Walking through the 9 acre woods here at Oakwood brings just the tinges of the first spring flowers and mother goose on her nest in our pond.
Tomorrow is November 1. It is my birthday month...Thanksgiving Day and in the "olden" days it would be parent teacher conferences. A month of muted colors following October's wild autumn bowing out. November's pale faded golden corn left in the field rustles in the wind sounding (if you walk down the farm road) like a kind of orchestra of brushes. Forests and grass turn yellow and brown and along with some dusty blue-grays of the last grasses and with dark hulls and black/blue seeds flying in the wind. Everything is muted. You smell woodsmoke. You search for your mittens. A fuzzy robe feels super in the morning with your hot coffee.
We streamed church AGAIN today but are going to be in-person for communion for the first time in I cannot even remember when come next Sunday! After church Zoom coffee discussion group today we talked about "thin" places in our lives. Ya know thin places?
After a busy week we'll head down to Lemont, Ill on Friday after my class to see our 16 year old grandson, Pat, perform in his school play that evening. A radio play adaption of It's a Wonderful Life. What a nice way to start the holiday season. Just a quick trip down (about 3 hour drive) and my daughter, Julie, is coming too. We'll stay over and come back Saturday morning after brunch. I am bringing my mom's favorite coffee cake for the brunch. We'll be celebrating Mike and Marie's October birthdays too.
Next week Julie and Mark are taking us out out to dinner to celebrate MY birthday. The restaurant is called The Old Fashion. I love an old fashioned brandy sweet (once in awhile). Come to find out that was mom's favorite cocktail too (my sister tells me).
One of my favorite fall sketches (so far) was a walk along the road sides up north near the cabin on the 28th of September along Tippecanoe Lake. Autumn comes early in the north woods and sometimes almost 2 weeks ahead of central and southern Wisconsin. The pines lose needles too and there is a soft layer of yellow pine needles on the roads. We had such fantastic weather all week prior to the closing on Monday, Oct 4. A lot of hard work the last few days but my step-son appeared and helped out.
Then, just before we left, Julie and I took one more talk and I found a Solomon's Plume that had striped itself in a way I'd never seen before. One berry left and two minuscule berries.
These two little rough sketches were done during an outdoor concert here this late summer at University Oaks. We had several of these great little musical events over the summer. Super lovely weather.
A lovely mid September Saturday the Madison Urban Sketchers spent an afternoon at the Madison Zoo. Gorgeous weather again! Almost too warm! 8 of us gathered to wander around and sketch a few things.
On September 18 my daughter, Julie, rode her bike down from her house and joined me in the woods to sketch the flowers and listen to the birds and just have a delightful couple of hours. Who doesn't love the prairie flowers in one more open section of the woods...beebalm, Joe Pye weed and Chinese lantern. The leaves are just at the edge of turning here in Madison now. We saw 16 ducks, 2 wrens, a murder of crows, and 3 turkeys too!
Here's a Cartouche of an interesting button.
We'll be back up one more time to close the cabin the first weekend in October. The snow could be flying by then up here.
As the title of this blog post suggests: now the end of something but always that leads to the beginning of something else. It's a spiral. Fall in Wisconsin is quite amazingly beautiful...and something we have missed being in Florida. I look forward to the colors, the apple picking and the cider...the chili and the football games.
I feel an odd sense of bewilderment as the holidays ahead show up on the calendar. Will we be safe enough to celebrate together this year? Will we all have a booster this fall? The news each night is full of seriously sad and difficult happenings. Our in-person church services have been cancelled again until Nov 1. Everyone is battling the fatigue of being harangued by worry, angst, fear, and sadness for so long. Art has been a real steadfast friend for all of us who love to create...it has given us needed reprieves. Hang on, everyone. We can do it.
In between a full month at the Northwoods cabin where one magical late afternoon we "swam with the loons". Seriously...they just appeared among us while we were swimming on a warm windless afternoon at 5 in the evening. Swimming in and around us and making small clucking noises. We all went still with amazement. They brought their baby. What a magical moment. I'll never forget it. Loon whisperers. And then, after about 10 minutes they dove down and were gone.
The intricacies of a fancy fishing pole...the tongue in cheek sketch of a mouse trap (I set 12 every time I leave), the beauty of found feathers and a new bird, the calmness of an afternoon "tea time" on the dock with the grandkids, a farewell to an old boat that served us well for many years and now resides in Minnesota, the canoe rides in among the islands, and the BIG storm that took away our electricity for 24 hours with 6 people in the cabin! Oh my. The remembrance of so many puzzles done on the summer porch, and then the sadness of having to have a tooth removed that was cracked and infected and unsaleable. Gosh I had it for over 70+ years. I hated to lose it! And concluding with Greg's much needed new glasses!
It was a good time. We came back to Madison exhausted. But are resting up and will go back up for 10 days the end of the month. Not so long this time. In between other family members will enjoy it.
We are so disappointed in the Covid rise again that we just do not have words to express it. It's actually even more complicated now because we feel conflicted about those people who have not been vaccinated that are putting us all at more risk. So there is a sense of frustration and even anger involved now. Facing masking and isolation again? We are so sick of it. Especially when it might have been prevented.
The usually routines and fun activities which come with being in a lovely setting here at University Woods are in jeopardy too. With gatherings being limited and masking again in common area. There is a huge problem with hiring workers too. We have not had enough servers apply for work here to open the restaurant. That makes for more isolation for the folks who live here!
We try to be out in the beautiful surroundings here as much as possible. As that helps the mood.
Praying for safety and better days ahead.
Working with the gel prints reminds me that I haven't done any for quite a long time but when I was cleaning in the studio last week I came upon a stash of "first drafts" that I left here years ago.
For those of you not familiar with mono printing...it is quite common to take first prints or ghost prints (2nd prints) and then re-purpose them with another layer or two of prints or stenciling to complete them.
So I think that most of my mono-printing will now be done at home in Madison, I am taking all the first drafts back with me and hope to get inspired this winter to go down to the University Woods art studio and spread them out and finish them!
We have about a week left here (with fun company) and then back to Madison for two weeks. We hope to come up the end of August again.
The first acorns are falling on the cabin roof now.
We had 8 loons visiting on the lake this week! (very common in July) but all but our pair have gone now. This summer the loons raised a baby which has been fun to watch.
