Some Natutral Nature

Natural in Florida, not quite so natural in mom's backyard, but once in a while a gator makes his way up the intercoastal waterway to mom's house. This one was just a baby, about 4 feet long. Glad he came to visit when I was visiting!

Unnatural Nature.

Apparently, in the five years since I have visited south Florida there has been an iguana invasion. They are beautiful, and fun to watch, but don't really belong there. They are escaped pets, who are thriving, and breeding and munching away at the landscape. I've been visiting Florida for over 40 years, and had never seen iguanas there until this recent visit, but now they seem to be everywhere, daily visitors in mom's yard, chomping away at the fruits of mom's gardening labors. I saw more at the park, watched a dog hunt a big one down (I'll spare you those sad pictures), saw one that had to be 3 feet long meandering alongside a very busy road.

They are not the only invaders, mom's yard, previously populated by adorable little brown anole lizards is now home to curly tail lizards, which were brought over from the bahamas to eat pest in the sugarcane fields a county north. Pythons, also released pets, are now a problem in the Everglades. It really does make my scientist think hard about how our actions impact the environment. Are there invaders merely nuisances, or are they detrimentally affecting the native species. It would be a fun place for some ecology projects, that's for sure.

But since they are there... I enjoyed them, a nature lover loves out of place nature too. As you can see they pose nicely for pictures, until you get too close, then they move with rapid speed, and when they jump in the canal and shoot like torpedos through the water. I did not know they swam, so watching them dive and swim was quite entertaining. Mostly though I'm enamored by textures and colors of their scales and spines... I can see a lot of artful inspiration potential!

Loxahatche National Wildlife Refuge

On my recent visit to Florida I was lucky enough to have a short visit to Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge. Anyone who knows me knows my love of nature and how much I appreciate that our nation has created these wonderful places, especially in places like Florida where suburbia and agriculture has totally overrun nature. Weather did not cooperate to let us see much of the wet Everglades part of the refuge, but we did get to enjoy a virtual airboat ride in the visitors center. We also had a nice walk on the boardwalk through the cypress forest, which seemed more like a jungle, and the botanist in me enjoyed the tropical diversity that is so much different than the arid west. Bromeliads, air plants, vines, ferns, including tree ferns many taller than I am were all treat to see. As my pictures attest, I especially enjoyed the unfurling leaves. It as though the plants are whispering I'm alive, I'm alive, I'M ALIVE!

Morning Color

This morning thing... so weird... As stated before, I'm NOT a morning person... yet when I visit my friend at Bear Lake I magically wake at dawn. It's downright perplexing how at this one location the sun beckons me to watch it rise. This weekend I got up at sunrise and took a walk in jammies, trompt through the brush and snapped some pictures of the beautiful fall colors in the morning light. So beautiful!

Could there be morning gal hiding inside crazy night owl?

Sadly this was my last weekend at Bear Lake... We helped Clare close down her cabin for winter this weekend. I feel pretty blessed to have been able to spend so much time there this summer. Morning gal? Night Owl? Maybe just Lucky Gal!

Solitary thoughts Shall I keep hanging around? Or let go and fall?

Ahhh morning

Three things you may or may not know about me...

I am NOT a morning person.

I am a nature lover.

I love to take pictures

This of course means that I love to take pictures of nature. Problem being, one of the best times for viewing wildlife, as well capturing nature in glorious light, is very early in the morning, not exactly my favorite time of day. Luckily for me I have early birds in my life who will roust me out bed for an adventure now and then. As much as my natural night owl hates to admit it, after a wee bit of coffee clears cobwebs from my head, I end up enjoying the early morning hours, as that time of day often offers up amazing experiences.

A week ago for instance, we decided to return from Bear Lake in the morning before work, which being about a 2.5 hour drive meant leaving at the crack of dawn. We left Clare's cabin just as the suns rays began to paint the wildfire smoke filled skies in shades of pink. A good sized animal scurried across the dirt road before us. It dropped over the road edge out of site as we discussed what it might be. A racoon? A large marmot? Neither seemed right, but as though he wanted to answer our question his(her's?) head popped back over the road into the spotlight of our headlights. He took a step, then stood up and looked at us as though he was just as curious about us as we were about him. We had a staring contest for a minute then he turned tail and ambled back down the hill. A badger!!! I've always wanted to see one, and he was my first. Squeeee! If only my camera was not in the back of the car. *sigh*, it was probably too dark anyway. As we pulled away, in the shadows some deer moved alongside the road, and we headed off along the pink framed lake then up out of the valley and onto the open range where we were greeted by a beautiful Wyoming sunrise, and along the way saw some Sandhill Cranes, more deer, and even a few antelope in the distance.

Maybe this early morning thing is not so bad....

More Hot Springs...

Me and my hot springs love...

Spending time at Bear Lake puts us in shooting distance of another favorite hot spring... Maple Grove, a lovely little spring situated adjacent to the Bear River in Southern Idaho. It's little over an hour from my friends cabin, but a beautiful drive alongside Bear Lake, through Idaho farmland then up through the mountains over Strawberry Pass. Then a windy dirt road to a sweet spot on the Oneida Narrows. The resort is off grid and casual, a small bathhouse, campsites and some yurts to rent, there is a good size, perfect temperature, shaded soaking pool, as well as several smaller round pools of varying temperatures in the sunshine along the river. The setting can't be beat, and since we were there on Monday we pretty much had the place to ourselves.

It was delightfully peaceful and relaxing! The charmed life for sure!

Beaching...

Added another addition to my hot springs list... had nice soak in Bear Lake Hot Springs. (#21 woot!) Not the most exciting of springs, sulfury, bright blue painted pools, kind of 50's style surrounded by chain link fence... but nice temperature water and a nice view of Bear Lake and the surrounding mountains from the pools... and the spoiling thing... getting to have a nice soak after a nice day on the beach.

Yes, beach. In Utah. An actual natural lake, with sandy beach and water as amazingly beautiful blue as the Caribbean. After a day of swimming, some stand up paddle boarding, sand sculpting, and then the nice hot springs soak, I really regretted that I didn't discover Bear Lake until after my kids left the nest. What a great place for summer weekend away!

I'm back....

Wow. I can't believe is has been over a year since I updated this blog...it been so long people have given up on legs and are getting around on strange wheeled contraptions.

There are so many things I've meant to share... Utah adventures, California adventures, a trip to *gasp* Japan! Lots of photo excursions and fun artsy fartsy stuff. Pretty pictures galore. It's time to get back to the blog! Here goes...

Art, business and culture...

After several years of trying to convince myself to do so, I **finally**, after a very long hiatus, started listing some of my beads and pottery in my long neglected Etsy shop. Hoarding beads is easy, lots can be squirreled away in a few bowls and boxes. Pottery, on the other hand, takes some serious space to store, so rather than continue to decorate my house in 21st century craft hoarder style it seemed to make sense to give Etsy a try.

My Etsy goals are hardly lofty, I'd just like to start earning enough money with my hobbies to start paying for my hobbies. It would be nice to self fund my supply closet, pay for studios fees and maybe even the occasional class of workshop....and maybe the travel to workshops, like the one I just took in Japan, but that would be more of dream than a goal..LOL Etsy is easy. Take few pictures, write a few descriptions push a few buttons and voile' you are an Etsy seller. Or should I say, an Etsy lister. Listing on Etsy IS easy, getting views and sales not so much.

To get started again I decided to to do some price checking to get an idea what to list pottery bowls for on Etsy. As I'm scrolling down the listings I spy a a bowl... I know that bowl, it's my bowl. Well, not a bowl I made, but one just like my everyday kitchen ware, but in shades of brown, rather than green like mine. This bowl however, was broken and repaired with gold in kintsugi style.

Kintsugi is an traditional Japanese repair method where broken pottery is repaired with with lacquer and gold. While the practice likely has roots in practicality, it also is well known for it's message, that things can be even more broken for having being broken. When I was at John Dix's studio in Japan he had a quite beautiful example of kintsugi on his shelf of sake cups as pictured below.

But this etsy seller? After looking at his page I would say it appeared that he bought lots of thrift store pottery, broke it and repaired it kintsugi style. Not even really good kintsuge; kind of rough seams, and I'm guessing epoxy and gold paint, not lacquer and powdered gold. He had quite the business going, thousands and thousands of sales. Repaired broken junk dishes at $35+ a piece. Sigh. My vision of kintsugi would be that it is a repair one might do to a precious object, say, Grandmas favorite teacup, or a favorite one of a kind pottery bowl. Not something you would do to some cheap broken dishes.... and by cheap, I know, because my green bowl, a different colored twin to this kintsugi piece, is from a set I bought on sale at Shopko for $20 for service for four. Truly nothing special. Hhhmmf... but he's built a very successful business, lots of sales, and judging from the comments lots of satisfied customers who were quite happy to buy into the Zen of things being more beautiful for having being broken. While I have to commend his success, it leaves me wondering about the sales success of my fellow potters, who often have a hard time selling a beautiful handcrafted bowl for $35. I guess there is something to be said for marketing... and the fact that we artists must need to do it a little better...

Ebau Kintsugi

Dish from my cupboard

Kintsugi sake cup fromm John's collection

Spiral Jetty Revisited

A fun northern Utah adventure... a trip to the Spiral Jetty, a rather famous 1970's land art installation. I'd been there a few years ago, back when the Great Salt Lake was much higher and the Jetty nearly under water, but now after years of drought the entire jetty is exposed, making it totally different experience.

We found lots of baby jettys on the shore.

While we were there we hiked the hill for the aerial view... and while we were there did a cheeseburger summit!

Having taken this adventure with my nerdy birdy friend April, we had to enjoy all the bird sitings along the way. I wish I had gotten a good shot of all the Long Billed Curlew we saw, but birds are so hard photograph with my meager 200mm lens. I was however pretty happy with shot of this great clutch of burrowing owls! Pretty cool eh?

After a hot springs soak we decide to a sunset spin through the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge would be fun. It was getting a little dark for bird pictures, but sunset is always spectacular there.

My photo question of the day... Which of these do you like better? I sure can't decide!

Some favorite music

So I have a favorite music artist. Kind of an unusual choice for an old gal, as he's a hiphop/rap type artist, and I find that a lot of people my age (54!!) don't embrace the 'new' music. But I am a gal with quite eclectic musical tastes, and love discovering new and interesting artists. Grieves came to me through my daughter, who discovered him when he opened up for Atmosphere, way back when she was about 15. We have a funny bit of history together about Grieves, which I have written about in the past here and here. I really, really love his music, have all his albums and joke that I am his "oldest fan". It really surprises teh 20 somethings at work when I start playing his music in the lab. What? An old woman likes hip hop? Say it isn't so.

Imagine my surprise last week when driving home from work, listening to my totally un-cool and un-hip, 'All Things Considered' on NPR and I hear Grieves "Bloody Poetry" playing! So what does this mean? Is NPR cool now? Or maybe it's always been cool, despite that my listening to it made my kids nuts back when they were in school. Sarah always complained that everyone on public radio talked in a mono-tone! Or maybe I'm cool now? Eh, probably not...LOL Is Grieves now a mainstream artist? I've always thought of him as 'alternative', I don't think anyone I've ever told about him, old or young, had ever heard of him. I hope getting played on NPR is a sign that he has "arrived" as his music is great! Give him a listen!