little bird, old metal, new page

Saturday night when I was closing the garage door I startled a little wren. This is not an unusual occurrence. They like my garage with all the stuff and often build nests in there. After I raised the door again and ushered the little bird out, though they come and go through the gap at the top of the overhead garage door, I investigated where I had seen it fly away from in my peripheral vision. Sure enough, this unseasonable weather has the birds thinking it’s spring and I found the beginnings of a nest tucked into one of the struts of the door we never open.

Our lazy days are coming to an end. We’ve been sleeping/lazing in bed til eight or after every morning (I’d sleep later but my pill alarm goes off at 8:30) and I have not been doing my morning yoga routine I blame the holidays, the cold, my cold, any excuse sufficed and come Monday I’m going to have to get it back together. I could put it off another day, yoga class Monday evening that counts, right?. But the real kicker is coming next Thursday when we have to gasp get up at seven because SHARE starts up again. I’m already groaning.

Saturday called for physical activity to keep my mind off the stupidity that passes for a government here and so I raked the mountain of leaves out of the barn. First I designated several things to go to the metal recycler soon! and pulled that shit out,

-my old bicycle that will never get refurbished, the dead garden cart, an old metal milk jug at least I think that’s what it is that I pulled out of the shed when we first bought this place what I thought I was going to do with it I have no idea, two of four flimsy metal frames that were part of the structure of an outdoor gazebo that I bought and Marc and Mikey I think put up in the backyard while I was gone and didn’t anchor it down and walked off and left it and when a big wind came up it blew and bent the shit out of most the metal keeping the other two because they just look like they could be useful for something even though I’ve kept all four for over a decade and still haven’t used them-

then I raked the leaves and dispersed them out the south end since the breeze was coming from the north, though some did get removed through the north end and generously shared with the lot on the west side of us front and back. They’ll get mulched the next time whoever comes and mows. And who knows, the wind may have further dispersed them by then. I moved the antique wood wheelchair out and put it in the crumbling shed that is slowly being devoured by the wild space.

The door fell off a year or so ago. There’s stuff in there but nothing we care about and it’s seriously icky inside. Let the future archeologists find it and wonder at it all. Personally I’d throw the wheelchair on the burn pile but it’s one of Marc’s things so… It’s probably not totally useless but I wouldn’t want to have to depend on it. Hard wood and all, not to mention it’s falling apart but it is kind of cool with that little third wheel in the back.

Picked up more pecans since Marc mowed and mulched all the leaves and I can find them now, one last push to pick them up to sell before the buyers close up shop for the season, Sunday I picked them up across the street and still so many at the top of the trees. I’m wondering if those aren’t good, too light to fall. 

I did start a new page in the art journal, a loose watercolor of a jellyfish from an image I’ve had on my computer for 13 years, 

waiting for whenever I was saving it for, the medium with which I could or would try it. The picture was taken by a woman named Nancy Goodenough and she posted it on social media and I saved it. I love this picture. So I’m gonna try it. 

Still only using the Prang 12 colors. Sunday I sketched it out lightly and did my first layer.