The other day within 36 hours I saw a bunny, the groundhog, a possum & a hawk all while looking out my living room window. These sorts of sightings used to be more common before most of the woods were cut down, so it's a banner day to see any one of them, much less so many. The possum was very svelte, at first I didn't realize that's what it was snuffling along the driveway. The groundhog had a cute expression on it's face as it decided whether to move away from the fence, for some reason it reminded me of Rufus, though larger & darker. Their little club tails always surprise me.

It was an immature sharp-shinned hawk trying to sneak up on some goldfinches in the thistles. Sitting on the telephone pole it was ducking the swallows that dive bombed it and then it swooped down, long tail fanned & twisted through the air, landing in a far maple tree, where it disappeared in the leaves. I don't know if it caught anything, but it was a thrill to see such a large bird so close.

    Haven't been online as much lately because I'm trying to finish up 2 paintings for a show in mid-August. They are nearly done, thank goodness, but I still feel quite pressured. Then I've got to frame them before shipping them to Florida. I'll be posting photos of them as soon as they are completed.

    On Sunday July 8th I pulled a back muscle, possibly through coughing, since I wasn't doing any lifting. I've always had aches & pains, including arthritis, but I find back pain hard to deal with, it's so central & seems to affect every other part of the body. It's not possible to annex it like I do when my foot is hurting. One must hold their body differently when walking & sitting, it throws off my center of gravity & makes me clumsier than usual. I also discovered back pain makes me very, very irritable. It's not completely gone now, but it's much better than before & I'm able to do things. After not being out of the house for 10 days, I'm trying to make up for lost time this week.

    So yesterday I went to the library because I was out of books. I had been reduced to reading old issues of National Geographic I'd gotten at book sales. At any time, the library is like being in a bakery, all sorts of delectable things I can't wait to sink my teeth into. It was even more so yesterday & I ended up with 2 bags of books, even when I cautioned myself that carrying all of them to the car might be painful. But it wasn't too bad & now I'm happy with a tall pile of books on the shelf.

   This afternoon, there was about 2 dozen barn swallows gathered on the roof of the building next to mine(a townhouse under sporadic construction).  At first I thought they were sparrows & then realized they had the sickle shaped bodies of swallows. Some were taking off and landing, others were just hunched up against the light rain, one tried to get lucky, but the female flipped her wing and knocked him off. They nest in the garages of my apartment complex, but I've never seen so many altogether like that. I'm wondering if they were preparing to migrate? Some birds start their journey in the middle of summer, and perhaps barn swallows are one of them.

    The couple that I kittysit for is going out of town this weekend, so I'll be playing with their 4 cats again. They get a lot of attention regularly, so they are very affectionate & outgoing. I'm going to spend as much time as possible at their apartment, which is about 5 minutes from mine. I'm looking forward to it.

  Mighty veggie hunter, Rufus, scents his prey. An unsuspecting, helpless lettuce leaf.

  When I was about 14, having just entered high school, I gave myself a crash course on art history. Deciding that since I was going to be an artist, I needed to know where I fit into the grand scheme of things.

   One of the people I discovered was Andrew Wyeth, a modern master living in the state next to mine. It wasn't just his realism in art, it was the mood & subject. He painted country subjects, but not in a sentimental way. There was a desolation, a contented loneliness no matter whether he was painting a farm building, a landscape or a portrait. He used a wonderful palette filled with orchres & browns, it was amazing how many shades he got out of his limited range of color.It was always fall or winter in his world. When I took a bus trip through Pennsylvania in my teens, I saw the rich colors of his native landscape in the midwinter fields going by.  

   You all have seen his pictures, the most famous being "Christina's World", where the crippled lady sets in the field gazing at the stone buildings on a far hill. Or the hound sleeping on the bed, weak sunlight streaming through the window called "Master Bedroom".

    His portraits, mainly of neighbors, show self-sufficient people against a dark Rembrant-esque background. His buildings look old and rugged, standing against the weather. His scenic paintings have a delicious ominous feeling, a mood both riveting & threatening.He worked mostly in egg tempera, a meticulous medium that is perfect for his sense of detail.

   Part of a long line of artists, his father being N.C. Wyeth the illustrator, his son Jamie paints animals in a more whimsical way and his siblings were all artistic as well. The amount of talent in that gene pool is astounding. And today is the birthday of the most famous member of the family.

    One of the paintings I'm working on is of a few little animals on a stream bank. You won't see the water, but I wanted plants that really do grow by streams, so earlier this week, I took my camera & explored a little creek that runs through the town next to mine. It was shadier than I thought, so there was less foiliage than anticipated, but I think I snapped pics of enough different types for reference, not only for this painting, but some in the future as well. At certain places there wasn't much room between the dropoff to the low stream & the cars driving by. It made me very nervous at times, but I counted it as suffering for the sake of my art. I can identify only some of the plants, but I'll be choosing them for complimentary shapes, rather than their names. Along with all the different leaves, I also got some photos that were scenic, like these here. It looks as if I was in a much wilder place, rather than off a main suburban street.

 If you'd like to see the fireworks without leaving home, simply go to www.cyberfireworks.com  & create your own. You have a choice of venue (bandstand, carnival, ball park, etc.) & you click in the sky where you'd like the fireworks to appear. There's even sound effects. All the fun without the crowds or traffic jams.

    The antique show that my sister & I attended on June 16th was promoted by the historical group that runs Rose Hill Museum in one of the western suburbs of Cleveland. The museum covers several buildings on the grounds of what was the home of the Cahoon family in the 1800's. Many of the rules they instituted in local government for what was known then as the town of Dover, are still in effect today. Among them are restrictions of what can be done in the park that bears their name.

     The museum is only open on Sunday afternoons, so I'd never been inside until the day of the antique show. The small building was half gift shop & I was able to take some photos of the furnishings, such as the one above. The larger home, where the family lived, didn't allow photos, unfortunately. Both places had pianos & record players. The large house had a big living room filled with velvet Victorian furniture, my sister was fascinated with a footstool that matched one of the chairs. I was repulsed by a chair in the hall made almost entirely of cow horns, it was kinda gruesome & out of place next to the fancy table holding a stereoscope & jewelled lamp.

    The weirdest thing about the museum was a number of life sized cut-outs of the lady of the house, Rose Cahoon, enlarged sepia photos standing in nearly every room. There was even just her head shot sitting on one of the chairs. It was overdone & a bit eerie. Aside from that, I found the long awaited visit quite intriguing and might go back some Sunday afternoon for the guided tour.