Winter Pictures

It's been a long snowy winter (it's snowing right now!). The deer are getting desperate. There isn't much left under the bird feeder after the birds and squirrels finish.

We tapped our maple trees a couple of weeks ago. We've had a slow start to the season. I hope it isn't indicative of the whole maple season.

Deborah, tired out from tromping through the snow.

I used the mock mincemeat that I canned last year from an overabundance of green tomatoes. I liked it but the rest of the family was not that impressed. I made it using an free form pie crust.

Aaron's horse picture, made with colored pencils.

Winter is definitely the time to get under the quilts and read.

The Last of the Fall Pictures

These are the last of the fall pictures... I promise. We had so many good ones this year.

We went on a walk with my mother and made nature art. Art made out of things found in nature and left there. So we gathered lots of red leaves and arranged them.

First we arranged them by size in a line...

... and then in a wavy line...

... then we finally left them in a circle for some other person in the park to find. Very Andy Goldsworthy of us.

Art Day

When my parents visited in the early summer, we took advantage of my mother's artistic ability and had her give the children a painting lesson. Since the weather was good, we did some splatter painting. Nathan didn't want to do anything abstract so he made a mountain scene and then splattered in the flowers in the foreground.

Aaron and Deborah were game and splattered away.

The finished product.

If you put some painter's blue tape on the page and then splatter and remove the tape later, here is what you get. Pretty cool, isn't it?

Deborah's Pictures

Deborah asked to use my camera and take pictures of the house and woods. She took a lot of pictures but she also took some that were just wonderful. Here are her best (in my opinion). It looks like she has a little of her Uncle Mike in her (see last three pictures).

A House Full of Photos

When my parents were here in April, we toured a local building that was both a house and an architectual studio.    It was plumb full of photo ops.    Part of the house actually goes down into a small lake so that the windows open up right onto the water.

The architect filled his house with very cool things that he collected from everywhere.

He experimented with slopes of ceilings and doors.   It is hard to tell but the far door actually has a top surface that matches the pitch of the ceiling.

I saw this shovel through the glass blocks and thought it made a cool picture.

The house is full of triangles. 

We were such a good tour group that we even got to go up on the roof (something that isn't usually on the tour).   The roof was built and used as an outdoor patio.   Old pictures of the family show lawn chairs and umbrellas up here.

More shots on the roof.

Some Clouds for Brother Mike

While we were at the ballgame, a storm blew through and we had not only a rainbow but also some great clouds. So Mike, these are for you.

I didn't notice until I downloaded this picture that I had captured a whole flock of birds crossing the clouds.

My "cruise ship" cloud.