Walk with a Coyote

 

About a year ago I joined the Senior Saunters, a group that gets together once a month to walk (well, saunter) in one of our many regional parks. It's organized by Sonoma County Regional Parks and it's a free program. Our guide is Alexis, a young, energetic parks employee who clearly enjoys being with us "oldies" and who is a wonderful resource of knowledge about everything connected with our parks. The size of the group varies every time, but there is a core of people who always join in the saunters. We not only enjoy the environment where we walk, but we also have a lot of fun together.

Last week we met at the lake, but Alexis didn't want to walk around the lake but led us up the hill away from the lake. We stopped at the Discovery Center and enjoyed the view down to the lake. You almost can't see it!

We eventually arrived at this meadow with two vernal pools. This area is a bit of a "no man's land" since it's right on the border between the regional park and the adjacent state park. Employees of both parks take care of this area.

This morning Alexis spoke about newts. She did it with a lot of humour, which I like, and always has a matching story to tell. Then she took us to the vernal pools and told us to look for newt eggs and tiny newts. We were quite taken with this, discovered the eggs, saw some newts, until someone shouted "there's a coyote!".

No one was looking for newts anymore, everyone was mesmerized by this beautiful guy who wasn't afraid of us at all (we were a group of about 25). He - or she? - took his sweet time to cross the meadow to eventually disappear in the woods nearby.

What a wonderful encounter!

This certainly made my day.

We had a couple more great views of the lake. It looks so much bigger from up here.

We saw some beautiful mushrooms - I think these are Spring Fieldcap (Agrocybe praecox)

I was very excited to see the first wildflowers. Henderson's Shooting Star (Primula hendersonii) is enchanting.

I tried to figure out what kind of fungi had settled on this branch. I'm not sure, but to me some of them look like dried up Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor). 

A last view down to the lake before we entered the Discovery Center and finally said our goodbyes.

Imaginary Landscapes

 

Almost two years ago I took a "Mini Abstracts" class with Laly Mille. I'm not really "into" abstracts as an art form that I create, but I was looking for something new and thought, why not? One part of the class was called "Imaginary Landscapes". I worked in a series, using the same supplies in each of the four pieces. The landscapes are created on 5 x 5 inches watercolor paper. I used old book pages, paper I had created with the gelli plate, mulberry paper, pieces of corrugated cardboard, tissue paper and gauze plus watercolors and white gesso.

This is how far I got in June 2024:

To be honest, they didn't feel finished. Sure, they were abstract, so the goal of the class was achieved. However, for me a landscape, abstract or not, needs a bit more - maybe a couple trees, a sun or moon and definitely some birds. There need to be birds!

Almost another year went by until I pulled these pieces out again and finally added a sun to each landscape, different trees to three of them and birds in the sky. Now the pieces felt finished.

I wonder whether some of you like to create abstract art. 

I'm sharing with Nicole's Sunday in the Art Room. Come and visit to see what other artists are up to.

Les Magasins de Fleurs

 

March is the first month in spring, even though we still have to wait a little bit for the spring equinox which will be on Friday, March 20. However, here in my corner of the world it feels very much like spring at the moment. Many trees are in bloom and the birds are busy starting new families. The air has this fresh fragrance that you only find in spring. So I thought today I stick with flowers and show you the beautiful flower shops in France, even though all these displays are from the fall season. 

Flower shops can be found in almost every town in France and what is so appealing about them are the beautiful displays that spill out onto the sidewalk. It's artistic and a lot of love as well as talent is poured in the designs. After all, it shall inspire and motivate you and me to stop and hopefully buy some flowers.

If I lived here I would probably spend a lot of money in one of those shops.

Of course the colors are perfect together in this display. Country chic.

My daughter was seriously thinking of buying this pretzel vase. Good thing the store was closed! 

Isn't this pure eye candy? It never looks that good if I try to arrange some flowers.

Even muted colors look fabulous.

The following display wasn't at a French flower shop but at a small gift shop in Greetsiel in Germany's Ostfriesland. I did like the beautiful arrangement of fall plants and grasses in the wicker basket.

I hope you enjoyed this short tour of flower shops.

Snail Shells

 

The other things I find in my garden beside bird feathers are empty snail shells. I usually pick them up and bring inside, hoping to one day use them in an artpiece.

The time had come when I was thinking about what to do with the second burlap cnavas. Just like with the bird feathers, I worked in a series and used very similar techniques. I first layed out a rough design.

I worked on 4" x 4" pieces of watercolor that I had painted with a soft shade of burnt sienna. After I had glued down all the papers and added some parchment colored acrylic paint I thought that it needed something else. So I picked one of my favorite stencils from Stencils Girls, mixed a shade of green that I liked and stenciled these plants onto the papers. Already it looked much better.

The pieces I wanted to used as background for the snail shell are paper towels that I accidentally colored a while back (I can't remember how that happened, only that it was unintentionally and I liked the outcome). However, when I glued down the papertowel, it almost completely disappeared. I wanted to bring out the texture, so I used some India ink pen (Faber Castell) in raw umber on the edges and "smeared" the color to the center. Much better. Some more gesso through stencils and I also added a small piece of burlap to each piece. Then I adhered them to the burlap canvas - I had to that first because I put some super strong tape on the back of the watercolor paper, but I had to do that before gluing the snail shells down, because otherwise I would not have been able to lay the paper flat for adhering the tape (I hope this explanation isn't too complicated).

Only after everything was fastened to the burlap canvas did I glue down the snail shells, using Aleene's mixed media adhesive which has a very strong hold. It had to dry 24 hours and then I added final touches, like the white framing of the papertowel using a white gel pen (Debra, thank you for writing about them in your last SITAR post) and some white gesso on the burlap. Done.

Here is each of them.

With these snail shells I'm joining Nicole's Sunday in the Art Room.

The Journey to the Last Sunset

 

This is probably one of the most iconic views in the American Southwest - traveling from Mexican Hat towards Monument Valley on Highway 163. This is the way we had seen it many times before and it never loses its grandeur and majesty.

But something had changed since we had been here last quite a few years ago (pre-pandemic). Just a few hundred yards back, this view now is called Forrest Gump Point (where Forrest Gump in the movie suddenly stops running and decides to return home) and there are many turnouts with warning signs to watch out for pedestrians. In order to get this specific kind of photo you need to stand in the middle of the road. No problem at the time we were traveling, but I have no idea what is going on when way more tourists are stopping here and literally hogging the road to get their photo. It must be a nightmare. However, I do understand the lure to capture this view, just not with a bunch of people or cars. You might wonder why I felt the need to take another photo of this view since I already have dozens of it - yeah, I wonder, too. Maybe because it was the first time that I saw this in early morning light.

This is the view to Monument Valley:

Along the highway you can see many of these sheds. Navajos sell their jewelry etc. here during the tourist season, but now in winter the sheds were abandoned. 

While my cough had improved on our trip, the Geek's became worse and we decided against driving the loop in Monument Valley Tribal Park. We had driven it before in all kinds of weather - fog, snow and also under bright, blue sky. We knew it would take several hours, but since we still had three days of driving ahead of us, we wanted to get on the road. Into the West...

However, we didn't drive straight home. We did a little detour to the Navajo National Monument which is off the beaten path. While we hiked the trail along the edge of the canyon we realized that we had been here before. Look at this amazing canyon and pay attention to the big arch on the left.

Beneath this arch are the remains of cliff dwellings of the Ancestral Puebloan people. It's not as impressive as the cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde National Park in Southwest Colorado, but it was still worth the hike. You wonder how 800 years ago they were able to build these tiny pueblos in the face of a sandstone wall. Building it under the overhang of the arch protected them not only from the weather, but also from perpetrators. No photos of the dwellings since I didn't carry my big camera on this short but steep hike.

We also found more cryptobiotic soil crust (I wrote about this special soil crust here) - always fascinating and amazing.

This plant caught my eye. I had no idea what it was and asked one of the rangers in the visitor center. She was able to tell me that it is the seedhead of Blue Grama (Bouteloua gracilis), a native perennial grass. Isn't it beautiful?

Behind the - excellent - visitor center was a hogan, a traditional, earth-covered dwelling of the Navajo people. While most Navajos don't live in hogans anymore, their tradition dictates that important curing ceremonies can't be held anywhere else but in a hogan.

There is also a sweathouse. It looks like a tiny hogan without a smoke hole and is a highly effective bath. Here is how it works (from a NPS sign): "Stones are heated in a fire, then rolled in, or carried in on a wooden fork. The bathers undress outside, and then crawl inside. A blanket is hung over the door opening. Now all it takes is patience while the radiant heat does its work. This is the time for relaxing tired muscles - conversing - and perhaps singing sweathouse songs. Afterward, the bathers emerge from the sweathouse to rinse off with water, if any is available, or to rub dry with the soft, absorbent sand of Novajo country."

It reminds me of a good sauna (minus the sand).

This was a delightful detour. 

Then it was back on the road. We stopped for a very late lunch (we call that "lunner" in our family) at the Cameron Trading Post, a place we have known and enjoyed from the past and often stayed there for a night or two. It was incredibly crowded (it's not far to the Grand Canyon from here), but we were able to enjoy our lunch. I had a Navajo stew and wonderful tasty Navajo Frybread.

It was rather late when we arrived at the Grand Canyon. We didn't want to stay here for long, just drive along the rim road and stop every now and then. We were very lucky to enjoy the setting sun, when it was painting this unique rough landscape in brilliant, glowing colors. It was the last sunset of 2024, experienced in a wonderful location. The perfect ending of a year.

It took another two days to go home after we had stayed the night in Williams. We could have driven straight on interstates 40, 15 and 5 to be home 14 hours later. We had done that once and weren't eager to repeat that marathon. Instead, we left I-40 in Seligman and followed historic Route 66 to Needles which was a lot more relaxing and fun. The following drive through the Mojave Desert is something I always enjoy, even though I can imagine that some people might find it boring. I'm a big fan of deserts.

We stayed the night in Bakersfield, a city I have always found pretty awful. The Geek was feeling worse, so I drove the entire last leg of our journey. We made it home in 5 ½ hours because traffic was light, even around San Francisco (yes, I did stick to the speed limit).

Now - I want to join Nicole's Friday Face Off, but I can't do that without a face. So here I am right after the haircut that I got a couple days ago. I'm very lucky to have my hair stylist just a few houses down the street, one of my wonderful neighbors. She really knows how to work with my curls.