abundant blooms, progress on the art project

Monday…Working on the fence Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday until I got sweaty or ran out of shade (max two hours per day), I’ve cleared 7 sections of the fence. Still have two more but I don’t feel like getting hot and sweaty for 5 days in a row, besides they are still predicting thunderstorms for today and tomorrow and then again Thursday and Friday. I also mowed the little backyard yesterday and that was enough outside work in the hot mosquitoey humidity. 

I finished the drawing for my shadowbox project during the afternoons. It’s a piece I did originally in glass, Robin with Cottonwood Leaves, 6.5" x 6.5".

Leaving the robin as is I played with the leaves some thinking to make them less stylized with branch and leaves seen from different angles instead of straight on but just wasn’t feeling it. Finally, I thought, you know I already did this design and did it best so why am I trying to change it. Granted, it was simplified for the medium but still. The leaves will have more detail in this version. Am I cheating by using a design I already did in another medium? Maybe, don’t care.

Next I transferred the leaf drawings and the robin drawing to watercolor paper ready to start painting.

Tuesday… strolled around the big backyard earlier, quicker than I usually would because…mosquitoes. Surveyed the flower beds and tomato plants on the west and south side, the flowerbeds on the east and north sides and turned to head back into the house which takes me past and under the magnolia tree and saw this.

I don't know if you can tell but there's as many or more developing buds as open and gone by flowers in this picture. In the 18 years we’ve had this place we have never had more than a few blooms on this side of the tree especially low enough for me to reach. The reason being it is, was, shaded by a big pecan tree on the east side. It’s also shaded by a maple on the southwest side so it doesn’t get as much sun as it needs to bloom as much as it would if it was in full sun. It does a valiant job but mostly higher up where it gets more sun. So why this sudden mass of blooms? You might remember summer of 2024 Hurricane Beryl came through and a tornado skipped through my backyard causing major damage to two of my pecan trees and the one that sustained the most damage, losing 5 major limbs, was the one shading the magnolia tree (image: what was left after the tree guys cut off all the damage). Pre-hurricane the right side of the picture looked like the left side. You can see the magnolia tree lower left. 

Two years later it has sprouted a lot of new growth. Again, magnolia tree lower left with blooms.

The magnolia tree gets so much more sun now on that side.

Seen around the yard…One mom squirrel successfully raised her two babes. The twins are still young, half grown but independent. It’s so much fun watching these little guys, they still hang out together. Right now they are stretched on on one of the limbs of the tallow tree in the little backyard.