Pink April Moon drawing

It was supposed to be a pink supermoon last night, the pink moon of April.  I went out to take a good look, and knew that everything I was seeing was not going to be captured on a camera.  But, as I watched the orange fireflies rise and blink, and the clouds race across the moon, turning white to grey to indigo blue in places, I said : 'My eyes are my camera right now.'

I looked at what was the most important to capture.  The feathery way the dark black trees appeared in the light.  The blue permeating through the sky beneath and between the branches.. the bits of pink and blue in the sky around the moon and the clear halo of light with edges of yellow permeating out in circles.

Then I tried to capture it with my pencils and pen.

I know not everyone sees all the colors in the first place, or the way the light shimmers and effects.  Some of it is probably my synesthesia.  But, as much as I have tried to capture visually does bring back the scene to me 'physically'... so even if the drawing is just for myself, I like it.

ive been out to the woods

I’ve been out to the woods
and I’ve come back in
with leaves in my hair and thorns clinging
to my legs and shoes and
small lines of red scratched down my arms
where the thorns tried to find purchase
but instead found skin
so easily torn away and not caught
they could not hold me there
and instead, must let me walk on
but it was worth it
I have seen wonders
and joys within them

and our chickens, who were very very insistent

forest walk (with botanical interest pics)

We walked down by the lake with Grandma and up into the swampy areas where the beavers are working on felling trees and the herons make their nests.  We were looking for emerging plants and trying to document some of them, too.

 

 This was a freshly felled tree.  The woodchips were new and bright and the tree branches in the water had fresh new Spring leaves on them.

 Down by the beaver dens

 This kind of milky glass green color turned to turquoise blue at the edges of the lake, like a giant piece of agate.    The herons nest around here, too.

 a beech nut tree with lovely branches

 This is an interesting cane grass that was growing next to the lake in one area.  I can't remember seeing it before, but there were several plants of it.  The top was feathery and the bottom was a collection of hollow reed-like pieces growing out of one clump.

 Daphne was so happy, look at her smile!

 Esme was happy to get her feet in the water, too!

 standing down at the edge of the lake near the beaver dens

This is rabbit tobacco or mullein

In the woods

 Most of these pictures (except the obvious ones) were taken by Esme out in the forest today.

Dog Path afternoon

We walked through the woods down the regular path, to the lake, and back up through the dog paths in the valley. We found sand, leaves, the lake (with fish and minnows), acorns, bugs, frogs, grass seeds, a deep gully, a turkey feather and lots of other things. One of the dogs chased a rabbit into a dead log but it would not come out again. Mark pushed down a dead half-fallen tree at the end of the trip and Esme thought that was HUGE... told him he was being bad at first, but then agreed with me that it was a 'good job.' The dogs all ran to him to see if he had a squirrel *ha* Esme did a pretty good job, herself. She walked by herself some, walked with us when we asked - and rarely fell on her face. We're making pizza and other assorted small food items now and she is downing a lot of cold drink. Maybe she'll have a good nap this afternoon :)

Daddy just told her he had fish sticks ready for her, and she ran to him like a roaring lion MMMM FISH STICKS MMMMMM RARARRRR! Apparently, she is hungry after all that walking :)

LATER: Esme has been wolfing down the food today - just hungry every time I turn around. I'm not sure if it was the exercise or the change in attitude today... I kind of pushed food on her yesterday and she wouldn't eat much of anything ... and today I took the opposite approach after she ate her fish sticks and half my mini pizza at our normal lunchtime. Now I've been waiting for her to come to me, and she is begging for food loudly and insistently. I think she has already eaten three times the food she did yesterday. And that is saying quite a bit. I just fed her a full container of yogurt after she had ravioli and jell-o earlier to bursting amounts. And she immediately again asked for more 'food mumum make Esme the food'.... I'm usually the one 'overfeeding' her! I might give her a cup of milk and see if that fills her up some more.

I made an attempt earlier in the afternoon and FAILED at a dress alteration... but that was okay. I still felt I'd learned something during the attempt. I should invest in a full bolt of muslin! *j/k* At least it is 1.44/yd. at the store and can be reused very well. Esme and I had been watching 'Little Pim' videos online this afternoon and then lots of Youtubes about panda bears. She played the letter games on Super Why on pbskids and Clifford games as well. My brain was full enough at that moment. For a bit there I was happy/content to just drink coffee and then sit there watching Esme eat ravioli and not get into anything else for a bit. The laundry was washing... But, after a bit Esme was done with her ravioli and the dishes were in the sink. I finished the next stage of the dress fitting and am ready to cut the muslin copy in half, make small adjustments and dismantle it again to make paper patterns out of. Then I can try to make a new attempt out of some dark green fabric Gwen gave me a few yards of. The dress is a 'princess seam' very plain dress. For some reason the original did not have any shoulders to it and one of the side pieces was missing from the pattern. I approximated the missing piece, added on to the shoulders and neckline on both pieces, but need to do a tiny bit of adjusting to the main front seam so it follows my form a bit better without following it TOO closely.