Yesterday the weather got mild ENOUGH to spend time in my garden DUNGEON ... RECORD HIGH of 60 degrees F ... NEVER seen before in this land of COLD and SNOWY and LONG winters ... DOOR and WINDOWS open ... I swept the mouse POOP, spider WEBS and dead FLIES accumulated during the PAST months ...
Entering it after that long felt like getting inside a GIANT time CAPSULE ... And the SMELL of my naturalist CABIN !
If I close my EYES, I get INSTANTLY transported to my GRAND-PARENTS's little SUMMER camp by the river when I was a KID ...
Where I would FISH with my GRAND-PAPA Paul for eels with a flashlight at night in a HAND-MADE dingy, EXPLODE ripe black walnuts with a wise-grip, DIG for soft water clams in the mud ... Where I would COLLAGE with my GRAND-MAMAN Gabrielle animal pictures clipped in magazines, add unknown SPECIMENS to my pressed-leaves BOOK, bake a cake while the current art project was DRYING on the kitchen table and read Enyd Blyton's MYSTERY BOOKS by the light of a candle while NATURE sang in strange voices through the moskito screens of the VERANDA ...
My OUTDOOR studio is my little place AWAY from home ... at HOME ...
MARCH is here and early SPRING has officially SPROUTED around HERE !
New PAINTINGS are SPROUTING on canvas ! TONS of creative ideas are SPROUTING in my head ... Road trip DESIRES are SPROUTING in my mind ... NEED for changes is SPROUTING somewhere DEEP inside me ...
NO matter what, HAPPINESS brought by sunshine and my PAPA doing BETTER, slowly but surely, is SPROUTING in my HEART ...
SPROUTS here, SPROUTS there, SPROUTS everywhere !
LOOK at what SPROUTED among SEEDLINGS in a little flat of assorted RED annual flowers !
GARDEN gnome BABIES ! And I BET they SPROUTED a SMILE on YOUR face TOO !
Happy PREMATURE spring to YOU !
We built our BELOVED house years ago in a REMOTE forest of deciduous trees on the flank of a mountain ...
During SUMMER, our home stays FRESH and COOL, shaded by the MAPLE trees growing so CLOSE that the limbs touch the ROOF ...
And come the COLDER months, the leaves fall off to let the LIGHT enter through the WINDOWS, making it BRIGHT and HAPPY, rain or shine, for the SECOND half of the year ...
TODAY, I am working on a PAINTING with ONE side of my BRAIN and dreaming of GARDENING with the OTHER side ... Sketching AND making plans AND thinking COLOR choices for EACH ...
Trying to make BOTH even BETTER than the PREVIOUS ones ...
WHAT a difference 6 MONTHS make ... 4,380 little HOURS ...
A WEEK ago, the temperature DROPPED to minus 22 degrees F, TOMORROW it should CLIMB to 55 ... Last MONDAY we had 2 feet of SNOW fall in one day, TODAY it is RAINING like it does in the middle of JULY ... I live in the LAND of EXTREMES and ABNORMALITIES ... Where EVERYTHING is possible and NOTHING is impossible ...
This MORNING, when I sat on the STAIRS of my GARDEN shack with my COFFEE cup, I heard happy CHATTING and mumbling, joyful SINGING and whistling ... And when I put my EAR to the SNOW, sure enough, the flowers and the plants TUCKED under it were GIGGLING and WHISPERING ... Woken up by the MILD weather ... Wondering if SPRING had arrived ...
