Water colors color my life

Eva Farley is actually giving me the insight I have been craving to understand water colors.  Dale's mom, Myrtle,  who just passed away, painted lovely water colors.  It could be Myrtle left me some water color energy....which has coincided with Eva.

Here are 3 of the exercises we had for home work. Not sure they're all done. ..but we're moving on to shadows. 

Knitting the Community Together... Grateful for CHAT!

My 90 year old mom knits.  All day.  This year she has been making scarves.  Some she sells at the place she lives and others she gives away to Homeless Shelters. This year I volunteered at the Chico Housing Action Team (CHAT) safe house being orchestrated in Chico night after night.  Food, clean bedding and a warm safe space for people not staying in a regular shelter.  Last count there were 150 people registered.  Nights hold sometimes 50 guests.

 I estimate each night and follow up tasks takes about 25 people to pull off all the parts.  25!  And they are often the same people coming in night after night to fill in the slots of the different time periods and needs.

Please see if you can help. Once you know the people, you don't want to imagine them sleeping under a bridge or in a bush at this season of year.

Here are some guests with my mom's scarves.  Look at the colors of their small world.  They chose colors that mattered to them.

These two people are a couple. He got the last scarf that happened to be pinks and lavenders.  She told him they were browns..... just like he likes...heh heh.

 Look at her t-shirt.  Same yellow as in the scarf.  And she said the green will go good with her other coat.  

I will never look at lost people on the street the same as I did before.

Please help.

 Go to http://www.chicohousingactionteam.org/drupal/safespace

http://chat.ivolunteer.com/safespace

Summer of the Green Herons

One summer a green heron pair nested in an oak tree right next to my house above the pond area. I put a beach chair and binoculars out there and craned (ha...no pun intended) my neck all summer watching. 

First it was the parents building and hanging out at the nest. Then a 3 week wait for incubation to occur!  When the timing was right, each day it seemed a new beak would wave itself around just above the lip of the nest clamoring for attention.  One day a fuzzy head popped up and then each day a new head until there were 5 or so. Hard to say at that point. They were less than cooperative in their lining up for count. 

Comic book birds... wildhaired and big eyed.  Since they seemed to have hatched out one per day, the first hatched was always bigger than the rest and always first to do something. I may have noticed a slight favoritism to the next in line... must have identified the first hatched with my older bother, Bobby. 

For about 2 more weeks I watched. I've now been under the nest for almost a month. I did go in to get food and water and to sleep.

After waving their heads around the nest for days, they started trying to climb out and cling to the edge of the nest.  Eventually, with 'Bobby" in the lead by a complete day, they got out of the nest to stand precariously on the branch. Took more days and practice to walk down the branch and back as the branch got more crowded. By this time I knew it was really 5! They did line up. All feet and beaks and wild hairdos.

I drew them as best I could.

They were huge. How they all got back in the nest each night and under their mom I will never know. Eventually they flew away. I missed that actually occur  but I saw them in neighboring trees looking ungainly and too big for their own good. 

What a summer.  I call it the Summer of the Green Herons.  They hung around for a long time... and then grew up and went away.

 I had empty nest syndrome for many summers after.

The better Photo.

The better Photo.

Sunrise at Noon Solstice in a Canyon

I am fairly adept at posting form my phone since I spent so much time posting travels. Now I am struggling with the PC that is supposed to be easier.

I theoretically just uploaded a photo I took of the sun coming over the cliff behind the house.  At noon.  The sun spends quite a bit of time behind that cliff in the winter in this beautiful canyon.  I enhanced it a wee tiny bit. heh heh.

Sunrise at Noon Solstice in a Canyon

I am fairly adept at posting form my phone since I spent so much time posting travels. Now I am struggling with the PC that is supposed to be easier.

I theoretically just uploaded a photo I took of the sun coming over the cliff behind the house.  At noon.  The sun spends quite a bit of time behind that cliff in the winter in this beautiful canyon.  I enhanced it a wee tiny bit. heh heh.

The sun rising again.

At this Solsticey time of the year,  the sun rises 3 times up here in the canyon below the beautiful volcanic cliffs.

First sunrise is late in the morning.   Then it slips back behind and comes out again later morning when it then quickly dips behind the peak of Look Out Point. Sliding along behind,   the cliff glows with a halo.  The Sun comes out on the other side around noon. 

These are noon pictures.