moon~hawk~'shrooms~bugs~lizard~and my art.

"Dawn seemed to follow midnight with indecent haste."  

~J.K. Rowling, "Magic is Might," 

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, 2007 

dec 6, 2011.  6:49am

it's been cold, cloudy, foggy & rainy.

(i wasn't able to get an eclipse or full moon pic due to the heavy cloud cover)

here are some pictures i've taken over the past week or so.

let's start with the Red-shouldered Hawk...who was sitting in a tree in the yard last weekend

when we pulled in after camping.

oOo

~these next two pictures...the strangest mushroom i've ever seen~

 CORAL mushroom

i've never seen it in the yard before...but now, there's a big patch of it!

oOo

i heard something out back. by the porch. at night. 

grabbed my camera, turned it on, lifted the flash...
aimed and hoped i captured whatever was sneaking around.

I DID.  ms. opossum.  probably hanging out hoping milo would come out to play.

oOo

remember the Orb Weaver on the front porch?

she still comes out at night (when it's not too cold)...weaves her web...

and waits for a meal...or a mate...or both.

one night i noticed a lizard (Green Anole) sitting on the same wind chime 

the Orb sleeps in during the day...and hangs her web from.

oOo

"Nature is the great nurse for tired minds. Let her have her way with you, and all will be well."  

~Herbert Pryke 

oOo

here's a grasshopper, out back in the woods. hiding in all the dried up vines.

oOo

here's an unusual looking mushroom.

kind of purplish...curled up & holding rain water.

we have such a variety of  mushrooms around here...as you well know!

they have inspired me to make little clay mushroom holders...

for the little glass vials i put tiny bones in.

i've never worked with clay before...but have wanted to give it a try for some time.

so i bought a small amount of self hardening clay.

and played. it's pretty messy. 

very messy. i like it!

after shaping the clay into a mushroom...i let it dry for a few days...

then coat with 'mod-podge'...then paint...then coat with acrylic sealer.

i added a small piece of felt to the bottom.

the mushroom on the left...i embedded small smooth river stones to the base while the clay was still soft.

the one on the right holds the frog skeleton.

it SOLD at my shop on etsy!  yay!

(CLICK here to visit - ForestOfBones)

sam has dubbed these..."MUSHROOM CRADLES". 

i like that!!

***

i also sold a decorated Deer Skull!!   another YAY!

well...that's all for now.

i'm trying to avoid all the hustle & bustle as best i can.

i wouldn't mind just leaving town. heading to parts unknown.

sitting on a mountain top. staring at the moon and stars.

this time of year gets me a little down. stressed. pressured.

i tend to think too much...dwelling on my past, my mistakes, deaths.

AND i hate shopping...it's all gotten way too commercial anyway.

And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, 

stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so?  

It came without ribbons.  

It came without tags.  

It came without packages, boxes or bags.  

And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore.  

Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before.  

What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store.  

What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.  

~Dr Seuss 

have a safe journey!   

laura

 be merry. 

PS: if you liked my halloween...skeleton...macabre...graphics i'd collected over the years...

then check out my page...tab at the top, click here...
MORE creepy pictures have been added...BUT with a christmas-y feel!!   

:)

squeezing...

in a quickie this morning.

this is the front of our home...

the big front window to the left of the porch, faces west.

the setting afternoon sun

streams through the crystals hanging in this window.

10 of them. all shapes & sizes.

filling the room with shimmering rainbows.

 

 

colorful prismatic beams moving about the room as the sun sets. 

color. light energy. healing. balancing. tranquility. magical.

oOo

the other day sam noticed this odd looking *egg sack* ?  *cocoon* ?

dangling in a spider web.

 

so i took a picture & then tried to find out what it was.

turns out to be the eggcase of the Basilica Orb Weaver spider.

next day, i spotted another one on the other side of the house.

oOo

...and here's the abundant Golden Silk Orb Weaver...

(aka: banana spider)

 

abundant, because they're all over the place!

 they always seem to weave their webs between two trees...

while hiking (since i'm usually looking at the ground for treasures)

i'm forever  walking right into them!

oOo

last week i received a couple of SURPRISES in the mail!

yeah! REALLY cool stuff!

cindy @ bug safari   

had a bunch of butterfly wings that she'd been hanging on to 

for a long time.  she couldn't toss them out...

but didn't know what to do with them either.

so she sent  them to me!  wow!!

 THANKS cindy!!  i feel some creative energy starting to flow!

in the works...

 one window art coming up...which will be heading across the country to CA!  :)

 ===

and then another amazing package...(a gift xchange)...

loaded with gorgeous handmade textile card creations!

(and a couple of XTRAS!  fossils!! wow!)

 

THANKS  lorna @ Artymess

oOo

speaking of art...i'm working on something new...with a deer jawbone.

 something from the 'fractal forest'?? 

oOo

before i squeeze my way out of here...

i'll leave you with a couple of yard visitors!

 a little hummer...

barred owl.  catching some daytime ZZzzzzz's.

stay cool. journey safe.

laura

I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, 

which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright.  

~Henry David Thoreau

  

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!

lackadaisical

lack·a·dai·si·cal  -carelessly lazy. lacking liveliness or zest. 

that's such a cool sounding word.  has a kind of twang to it. it flows.
definitely sounds more upbeat than the meaning.
just saying that word,  makes me feel cheery. enthused.

♥ ♥ ♥

for some reason, i just haven't been very creatively motivated lately.

i have all these skulls outside...just begging to be worked on...in an artistic kind of way. 

and they sit. and sit. through the rain...and the sun...and the rain again.

oh well, at least Mother Nature is doing her thing and cleaning them!

♥ ♥ ♥
i DID make two vial necklaces. 

one with the tiny bones i dissected from owl pellets and found cardinal feathers.

and the other with assorted small armadillo bones.

BUT i don't really consider these to be very creative.

suede lace. add wooden beads. screw an eyelet to cork. fill vial. seal.

presto!  fini!

added them to my etsy shop.

♥ ♥ ♥

the weather's been kind of dismal. dreary. cloudy. wet. 

i don't mind.  i like it when it's gloomy! dark. foggy. rainy. cold.

and what does this kind of weather bring?

FUNGI!!!!

i know. i know.   i hear ya'!  "OH NO, not  MORE fungi?!"

i just can't resist. oooh! oooh!  each one more unique than the one before.
snapping pictures of all the varied textures and colors...

the unusual...oddly shaped...

MUSHROOMS...LICHENS !
they're here today. gone tomorrow. 

i took too many pictures. as usual. i'll try to weed through them...

post a few now.  more...some other time...

"There  is nothing like a wilderness journey for rekindling the fires of life."  

~ Colin Fletcher, The River 

check out  Fun Facts About Fungi !

decomposers.  can cure or kill.

spores galore.

♥ ♥ ♥

we have dead trees...scattered all over...

a woodpecker's paradise.

here's a Pileated...pecking away out back...

hard to get a good picture. they move around so fast!

...and a Red Shouldered Hawk out front...

this weekend i'm determined to make time for my bone collection.

sort them. clean them. maybe do a new Bone Doodle!

"Ideas are the roots of creation."

~Ernest Dimnet

'til next time...stay cool. be safe. keep wandering.

:] laura

 

Love is being stupid together.
~Paul Valery

♥ ♥ ♥

Happy Valentine's Day!
♥ ♥ ♥
If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, 

so I never have to live without you.
~Winnie the Pooh
♥ ♥ ♥

((saturday morning. up early. before dawn. cruising cyberspace.
wandering through all the blogs i follow...and dropping by new ones.
see ya then))  :]