Blog

It has been a while since I have written a blog. Life has been super busy lately. I really need to take time to enjoy the great things in life. This spring my husband and I had decided to move to the north woods of Wisconsin. It is beautiful and we love it. There is life all around. The birds zoom in and out of the feeders, the squirrels chatter at my dog for scaring them up the tree and the loons are howling on the lake because the eagles are flying over their babies. Once in a while a bear or a deer stops by to let us know that there are larger creatures lurking around. The deer are ok, but the bears are a little scary. One momma bear brought her cub for lunch. She stood there while he ripped my bird feeder right off the tree. It was as if she was teaching him what to do. He put it in his mouth like a dog with a bone and happily walked away with it. Well needless to say, I had to buy a new one.
Things are little more awesome here. The evenings when the sun is going down are unimaginable. Pictures just don’t do justice. To see the colorful sunsets reflecting in the lakes is an awesome sight. And when the sun sets, since there aren’t city lights, it gets much darker here. But the stars! Wholly molly the stars! If you have never been out of the city, you have never seen just how many stars there really are! You can even see shooting stars. You can even wish upon them if you want. I believe one of my wishes has come true – I am living in one of the most beautiful places!

I have to write a tribute to a fox. I am so sad for the little red fox.
Here is the story. - I love to paint outside because the light is so much better. But when I am not outside because of the weather, I like to sit near a window to paint. A few weeks ago, I was sitting near the window painting because it was too cold outside. It was a nice sunny day, just too chilly to paint out there. It was so quiet in the house. It was just me painting my dog sleeping next to me. It was so quiet, that I was listening to her snore. Every once in a while I would see a flash out of the corner of my eye. It was the chickadees zooming in and out of my birdfeeder. But, this time the flash wasn’t a chickadee. It was a slow moving – something. And it felt like someone was watching me. I turned to look outside. There he was looking at me – a beautiful bushy tailed red fox. His tail was so puffy and pretty I just wanted to touch it. He just looked at me for a second and then kept going on down the driveway. I was so excited to see him. I wished I had my camera. Here comes the sad part – A few weeks later, I learned that someone had trapped and killed it. He said he did it because “He was a hunter and that’s what he did”. He did it so he could have a beautiful mount. Wait! What?! I don’t understand that. He was beautiful when he was alive. I don’t understand how a person can, on purpose, take the life out of something. How can a person stand above something and watch it take its last breath knowing that they killed it. I just don’t understand – “you just took the life out of something for pure pleasure”. I felt so bad knowing that the beautiful fox that I watched walk by me a few weeks earlier was now dead for no good reason. So, this is why I had to write a tribute to the fox. I believe that the life of anything has a reason and should not be taken away for no reason. Maybe that is one of the problems we have in the world today. So many people have such a disregard for life. People are so desensitized. It doesn’t affect people anymore to take the life of another living being. I just don’t understand.

What an experience I have had in life! I have shared a good part of my time for the past year creating things for others and it has been the best experience of my life. My friend had a mission to create a handicapped accessible playground that would be a playground for people of all ages and abilities. She and the city had collected enough money from donations to do it and needed many volunteers to build it. My friend asked me to take on the job of coordinating all of the artwork and special effects for that playground. I hesitated at first because I knew it would be a huge task. Well, in August of 2014 I agreed to do it. There were many meetings and lots of tasks involved and lots of unknowns. What I did know was that I had to collect many friends and artists to help me. Some of the tasks ahead of me were as follows: Paint a 12 foot x 16 foot mural, create 2 – 4 foot x 18 foot mosaics, paint 4 store fronts, a trolley, a boat, a car and 2 lighthouses. The store fronts, the car, the trolley and the lighthouses were all unknowns. The unknown was what would be made with colored material and what I would need to paint.
So, in August 2014, I started designing the walls. The 16 foot wall, I was going to be painting a mural by myself – a daunting but challenging task. I decided that would be the breakwater by the lighthouse in our harbor. I did a 4 foot x 4 foot sample. That was fun! Then came the design for the mosaics. I had a year to layout the designs and get them put together before the build in Sept. 2015. I had never done mosaics before but I knew the perfect person to help. And thank goodness she was willing and able. I designed the first mosaic, she loved it and we began to put it together. Thanks to lots of donated tile and glass we, and lots of our friends and family, worked all winter and created a beautiful stained glass mosaic. Then came the second mosaic. I wanted to involve kids. Kids under 16 years old were not allowed to be on the construction site to build the playground. So, somehow I wanted to have them help. The playground is a Kenosha theme and since there is a fishing boat, I thought – FISH. We had the high school art classes make stone fired clay fish. They are awesome! But there were 35 fish and they were earth tone glazed. My original design had brightly colored fish with a blue background. Well, I didn’t have enough blue tiles to go around the fish. And the fish wouldn’t show up on blue anyway. A friend of mine said, “I have a whole pallet of white and tan tiles. So – my new design was created. My sister and a friend helped me layout this 18 foot mosaic in my dad’s garage. We enlisted a little more help and spent the hottest days of the summer laying out the “fish wall” on plywood.
September came and the 10 days were set aside to build the playground. It was a mad rush! I painted the huge mural on scaffolding with my husband holding my legs so I wouldn’t fall. My sister and I wrapped up the mosaics in 4 foot sections and transported them to the site. I decided on paint colors for all of the other playground accessories. And the fun began! We had 3000 people volunteer to help build the playground. Many of those people helped me with the artwork during the 10 days. And we completed and awesome beautiful place for people of all ages to enjoy! I made many friends and had many once in a lifetime experiences.
Share your time with others – it is the best thing you can do.

Take time to see the colors!
Slowly the colors are popping out. The days are getting shorter. The nights are getting much cooler. (which makes my dog have so much more energy.) The bees are buzzing like crazy and my annual flowers are starting to droop. I am not good at keeping flowers healthy anyway. Clearly there are many signs of fall are all around us. Many of us are too busy with our everyday lives to pay attention. Days move into weeks, weeks into months, months into seasons and seasons into years. Time just goes by without us noticing. Before time gets away from us, we need start noticing before our life passes us by and then it’s over and we haven’t even experienced the beauty in it.
Fall is a beautiful time of year! Winter is full of whites, browns and drab colors. Summer has lots of green colors. Spring has many pretty colors popping up all over. But fall is a rainbow of colors everywhere you look. Greens, browns, yellows, oranges and the REDS are surrounding us! How can one be too busy to notice that? Take an hour and drive through a park or walk next to a stream. See the amazing colors! Pick up one of the red leaves on the ground and just look at how amazing that red is. It is like color explosions right in front of your eyes! I love to take pictures in the fall. I don’t really like it to rain, but sometimes when it rains it darkens the colors of tree trunks and branches which makes the vibrance of the colors even more astounding.
Take the time to experience the great scenery and beauty around you. It is everywhere! If you don’t experience it – you are missing out on life

Great blue herons are one of my favorite birds. They are large, graceful and beautiful. I like to go canoeing to see and photograph them. They usually are fishing and pretty much stay still while I take pictures. I think I have found the king of herons on the lake where I canoe most. He is beautiful. However, I think he likes to steal fish rather than catch them himself. The first time I saw this beautiful bird was when my husband and I were fishing. We were moving to a new spot is a shallow bay when this huge heron flew right over our boat. He circled the boat and landed on the top of a large pine tree that had the top broken off of it. He was shining brightly because the sun was directly on him. Of course I had my camera. He was posing for me so I was snapping off several pictures as he was stretching and cleaning his wings. He stood up tall and stretched out both wings. I snapped the best picture that I have taken in a long time. He had beautiful long feathers on his chest. I have never seen feathers like that on the chest of a great blue. That's what makes me think he was the king heron of the area. Then all of a sudden my fishing pole bent. I grabbed it and sure enough I had a large blue gill. But - by the time I pulled it in the boat - that great blue was circling the boat. He wanted that blue gill. I was sooo excited I didn't know if I should grab the fish or my camera. The fish was flopping and my camera was getting wet. So, I grabbed the fish. By the time I looked up, the heron was gone. I think he really wanted that fish! And I bet if I would have held it out for him he would have taken it. I knew I had to paint this king of herons. So, I have attached a copy of the painting so you can see what I have seen!

If you have ever had a pet, you know that they truely become part of the family. Most dog win your heart in seconds. They are so loyal and they love you no matter what. The feeling you have when you enter a lonely home only to look down and see a wagging tail and happy face looking up at you is amazing. My dog goes even further. I think she thinks she is human - My friend says maybe she thinks I'm a dog. Which ever way it is, my dog gives hugs. She literally holds on to you with her paws. She even tries to touch my face with her paws. Though it is cute - I have to discourage it because those claws hurt. She is such a sweet dog. If something were to happen to her it would be like losing a family member. Some people say they would never spend tons of money on a pet if it was ill. Well, if you have a family pet long enough, you sometimes get put to the test. Most people spend more than they think when they actually get put in the position of a sick pet. I would have a hard time not doing what I could to save "part of the family". A family member - a human one - was recently put to the test. She did what she could and there was no hope. "Sammy" was in too much pain. It was his time. It is so very hard. It is so hard to know what to say to a person who loses a pet. So, when I can, I try to paint that persons pet so they have a lasting memory. So, I painted Sammy. I had to make sure I painted his trademark light lashes that turn down from his left eye.

The sun is shining and the flowers are blooming. It is about 76 degrees and calm winds. I'm home on a Sunday with no cares of work today. I'm trying to keep the busy week out of my head so I open the garage door to get a bucket. I need to fill the bird bath. I think the birds know when I fill it with fresh water. I dumped out the ugly water that has been sitting in the birth bath and refill it with fresh water. Then I put and orange in the oriole feeder and a scoop of grape jelly. Time to pull my comfy swing out of the garage and into the sun. As soon as I sit down the dog is eyeing me to take her place next to me in the swing. So, I tap the seat and she hops up. Finally I can enjoy a nice calm day. It wasn't 2 minutes later and I see three black birds sitting around the edge of the newly filled bird bath. It was so funny to watch them take turns dipping and splashing in the water. The water was spraying off of them as if they were in a shower! They were having a blast. Then I look at the oriole feeder - I only saw one oriole the first day I put the feeder up. Since then, I have had several purple finches enjoying the oranges and jelly. They must have known too that I just put food in there. They were swooping in for a taste. To my surprise, my dog, lazy as she is, got up from the swing and ran over to my flowers. There were swallowtail butterflies checking out my flowers and my curious dog had to check them out too. She was watching them as they flew to each flower. They were beautiful and so much fun to watch. They were so beautiful that of course I had to take pictures and paint them. So, I have attached one of the paintings so you too can take the time to see them. Life is good - take time to enjoy it!

The little masked bandits! Raccoons! Did you ever see raccoons eat? They have these little paws that are like human hands. These little hands can pick up just about anything. Raccoons even wash their food with these agile little hands. They steal any kind of food or garbage available. And if they know you are watching them when they are stealing garbage of food or as in my case - birdseed - they watch you and feel around with those smart little hands of theirs. I had this raccoon stealing my birdseed every night. I waited with the light on to see who it was. It was this little fat raccoon. When I looked out he was hiding behind the birdfeeder. He was hanging with his feet on the tree and front paws on the feeder. He would pull the feeder aside to see if I was looking. Then he would pull it back and stick his little hands in the holes to pull out a handfull of seeds. I started to walk closer and he put the feeder back in front of himself as if to hide. He only let me get so close before he ran up the tree. He climbed over to another tree and I figured he left. Wrong. 10 minutes later I look out - and there he is with those little people paws in the holes of the feeder. I started to have fun watching him. So I let him finish off the seeds that night. But now I only put enough seeds in the feed for the birds during the day so he can't plan on a whole meal anymore. I still have a picture in my head of this little bandit pulling the feeder away from his face to see if I am coming. That little bugger was smart enough to keep watching me to see if I was coming closer. I hope you can picture it in your head. It was funny to see.

I'm guessing I'm not the only one to have a bad day. Seems like everything happens all at the same time. No matter how bad things seem to be, if you have a pet, you know that they have the amazing ability to just make you smile. They don't care what happens, they still love you and want your attention. They look at you with those sad eyes and they can make you melt. They get it. They know when things are happening. If I have a bad day, I come home and my beautiful dog looks up at me. She opens her mouth a little, tongue hanging out a bit and her eyes sparkling. She seems to have such a happy little face - it just makes me smile. My dog Addy just wants to give hugs. She literally takes her paws and tries to hold me. She can turn a bad mood around in a second. If every person had an amazing pet to make them feel like everything is good, the world would be a happier / safer place! If you have a pet - you know - they are amazing creatures!

Have you ever taken the time to pay attention to the birds around you? I have a cardinal that reminds me to pay attention. He chirps so loud in the morning that I don't even need an alarm. His wake up time is 5:45am. I can't help but hear him. But, one of the most amazing birds is the hummingbird. The hummingbird is so tiny, you can take a toothpick and lay it across it's nest and it barely touches both sides. They are various colors but most of them have a beautiful shiny green back. They are hard to see, but if you take the time and put out a red sugar water feeder you will see them. They can't resist. And somehow they find these feeders. It finally got warm enough that I could put my hummingbird feeders out without the water freezing. I put them out a week ago. But today was the first time I could sit outside and see them. I think I have a couple of different ones coming to the feeder. They zoom in and zoom out as if they where on a slingshot. I was even more amazed today to see an Oriole stop and test out my hummingbird feeder. He was so beautiful that I made myself an Oriole feeder too. Orioles like grape Jam. Sometimes they are picky and only like Smuckers or other top name brands. So, I made a feeder with a scoop of grape jam. (Smuckers) Sure enough he found it and sat there to enjoy the jam. The weather was so nice today I wish everyone could enjoy a day like this every once in a while. So - Please - take some time to enjoy the birds and the wildlife around you. Life is too short - enjoy some of it!