Busy day - I'm off tomorrow for Ohio, so there won't be anything to see here for a few days. See you later!

Pallo at work, or play, depending on how you look at it. He does tend to spend quite a bit of time with each of his, um, victims.

Continuing with the harvest theme, I've been eating these little tomatoes for a while now, and in fact the plant is still putting out some blooms. I love the colors as they change from green to red, all on the same stem. And, the red, ripe, juicy ones are SO sweet!

 Apple picking day! It was sunny and warm, but also very windy, and for some reason, humid. Odd. All the trees are pretty sparse this year - in fact, most of the fruits: bushes, vines and trees are sparse. Cold spring, cold summer. The old tree did have a few way up high - here they're catching the late afternoon sun.

The tree I did pick had just about enough to cover the bottom of my basket. Above are the nicest apples on the tree!

 Went over to Suze's to paint my little house project from yesterday, and had the most amazing sky.

It kept getting better and better as the sun set, and the photos I didn't get were after the sun went down, and the clouds turned orange and gold. Lovely!

Another Thursday Art day - this time we met at Suze's, where she had pulled out some old supplies she had - plaster cloth on a roll. A couple of years ago, on a trip to South America, she had found work by a ceramic artist which she loved, and she brought home a few pieces. They are the colored house shapes in the photos. Our project today was to build shapes with foam-core, inspired by the house shapes, and cover them with the plaster cloth.

 Suze, Carol and Jamie begin construction.

Here they are applying the plaster cloth, which comes in the roll that looks like paper towels. It is like a cheesecloth impregnated with plaster. We dipped a piece of it in water, then smoothed it onto our forms. It dried pretty quickly, and was very fun to do. The top photo shows my piece in front, and Suze's 3 pieces, and the two examples as well. Next we will paint and decorate them!

OK - so I missed a couple of days, and now I have two entries for one day. But I couldn't resist the moon tonight - it is special, being a full moon on the night of the Autumn Equinox, which takes place at 11:09 tonight. But our sky is cloudy, and at 9:00 the moon was already getting up in the sky, and I decided not to wait any longer, so I ended up with this moody depiction.

The full moon closest to the equinox is called the Harvest Moon, because it rises right around sunset, and the farmers could continue their harvest by it's light.

My friend Mark inspired this photo - he took some shots from the same spot, and I just loved his, so figured I had to try it, too! This is the road from Coupeville to Ebey's Landing, looking across the Sound at the Olympic Mts.

I finished both jobs, and was returning from submitting one of them for a building permit. Always a nice feeling to wrap up a long job!

I haven't had time for photos the past couple of days, as I'm working hard to finish up two jobs!

A view from my deck, looking to the south east. The light on the ground is a house on top of Goss Ridge, quite a bit higher than we are here. The sky was interesting with the clouds, and the color in the east, probably from the city. And, of course, the moon!

 We finished another Photo Art Journal - this one is "Ant's Eye View". It was very fun, and is actually one of my favorite photo techniques: get down on the ground and shoot from there.

 So I already had a lot of great photos to choose from - on the left above is one I took in winter, next to another artist's photo of a spider web from underneath.

Plenty of fun interpretations!

Again on the left is one of my daisy photos.

And, this time on the right, a snail shell fragment on the sandy beach at Mutiny Bay.

You'll have to click on the photo to make it larger, and look closely on the left side to see the sparkly that Suze added to my hair. It's very fun - she has some, too!

A result of yesterday's rain, and this morning's fog. We finally got together for a Thursday Art Day, after the summer off, at Carol's house. It was good to see everyone again, even if we didn't get much done! Her garden had several of these low dense spider webs, all bejeweled with dew drops.

Well, what can I say? Shot from the car while I was driving, in the rain. But I liked the shape the lifts made, where they're working on the power poles.

 

Our Book group met for the annual book-choosing meeting, where we recommend books that we've read, and set up a schedule for the coming year. It's always fun and interesting! Above is the view from Karen's deck when we arrived for the meeting.

Madelyn, sitting on the deck in front of the window, which reflects me and Sarah, while Karen and Robin are inside looking out.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

Fun little orange mushroom on a mossy log in the swamp.

I finished up a little project that I started on the camping trip. We found some willow, and decided to make something with the materials we could find. So, this is willow twigs, twined with willow bark, which I used the ends to make spirals. At the bottom is a braid I made with the bark, then some club moss, and on the left is some Pearly Everlasting, and a bit of dried fireweed, which ended up pretty dark. It was fun, and will be a little reminder of the mountains!

Dinner at Grandma Barb's house, where Alice sits on the back of the chair, wondering "What the heck is that stuffed cat doing on my perch???? And why are you taking pictures of me???"

The pond is dried up, and this little rush is covering most of the muddy bottom. "Sedges have edges, and rushes are round:  grasses have joints, clear to the ground." It's the only way I can remember!!

Down in the swamp, it's dry as well. This little flat is under water in winter and spring, but now the rutting deer have churned up a path through the bushes.

Yet more kitty photos. Biiiiig yawn! Sleepy kitty - black kitteh on black couch!

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

Our first Northwest Basketry Guild meeting after the summer break. It's always a good time to see everyone and catch up a little. We have started a new part of the meeting: Show and Tell. Members have always brought things to show, but it was very informal, and most folks didn't get to see everything. So now we have a table where the items can be displayed, and the makers get up and talk briefly about it.

One lady has a neighbor who whose relatives died, and they had a large collection of baskts and woven items from around the world. She brought a boxfull, and some photos that had been taken during the travels when the baskets were collected.

It was great to see all of the wonderfully different weaves and materials.

Other members brought their work: Dorothy McGuinness' tightly woven colorful paper baskets, Katherine Lewis' willow, and Leon Russell's wrapped shapes.

The Program was a presentation by Joan Carrigan from Salt Spring Island. She talked about her travels and her passion for baskets, and had a wonderful collection of photos and stories to share.

I just couldn't resist this pic - Pollo is such a CAT! He'll flop down anywhere, but a sunny patch of carpet is perfect.

My patio tomatoes are ripening - had this one for lunch - meaty and sweet - Yum!

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2010
I didn't get the camera out today, so will add some more from the camping trip.

For some reason, there were lots of jet contrails in the sky - seemed like at least 3 or 4 at any time! But, combined with the sundog, made for a neat photo.

This shelf bracken held the dew for some reason - it was middle of the day by the time I saw this in the forest.

This dew shot was early morning - fuzzy leaves rule!

And these pretty butterflies loved the pearly everlasting, which was blooming everywhere. It is one of the species Speyeria, commonly known as Greater Fritillaries.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2010

 The weather continued to be perfect on our third and last day. Here, I'm sitting up on a huge rock, enjoying the view to the west.

This was some of the texture of the rock I was sitting on, and it was covered with lichens.

 Sunrise from camp 2. Not quite as pretty as from camp 1, but nice none the less.

 Another large rock jutting out of the hillside, this one a conglomerate.

 We hiked high enough to see Glacier Peak's snow-capped top peeking out from behind the closer hills.

 Again looking to the east, in the "V" at the center of the photo, you can see the flat of the Puget Sound basin, and probably the city of Everett.

 This view is from the last (or first, depending on which direction you're traveling) overlook on FS road #6830. You can see where cuts have been made for the logging roads: the lower left clearing was camp 2, and the cut above it, near the top of a ridge, was where we parked the car while we hiked the logging trails. On the far right, you can just make out a cut, and that was the road end - we hiked down and up to get there! Whew! But we got some gorgeous viewpoints.

This panorama was take from that road end, with West on the left, and East on the right. Glacier Peak was just a little further to the East, hidden behind a ridge.