look! up in the sky...

it's a seahorse!

You must not blame me if I do talk to the clouds.  

~Henry David Thoreau 

and while looking up at the clouds...

that familiar sound of the hawk.

first, one red-shouldered hawk landed on the branch...then another.

zoom...

zoom once more...

yesterday's sky.

(PS - well, i hesitated to say...but when i first spotted that cloud,

i said to sam "LOOK! a dragon!"  and he said  "it's a sea horse!"

yeah, a sea horse! 

i didn't think anyone would see a dragon 

since it was so obviously a sea horse...

but i was wrong...'texwisgirl's' comment says she saw a dragon!

so...there ya' go...dragon...sea horse...

either way...pretty cool cloud!)

have a safe journey & enjoy the ride.

:] laura

a quickie...june sun shower

a brief sun shower.

 

a welcome afternoon rain.

at least now i don't have to drag the hose around and water everything later!

(i don't know what kind of little spider that is...on the yellow lantana...

VERY cool web! looks like he used a sewing machine...zig-zag!

i'll look him up later...
plants are hibiscus, oak leaf hydrangea leaf, marigold, false or summer poinsettia.
the butterfly's a gulf fritillary 

and the lizard is the florida Anole, on the front porch.)

(6/24) SPIDER UPDATE: 
THANKS to texwisgirl  - The Run*A*Round Ranch Report 

for IDing that spider! she calls them Zipper spiders...you can see why! 

it's a Banded or Yellow Argiope...in the Orb Weaver family...

which we have many of around here!  hey thanks for saving me the google! :)

(6/26)  ONE MORE SPIDER UPDATE from Shawn of StokesAnimalLibrary.
he  says that when you see the zig-zag on the Argiope's web...
it means that a male came to mate with her. 
he put that zig-zag pattern into her web. 
hmmmm...must be his way of 'marking' her as 'taken'...
or 'just another notch on his bedpost' !!??

(6/27)  JUST ONE MORE SPIDER UPDATE (famous last words...)
from Cindy at Bug Safari ...
 According to BugGuide: These orbweavers often place a conspicuous zigzagging 
white silk banner in their webs called the "stabilimentum" which can be used 
to identify the species. Juveniles of many species spin a spiralling stabilimentum 
from the center of the web. The function of the stabilimentum is not fully understood. 
Hypotheses are: that it stabilizes the web, 
or makes it more apparent to birds which will thus not fly into and wreck it, 
or it reflects light to attract insect prey, 
or perhaps most likely helps to camouflage the spider in the web.

~gotta run~work~bye~

:] laura

doodling...'S' caboodle

(bone doodle #9. deer teeth. armadillo & raccoon bones)

when i thought about doing another BoNE dOOdle...for summer...

and decided to just make a BIG 'S'...

i was reminded of the doodles my father and i did together when i was a kid.

my father - who loved to write - who had an obsession with spelling - 

who would doodle letters of the alphabet 

in all kinds of type faces...which he created from his imagination.

we doodled the alphabet together.

he would draw a random letter and i would have to make that letter

into a face or stick figure.

get it?   if not... 

i sat down and did the alphabet just like we used to do...

i don't think i ever met anyone else who had this much fun with their dad!

he was very sarcastic too. 

no, seriously...i loved the spelling bees at dinner

and creating our own fonts!  :)

ok, so i got a little side tracked.

S is for summer.

here in north florida it's been hotter than usual for june.

breaking a hundred.

S is also for sweat. which i do too damn much.

i've said it before, i'm a sweater...and not the soft fluffy kind.

so why am i in florida?

to make a long(ish) story short(er)...i'm from NY originally.

i was born in south carolina...the folks who adopted me came to SC

to pick me up and took me by train back to NY.

that's where i was raised.

i left NY in my 20's. lived in los angeles, CA for about 15 yrs.

in '87 my two sons were 3 and 6 yrs old.

since their father left and moved to san francisco...

forgetting about his boys and me...there was nothing tying us there.

so we packed up our essentials and pet snake...

and drove cross country to florida, where my sister sally was living.

she passed away a few years ago...

my boys are now in their twenties...living a few hours away.

but i'm still here...putting up with the heat...

because i met sam...and he was pretty much settled and comfortable.

besides, i had also gone back to school 15 years ago & became licensed 

by the state of florida as a massage therapist.

so...here we are...'til we retire. 

then we plan to head north and out of florida!

to the mountains somewhere i hope.

(if you happen to be reading this on the other side of the world, where it's winter...

would you mind blowing a little COOL in this direction!)

back to S.

i leave you with some S pictures!

(Snake. yellow rat. climbing tree.)

(Sandy beach. st augustine.)

(Spider(s). banana.)

(Spectacular. florida state caverns.)

(Sky. i love this. i love the moon.)

(Squirt. well, yeah, they're not really squirting...more like peeing. 

but the water's coming out of their mouths. so they're Softly Squirting...

along the streets of st. augustine)

(Sunflower)

(Sand dollar)

(Spikey. lawn aerator. even though we don't have 'lawn'...some grass,

mostly dirt. it helps to loosen the dirt so the squirrels, armadillos and moles

have an easier time digging! ha! actually it's a leaf collector.

sam says you drag it behind the (riding) mower...have not seen that!)

and...here's a picture of a truck we saw while hiking Royal Springs.

the guy was pulled up to the 'port-o-lets'...and cleaning out all the waste!

this picture fits THREE  'S'  words.  

(click to enlarge...read their slogan i circled in red)

(Silly. Stinky. and...uh Shitty!)

tomorrow's friday!   yay.  have a relaxing weekend!

(check out the bone doodle page up top there...when u have time)

~have a safe journey & enjoy the ride~

:] laura

"Anyone who says sunshine brings happiness has never danced in the rain."

tryin' to go with the flow...

no work yesterday and today.

well, i shouldn't say that...i've been working...just no massages.

yesterday i spent ALL day on my new website for my art.

i'm glad i don't have a desk job.

i could barely stand up straight,

my shoulders & neck ached,

my eyes felt like they were popping out of my head!

so this morning...

after changing a few things i thought of during the night (on my website),

i planned to get some running around done.

went out to the car...and...

woops!  doesn't look like i'll be heading to the store soon.

so i trudged over to our...uh...veggie garden!? ha!

last year we HAD A GARDEN!

we were giving away cucumbers, peppers greens and beans.

this year...the time to plant came too quick.

we didn't till the ground. we didn't add good soil.

i just picked up a few varieties of peppers & a couple of cucumber plants.

anyway, i reached our sandy garden area...

and immediately noticed the tops of ALL the pepper plants were chewed off!

then i noticed...

deer tracks in the garden.

yeah, you're right what you're thinking...

why didn't we run a fence around it?

we did last year.

but with only about 8 plants in there THIS year...we figured...

survival of the fittest.

we got lazy.

oh well. since the plants weren't doing too good anyway...

bon appetit deer!

so i head back into the house...put up some laundry...

get back on HERE so i can get caught up with blog reading...

when i hear this loud THUD out front.

i know that sound.

a tree just fell.

i went to investigate, but it wasn't a tree...

just two big branches from a dead tree.

they landed right across the driveway!

while taking pictures of the downed branches...i started to smell something.

rotten. dead.

over there...up front...just on the other side of the fence...

poor turtle was probably trying to make it to the mud pit across the street.

(but now i have some turtle bones to save! i'll bury him.)

hopefully that's it for today.  i'm just tryin' to go with the flow...

OH! and speaking of veggies...

i do have a potted tomato plant that's producing!

the hornworm caterpillar hasn't found it yet...

like last year's tomato plant.

he devoured the entire plant over night!

oOo

one of the blogs i follow...lorna at Artymess...

had made a ROSE from a tie.

yeah. i thought...

wow! i kept a couple of my brother's ties after he passed away.

he had so many ties...NOW i wish i had kept more!

i e-mailed lorna and asked if she had instructions!

she made little videos...3 of them...with step by step instructions!

i don't have a sewing machine...i hand stitched everything...

it took me about 2 hours. here's my rose...

a memory rose for my brother.

here's the link to lorna's post  From Tie to Rose.

oOo

one last thing...

i always feel funny about 'pushing' myself on people...

i'm not good at promoting myself...

selling my art...

taking compliments...

blahblah.

BUT...

since i've put so many hours into this new website...

and am still editing things on it from hour to hour...day to day...

if you can go check it out...let me know what u think...

Jean from the blog Jackson Chronicles 

gave me so many tips...suggestions...SO MUCH to think about & absorb...

it actually made me blush as i read her email...knowing that someone

went to my 'forestwalk art store' and actually THOUGHT about what i was trying to do!

thanks Jean. :)

OK...so here's the link to my shop...

it's also on the top right sidebar of this blog!

forestwalkart.com

thanks in advance...to anyone who strolls through there...

it's still under construction, so stop back now and then.

"You don't really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes 

were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit."   

-Gandalf to Bilbo Baggins, The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien

~have a safe journey & enjoy the ride~

:] laura

PS - email me and i'll send the ROSE-TIE videos if you're interested.

ALSO...i went NON-word VERIFICATION  on comments!

seeya!

my kind of surprise!

you know...i think it's pretty cool when your clients save

BUGS for you.

DEAD BUGS.

i saw one of my regular clients this morning...

and as soon as i walked in the door...she could barely contain herself.

she was so excited because she had found a dead moth

and couldn't wait to hand it over!

wow! impressive!

now we were both excited...gawking at this huge brightly colored moth.

my client is 85...and an artist herself.

she can appreciate the little things that inspire us.

the little things...like bugs. bones. driftwood. rocks. shells.

i had no idea what kind of moth this was.

so after her massage, i raced home to look it up.

it's a Regal Moth, also known as a Royal Walnut Moth.

they're nocturnal and can have a wingspan of up to 6" !

yeah, SIX INCHES!  wow!

this one is about 3" across. it might be a male because the females are larger.

then i mounted it with pins on a piece of styrofoam.

(click here for more info on this moth)

well, i have to get ready to head out to another appointment...

but in case you're not familiar, i just wanted to end with pictures

of just a FEW of the artsy creations  i've used WINGS for...

...hope you're having a happy day...

have a safe journey & enjoy the ride!

:] laura

a grasshopper kinda day

...and it's not even noon!

when i went outside this morning

i noticed TWO Hibiscus flowers blooming right next to each other.

so i ran back inside to grab my camera.

immediately after i took the picture...

a tiny grasshopper climbed onto one of the flowers.

he obviously wanted his picture taken. 

he posed...and i snapped away...

then i spotted another...on one of the Oak Leaf Hydrangea leaves.

THEN...since it was still kinda early...not TOO hot out yet...

we decided to take the four-wheeler across the street...

to the field...to pick more wild blackberries.

wow! they're everywhere!

it was worth the effort...reaching into the thorny bushes...

we picked over a pound!

while picking...we spotted this big grasshopper...

it's called an Eastern Lubber Grasshopper!

to finish out this

=grasshopper kinda day=

here's a picture i took last year, after a torrential rain.

all the tiny grasshoppers taking refuge from the rain...

on the leaves of a potted Begonia!

have a good week...

and a safe journey....enjoy the ride!

:] laura

"The clearest way into the universe is through a forest wilderness."

~John Muir