the birds

Yesterday morning there was a male and a female Cardinal at the suet block, but Henri beat me to the window and they flew away.  Henri can be sleeping, but if I am heading for the window with my camera, he wakes up and follows me as if he knows.  I took some pictures anyway and even though this is just the little sparrow, I love his beautiful brown colors on his back.

And the mob of Starlings.  I do love their spotty feathers and watching their busy activity.  I read that "about 150 Common starlings were introduced into New York State in 1890.  Within a mere 60 years the birds were estimated to have increased by at least a millionfold and had spread throughout most of the country.  The House sparrow, introduced in 1850, has reached all the states within about 50 years and must have increased by about the same amount."

Getting back...

I've been wanting to post some pictures from last week's Wednesday class, as it was the last class of the six-week session.  Since then, I have had a bout of bronchitis and finally feeling that I'm winning as of this morning.

Some working on finishing their altered board books...

and other major pieces.

Some started playing around with peeled paper backgrounds for our next project.

I did get a picture of Maryann's beautiful book of the layering clay colors which she has been working very hard on.

Bernie began a new piece, working from a favorite photograph that she took.

Hopefully, in the next session, the books will return finished and I will have some results to show you.  They were fun to do!

the snow man

Henri loves the snow.  He's beginning to look like Fozzy Bear because he hasn't been at the groomer because of his infection.  He's doing good now and will have a doc check-up tomorrow.  I bought him nice oatmeal shampoo and am going to try to get him in the shower this week myself.  As you can see, he has little snowballs collecting on his whiskers.

Then he packs his half-ball with snow and brings it in the house that way.  Oh Henri!

Here's his "bury the ball" game.

He likes it to hide on him and then he pretends he's the winner when he finds it.

and more Wednesday...

Class is excited about working on their altered books!

The name of Peggy's book is "Every Dog Has It's Day".  Memories of all dogs within her family, it's sentimental happiness.

Donna's beautiful book is concentrating on "Courtly Love".

Maryann is loving her colors in "Layering and Painting".

Teri's "Book Of Hours" has a bit of medieval messages and mystery to it, as always.  Love that!

Sandy chose to do a larger piece with her beautiful and icy "The Snow Queen".

Every page a different surprise in Bernie's "Seasons".

Denise has a wonderful whimsical theme going here with "The Trees Are Talking", using her own drawings of trees in transfers.

...and on to Wednesday's class

In this class, we are almost done with our altered board books.  I always have the dream to put my poetry into a book and so here I have done so, illustrating in collage one of the last poems that I wrote for Tuesday's poetry class.

The elm's icy fingers pointed upward toward whence it came...

Winter

We knew it was coming just as sure as the calendar page turns.

The grass frozen in its dance with last night's wind...   waits

And the rising sun smiled on the horizon.

Oh-oh...

On to Thursday, it was pen&ink class.  The weather has had it's days of warmth and, on my way out of class,  I spotted these poor little snowdrops who think it's Spring. They do bloom early, but it's still February and I do hear there's going to be snow again this week.

Back through the week...

From last Monday's last class of the session, these are the finished pieces.  I love each one!  Above is Alice's "Garden".

"Grandma Moses" by Lois, with sentimental additions of her own grandmother's.

Casey did a wonderful collage of her grandmother, full of memories, for her Dad's birthday gift.

Mary's tribute to Mary Cassatt.  I love the green frame she found to highlight Mary.

Ginny's beautiful memories of her sister.

and my "Martha Washington".  I love history and am now thinking about Abigale Quincy smith Adams...

Blooms!

Here's that plant again!  My grandmother's plant always blooms a while before Easter.  Love the color!

The Downies

The Downy is the smallest of our woodpeckers.  A surprise visit to my tree, here is Mr. Downy...

and his partner, Mrs. Downy.  They love berries and seeds, so this suet block attracted them.  A yummy winter meal!

Festive February

Yesterday was my Valentine party!  Because of Henri being sick for the last few  weeks, I was fortunate to be able to have it at The Center in the Anderson Building.  Henri is much better but I didn't want to worry about others, with him just getting over a bacterial infection.

The 33 bags were lined up waiting for everyone to deposit their valentines that they had made inside for delivery.

Lunch was first on the agenda.  Having to transport the food over there, I decided to make crockpot dishes.  We had Teriyaki Chicken and Italian Beef Sandwiches, grated italian cheeses and colby-jack, roasted red peppers, pepperoncini slices, giardiniera, and Julie's fresh fruit salsa with homemade cinnamon chips.

Desserts were Cheese Blintzes and Cookies 'n Cream Cake.  Oh, and Peggy made some yummy chocolate cherry squares.

This cake is one I found a long time ago in a little Pillbury cookbook and it tastes just like the inside of an Oreo.  It's a favorite of mine!

Danielle had celebrated the 100th day of school at her school last week and this is what she had made for the occasion there.

A darling little house made with 100 Q-Tips!

On to more valentine making and a search for favorite papers and supplies!

All my happy Valentines...

and to each a bag of valentines to take home...

and a Valentine jar (thanks to Jenny Doh's blog) with some Almond Bark covered popcorn and a beautiful chocolate-covered pretzel that Angel and Dan made for each.

Of course, I always have a project for the day.  This year, it was a little book of the most popular words for Valentine's Day.  We went on to collage the cover and all the pages with images inspired from the word of the page.  A nice little memory of this Valentine's Day.

And then we can hardly wait to go home and look through our bag of homemade valentines!

All treasures!