Dancing Crow

everyone knows it's windy

I spent the morning wrestling with dressage tests, calculators, scrap paper and pens. It was a desperate fight to keep everything on the table with me, where it belonged, and not flying off downwind towards Holyoke and the river. On the whole, I won. All the tests that arrived at my table were scored, and checked, and the scores entered in three different places. And all the tests that came to me, went to the riders at the end of the day and not the river or Holyoke. But it took a lot of rocks on the table, and a lot of holding things down, and a borrowed coat and gloves to keep from freezing.

The show was at the fairgrounds, so I walked to work, and walked home again. On the way over this morning, I stood with the sun behind me and looked over a field that was still full of the winter crops - slightly green and some tan, and the trees edging it.

lilac Tuesday

I was so engrossed working on a decorative spine for my portfolio that I forgot I'd made the circle for today, and taken the picture and left the camera upstairs.

Generally the lilacs bloom here in time for Lilac Sunday, which is usually also Mother's Day, the second Sunday in May. I have been Morris dancing on Lilac Sunday at the Boston Arboretum and thought my fingers and toes would fall off from the cold. To be fair, I have also seen extraordinary heat over the same weekend, which says more about changeable New england weather than about global climate change. Mostly.

Anyway, the lilacs are out. I feel lucky to have more unusual lilac bushes in my neighborhood than most. There's a pink one, my white edged deep purple one, several regular lilac ones and more white ones. It is all very festive.

 

a wall of green

With the rain, the leaves on the trees are out in force. Almost overnight it seems to have gone from gauzy and lacy to a more solid look. The greens are all different too. Sycamore leaves are very light green, maples are yellowy green, the birch leaves have some blue in them, and they are all brilliant against the evergreens.

I may have to go find some more green threads!

dogwood, rain

I did say when it rained, you'd know. After all kinds of forecasts for rain yesterday, and not getting any, I must admit I was dubious. Until I looked at the weather radar and saw large green splotches of rain headed twoards us. So. After more than three dry weeks, it is pelting rain and cold, and all the plants look relieved.

Getting depth of field in fabric is tricky. I wanted to fade the rain streaks a little, and some of the branches, so I put a layer of organza over part of the image and stitched into it again. I think I could repeat that process and get greater depth. If it rains tomorrow, I will try that.

I was inspired by Red Kate's pictures of my backyard dogwood.

This tree is one of my favorite things I planted. Aerin remembers jumping over it when it was just a stick in the ground. Now it towers over us all, and the bunnies cannot nibble it in winter, and it gives a sweet shade in summer.

foggy woods

While the afternoons have been bright and sunny and hot, the mornings have been close and mysterious and foggy. Not quite so foggy I feel I should install a foghorn on my van, but enough that I go carefully. This morning I rode Nuada out into the foggy woods. I felt like a phantom, gray horse, gray day, slipping through the trees and fog.

catkins

The pussy willows are out in force and going from their soft silver to spikier yellow gold and green.

Google says it is the first day of spring. Going by our weather today, and the forecast for the week, it feels more like summer. Fistfuls of horse hair are shedding off all the horses at the barn, and with the ground unfrozen and good for rolling they are all looking their most disreputable. Even the very fancy horse we call the George Clooney horse (because he is such a superstar) is dusty, shedding and itchy.

copper beech tree

Beech trees always look like elephant legs to me; thick and gray and sturdy and wrinkly.Tree bark, I've noticed, is very seldom brown. It is shades of gray, and wildly variegated textures, and thus perfect for the March circles. So I am reassured that even with the snow gone, I can sitll find monochrome things to depict.

Kaboose and I went out for a long trail ride today with a younger, more worried horse and his older, more worried rider. She did very well stomping along being reassuring. It didn't warm up until we got back, and then Red Kate dragged me out for a walk which was lovely. It feels like summer. It feels (says a gloomy New Englander) like we're getting away with something.

country roads

Having run out of snow, I am saved by fog.

I drove to the barn along more roundabout roads this morning, looking for views and ideas for the next half of March. I found some bark, and some big trees which may or may not translate, and this lovely foggy view back along a tiny dirt road.

I take horses up and down this road, so driving on it feels strange. I should be taller, and clip-clopping, and feel the wind on my face, and see ears framing my view.

pasture pond

We seem to have skipped right past spring and into mid-summer. I heard the first spring peeper frog tonight, just one of him, but where there is one there will be more soon. The weather today was sunny and absurdly warm. I rode two horses; the gray old man not-too-hard so he wouldn't get sweaty and distressed, and the grumpy red mare with some tact. I took each one out to walk outdoors to cool off. One silver maple tree was humming - Margaret and I couldn't figure out what it was until we looked up and saw the bees. Not swarming, just lots and lots of bees making use of the early blooming.

I think I've mentioned it before, but I want to give these circles away. If you see a day you like particualrly, comment or email me, and I'll send it out to you.

distracted and bemused

I must admit to feeling like Edward Lear's old man with a beard, because it is just as I feared - while I have no birds in my beard I am watching the snow melt under the (lovely lovely warm) weather and the strong contrasts are vanishing and flowing downstream.

The lower right is Friday, when Alice and I went to see the high school musical Grease, and came home too late to post anything. It shows the small patches of snow left in the shade of the pine woods.

The lower left is a pair of socks, finished Saturday and included because the palette is similar.

Saturday had no post because Alice and I got up waaay too early and drove to Cambridge with friends so she could go to a bunch of interesting and distinctly offbeat classes with other extraordinay middle and high schoolers. She took classes in Greek and Roman mythology, Maxwell's equations for middle schoolers, introduction to soldering and explosions in chemistry. By the time we were done and home, it was well after everyone's bedtime. I did finish the socks, and a circle. The circle is the one top right - it looks different because MIT has no sewing machines, so I used some black and gray markers to sketch in what I was thinking about.

The last one is from today, another reflecting tree, with the snows of yesterday upon it. The snows of yesterday are melting like crazy, and I'm going to have to work from memory or modify my point of view.