What My Husband Found on the Trail Camera

My Own Private Idaho: Good Week for the Trail Camera: Elk on the Move Cow Moose, Early Morning Mama Elk and Young Young Buck in Velvet

My Own Private Idaho: A Week at the Spring

My Own Private Idaho: A Week at the Spring: You're too close. Step away from the camera. Last fall, we bought a trail camera at Cabela's to capture some of the wildlife ran...

A Lady's Bath - or, the Cat Room

I decided that I'll never finish changing the decor of my bath, so I might as well give a little tour now. Had I realized how large it would be, I would have pulled in the wall to make the guest room behind it large, but - oh well.

During the summer, while the house was being built, we picked out this wonderful marble for the vanities, called Rainforest Brown. It comes from the marble quarries of Rajasthan in western India, the same area that the Taj Mahal marbles come from (that particular quarry long depleted).  the serpentine striations in the marble inspired me to weave my own frame for the mirror, using willow, hawthorn and elderberry from our property. I'm rather pleased with the result, but Geordie, pictured, does like to chew on the corners. Here's a close-up of the marble.

I love my deep soaking tub.  It's here many of my writing ideas take form as I allow my body and mind to relax in a bubble bath.  Scenes and dialogue float into my mind, much like watching a movie.

I wanted a shelf above my tub for special things.

The shelf was a house-warming gift from our carpenter neighbor, Davy.

Since it's my personal bath, I can decorate the walls however I like. Original prints and images printed off the Internet, mostly of cats.  Not my erstwhile cats (that would only make me sad), but cats I've never known, but would like to.

I believe this and the next one are by Louis Wain

Geordie must always be the center of attention.

But other images decorate the walls. Little old things found in charity shops that I thought would like to live with me.

This wooden heart must have been made and hand-painted for a special woman many years ago.

And these pressed flowers in their old original frame.

A small silk weaving made in England for the tourist trade.

I have more wall space left --above this second vanity that fits behind my tub and in the toilet stall with its sliding door and across from the shower stall.

So many walls to adorn, and years to do it in, I hope.

When Good Dogs Go Bad

Pepper back from a run and full of self-satisfaction

Here is my husband Jay's Brittany Pepper, after he came back from a run on our 66 acres, avoiding coyotes, but not mud.  He loves to dig.  Jay had to take him into the shower for a shampoo.  Now that the snow is mostly gone, this may become a daily ritual.

Karneval, Fasching, Carnivale, Mardi Gras

In perusing online old German Jugend  magazine issues, I was intrigued by their Karneval art during the month of February prior to the beginning of Lent.  It is an old celebration and not limited just to New Orleans or Brazil.  Jugend was noted for its breakthrough artistic expression from the late 1890s through the 1920s. Here are a few renderings that appealed to me.

Old Paths

 Our neighbor Teresa walks her large mastiff Molly and Australian Shepherd Duke every morning through our 66 acres, but I don't get up early enough to encounter them.  I only see signs of them later when I venture out on the old trail.

I followed a deer path through the woods today.  You might wonder, "Where do deer paths lead to?"

Our deer paths lead from wild apple tree to wild apple tree in the woods.  Following deer paths in the autumn is the best way to find apple trees ready for picking.  We have over a hundred in various stages of growth and over 9 varieties of apples.

The deer still hope an errant apple or two will drop, but they have mostly dropped and been eaten now. But still, the deer follow the old paths.

And that brings me to a book I read last week, which I enjoyed immensely, titled The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot, by Robert MacFarlane. It's available on Kindle, but I decided to read it in hardback.  I'm glad I did -- it's a keeper.  "Paths carry memories of a person, just as a person carries memories of a path," says the author. Here's the review I gave it on Amazon and on Good Reads:

My criteria for giving a book five stars is that during the day I think on what I've read, and look forward to continuing my adventure with the author at the end of day; and the writing must be good. MacFarlane's writing is lyrical and masculine, too. He's not writing a guide book for you, but inviting you to come along with him over old and ancient paths. Why would he recommend you walk the treacherous Broomway, where incoming tides over foggy quicksand have drowned hundreds? Simply walk beside him as he attempts it. My favorite treks with him were through England and Scotland, as he relates history, anecdotes and the natural beauty surrounding him. But Palestine and Tibet would have had me at the edge of my seat, if I hadn't been lying back in bed. Sail with him along the ancient water roads through the Hebrides. Meet his adventuresome friends, including Isle of Harris sculptor, Steve Dilworth, whom I did look up on the Internet so I could admire his work.  

The best writing for me was MacFarlane's description of his ritual walk across the Cairngorm massif in Scotland, south to north, to attend the funeral of his grandfather, a mountaineer. I will be reading his earlier book, Mountains of the Mind, in which his grandfather is featured. He follows the Icknield Way and other paths of England in the footsteps of Edward Thomas,a writer and poet, who was killed during World War I in France. As an American, I was not familiar with Thomas' writings, but found MacFarlane's delving into his life and jaunts interesting, and that he was a friend of Robert Frost, who inspired him to become a poet. This book is full of little surprises. A joyful read.

My Own Private Idaho: Oh, Yes, It's Winter

My Own Private Idaho: Oh, Yes, It's Winter: Pete Autumn's been a time for rain, more rain, and lots more rain. With a sinkhole over our septic tank, the rain built up into a kiddie...