BEADED CHRISTMAS TREE

 I started making this beaded Christmas Tree today.  There's a lot of counting and paying attention to what I'm doing.  I think the pattern calls for 17 layers.  I made it to the 7th today.

DARRELL AND THE TREE

 In 2005 we planted a tree in front of our house in Renton on Darrell's birthday.  And I've been taking a picture on this day ever since.

2025

2020

2015

Planting day 2005

LAST MORNING WALK OF 2024

 It was a beautiful last morning walk of 2024.  The clouds cleared away to reveal a beautiful sunrise.  

Good-bye 2024!  It was fun.

It's been windy lately.  There are several trees down in Lincoln Park.  This one is across the main Bluff Trail.

Do I go under or around?

EVERGLADES NAT'L PARK

 We left Everglades City early having decided not to do the airboat ride.  Instead we wanted to get to Everglades Park as soon as possible.  

We drove across the state on Hwy 41 and entered the park at the Homestead entrance.

First stop was the Mahogany Hammock Trail - where a very large, old Mahogany tree lives.

Right when we got out of the car, there was a Red-shouldered Hawk sitting in a tree. 

Then we drove down to the far end of the park to the Flamingo Visitor Center.  There is a small marina.  We were told that we might see Manatees there.  And we did!

There was a dam between the fresh water and the sea.  Atop the dam was a very large Osprey nest.

Then we started back out and stopped at one more loop trail.  It was interesting, there were big sink holes everywhere.  

Great day in the Everglades!

FRIDAY IN TAMPA

 Darrell is having a problem with the cord for his headphones, which he'll need on the flight home.  So, I went in search of a replacement.  The google machine sent me out to Dunedin, north of Tampa Bay.  I arrived a bit early so I sat under a tree and sketched.  Much to my horror, little worms were falling off the tree onto me.  Yuck.  But, I stayed until my sketch was done.  Then freaked out thinking there were worms in my hair.

The nice man in the store didn't have what I was looking for, but did another google search and sent me to Best Buy.  They had something the young man there thought would work.  But, once home, we found that it wouldn't.  One more thing to return.

When Darrell got home from his class we went to dinner at Columbia, a restaurant that came highly recommended.  It was started in 1905 and occupies a beautiful building.  It is very popular.

DAY 6

 Day 6 of the #30daysketchbookchallenge and the prompt is 'Trees'.

I did this line drawing with my fountain pen.

LOVE THE LEAVES

 I love walking in the fallen leaves.

MORNING LIGHT

 Seen on our morning walk in Lincoln Park.

A WALK IN THE SNOW

 We finally got out of the house and made it down to Lincoln Park for a snowy walk in the park.  The snow is about 5-6" deep, dry but crunchy.  It's cold, too!

I made it a short walk because it was too cold and I was worried about slipping and falling - even though it wasn't really slippery.

Jelly wore her little coat and ran around and looked to be having fun.

There's a little tree that people put Christmas ornaments on every year.  I wanted to see it with snow on the ground.  That didn't happen before Christmas, but it finally did (the day after).

Last week, I noticed the dead-looking tree leaning precariously, and the ground around it starting to rise.  Well, it gave in and fell sometime over the weekend - and it's left a big hole right on the trail.

Seen:  the reddest, red of this Redwood - it looks great in the snow.

It's a beautiful morning!

Afterwards, Darrell took me and my machine to Renton to Sewing Machine Service to get it fixed.  And, they did it while we waited.  They said that the needle plate was mis-aligning - and I don't have any idea how that happened - and I don't know why I feel guilty about it.  It might have happened when they serviced it last week - or not.

Here's how yesterday's fabrics turned out --

LITTLE TINY PIECES

 Seems to have been a while since I pieced such tiny pieces.  It's not my favorite thing, but it's not bad.

These will be the parts for the next row on the petals.

Its the time of the year when our big tree in the front yard starts dropping a million and half catkins - and pollen.  Green pollen everywhere.

YELLOW TREE

 On our morning walk in Lincoln Park:

DARRELL'S TREE

 In 2005 on Darrell's birthday - November 18th - we planted a tree out front of our house on Wells Street in Renton.  The idea was for it to provide shade (eventually) because the house faced west and in the summer the sun would beat in to the upstairs bedroom windows and it could get incredibly hot, too hot to sleep.

Planting the tree in 2005

We sold the house in 2007 and moved to Seattle.  We've gone back a few times to take his picture with the tree as it grows up.

November 18, 2015

We went back today, on his birthday, and we were surprised.  The tree might almost be tall enough now to shade the house.  

STILL LIFE - X

 You'd think X would be a really tough one.  It is, but after I looked in the dictionary, I came up with some interesting results:

I'll explain.

Xanthium is a common weed, basically a cockleburr.  I painted from an image of the Canada Cockleburr - Xanthium strumarium var, canadense.

Xanthophyll is a yellow or brown carotenoid plant pigment which causes the autumn colors of leaves.  Cool, huh?!

Xylography is the art of carving on wood.

And, of course, my very useful X-acto knife.

That little yellow leaf is one of several I picked up this morning on my morning walk in Lincoln Park with the dogs.  There's this tree that gets the most spectacularly bright yellow in  the fall.  Here is a picture from a few years ago.

JOY IN OUR MORNING WALK

 It was another perfect morning for an early walk.  We've been going right after sunrise, usually around 6am, in order to have Lincoln Park mostly to ourselves.  We saw a sparkling ferry:

And on a trail through the woods, we saw Joy:

CHRISTMAS TREE

Somebody decorates this little tree at Christmas time every year.  Someone has added the trike under it this year.  

TUESDAY WATERCOLOR

After class I started sewing the Begonia quilt scraps onto foundation strips.

ALSO SEEN

More sights from Lincoln Park from our morning walk.