden-podded peas

I resisted planting these golden-podded snow peas for years because I thought "golden" was a nice way of saying "a pukey pale sick color, which peas should never be." But then one day I had a fit along the lines of... This whole world and my entire life are completely out of control! And my decrepit old dog is pooping everywhere! And it seemed like the only thing I was in charge of was my overflowing seed storage, so I cleaned that. And I said to hell with it, I'll stick these stupid peas in the ground. And aren't I glad I did, now? Yes.

August, spent

Chicken-of-the-trees

Above: Matt, victorious after having employed his rock climbing gear and a pole saw to safely scale an oak tree and retrieve the plump chicken-of-the-woods high on its trunk.

Below: Chicken, collected and piled after having plummeted and smashed on the boulders below.

Monarch

happy weekend, all!

August garden

Earthy sustenance

Yesterday was what mushroom forager's dreams are made of. We found good quantities of old favorites, a special treat we've never tried, and a torrent - yes, a torrent - of precious black trumpets cascading down a creek bank and pooling up against rocks and tree trunks at the bottom.

Clockwise from just-past-noon, above: flame-colored chanterelle (not a true chanterelle, but choice nonetheless, and glowing like sunset in the right light), black trumpies (poor-man's truffles), candy caps (they smell strongly of brown sugar and burnt soy sauce), hedgehogs (surely destined for pizza this week), oysters, trumpies again, and fish milk-caps (Matt's all-time favorite mushroom, for the way it fries up crunchy and golden and elevates his daily omelet to the level of manna-from-heaven).

A day of fall weather in late summer, following our sightlines through the woods, ducking spiderwebs, under brush, back and forth across the creek... letting go of anxiety in order to appreciate pure magic. Getting wet, then watching the rain from the back porch, bundled in wool for the first time in months. Mushrooms for our bellies, and the free, wild sustenance of connecting with the forest, for our hearts.