Autumn's Activities

As crispness invades our bones and surroundings, focus often moves inward. But I tend to alternate back 'n forth between still lovin' being outdoors and hugging the warmth of inside cozieness.

 My rich interior came from the opportunity to see a friends band at a local venue. I'm always drawn to extreme darks, affording me the opportunity to delve into strong contrasts. Boy, these interior shots are so fun to get the mood, dimension and intimacy. It was a guys band replicating Bob Dylan music and was definately a sing-a-long crowd. I selected this image, relishing how the guitar clearly showed the band taking a break. I had some difficulty establishing a foreground but when I pulled the background color down just south of the beer glass' rim - it clarified the positioning.

This gem of a leaf my Roland found outside our home. He's learned to appreciate these weird patterns in nature and always shares them with me. Of course, I love it!! The calligraphic pattern looks like someone or something took silver ink and scribbled across this leaf. But upon closer inspection, I can see/feel that the pattern is "in" the leaf, under the upper skin of the leaf. My precious botanical friend, Irene Brady (http://www.natureworkspress.com/autobio.html) was consulted and she told me the leaf shows evidence of a leaf miner. The dandy fellow is apparently hatched inside the leaf, and as hegrows he nibbles his path of food from the interior of the plant. When he was smallest the made the most tiny calligraphy and as he grew, the bigger. He probably exited out the broken edge of the leaf. I researched the fellow and they come in many colors. I chose to illustrate the one I found prettiest! Fascinating nature!

The final image residing top right ... is the silly decoy duck that's been with us since we moved in. Some

previous owner or friend of the owner left this lil' guy behind and we adopted him. He's moved several times in the front yard and now sits atop a fenced container my hubby built to keep deer from our tomatoes. I offers a fine view for him :)  And as Autumn progress toward Winter, he gathered a nice dusting of the early mild snow fall we received. I just love the white snow contrast with the duck's dark butt!

I'm always a-smile when I see the lovely images simple things in our life provide us to appreciate. I often tell my journaling classes ~ my journal ends up being my "gratitude list". And what a gift!!!