Walk-And-Draw Journaling

This kind of journal entry I call "walk-and-draw" journal entries.

These quick line drawings were done in a 5x7 journal with a PN Sakura pen.  I was standing while sketching...talking with my daughter Julie as we walked (ambled) along the road near our Northwoods cabin...discussing what we were seeing and trying to identify some of the plants we were seeing.  Some easy and other not so.  Julie identified a Sarsaparilla plant which I had seen but never identified.

(note corrected spelling from my notes.) It appears this plant is used for medical properties.  

There were two plants we noted but could not identify.  I'm still searching my wildflower book.  

I stopped to do a brief sketch of the neighbor's old pump they use for a name holder for their cabin.  I've seen it a million times but today it just seemed so old and lovely that I had to add it.

We also found what we think is a "white milkweed" and at least 20 tiny Monarch caterpillars on each plant...less than an inch long!  Must have JUST hatched.  I never would have noticed this if I wasn't walking slowly with my daughter and my sketchbook.  How lovely and amazing is that.

So how are you feeling about happenstances that change thinking?  Or change the course of your thinking? Or coincidences that just seem (at the time or later) to have impacted your life in small but sometimes amazing ways?  Perhaps opening new doors or allowing you to change your mind or even making you wonder about the "magic" in your life?  It's a topic my daughter and I have been exploring. It certainly fits with my journey to "pay attention".  

See Sidewalk Oracles: Playing with Signs, Symbols, and Synchronicicity by Robert Moss.  

So tonight around 7 a storm blew up on the lakeside and we had about half an hour of wind and rain which has now moved off, leaving everything dripping and the temperature down.  Julie and I are curled up on the porch doing a jig saw puzzle, reading, and chatting. She has to leave tomorrow.  Sigh.