Friday Once Again

  Hi everyone. Happy Friday. Today I am joining Nicole for her Friday Face Off and Gillena for her Friday Lunch Break.

    In the past couple of weeks we've had a few days of nice spring-like weather. 😀 It's much hoped for weather too. This is one of those years when everyone I talk to (in my area and even further a field)  mentions that it's time for spring.

   However, there's still snow on the ground that is now melting, and anyplace there is open ground is  VERY wet and soggy. The best place to get out for a walk is the beach, so in the past couple of weeks  there’s been a couple of beach walking trips for me. Today's photos are from one day when I went walking with my husband and the 2 dogs. 

    It was actually quite crowded that day at Rye Beach (Rye, New Hampshire), but the tide was way down so there was plenty of room. I know it looks pretty empty in theses first couple of photos.

     And do you think I could get a photo of both dog's and my husband's faces looking at the camera at the same time? Ha Ha!  Here's my faces for Face Off.

 Seeing it's always 10 degrees (F) cooler by the water, that day we still needed hats and winter jackets for a walk.

    And brrr. There's a group in the area that goes winter swimming. Even if the day isn't too cold, the ocean water in New Hampshire is  cold. Right now it's been about 38 degrees F/ 3 degrees C.

   

     I like these next seaweed photos. 

    These crushed lobster traps and ropes certainly ended up a tangled mess.

   After our walk, and since it was such a nice day, we also took a ride along the coast for a bit too.

   That's it for me. I hope you're having some lovely weather whether you are awaiting spring for fall. Wishing you a great Friday and start to your weekend.

    

A Little Spring Madness

     Hi everyone. Happy mid-week to you. I hope your week is going well. We've had a couple of gorgeous spring days ❤, and even though we have some supposedly precipitation coming in later today, it is supposed to be rain and not snow. 😀 (At least for today. That might not be true at the end of the week.)

    What a fickle month March has been. Last week started with the temperature at 1 degree F/-17 degrees C. Then we had 2 need to shovel snow events, plus a 50 degrees F/10 degrees C day. This week we have had 2 days around 70 degrees F/ 21 degrees C, but now we're in a cool down. It sounds like we could get a little wintery weather at the end of the week. Maybe. We still aren't snow free in my area, but you can imagine we lost a lot of it with the 2 very warm days. There is SO MUCH MUD right now too.

    However, it was really nice to open up some windows after the inside of the house being closed up all winter. 

    Today I have a page for Chris' Spring Forward challenge at Art Journal Journey. The madness in this page's quote could be referring to the recent weather crazies. 

   I wanted to use this old stamp I have of the chick in her spring hat (or maybe it's an Easter bonnet). I liked her  kookiness, and I liked how she contrasted but still seemed to work with this sheet of 8x8 paper. I did rub a bit of grey ink on the white base paper to start with, just to create a bit of depth. 

    Miss Chick was stamped, colored and fussy cut. I bordered my page with some pink flower metallic trim, and I added a few of those flowers to her hat. I thought this quote stamp (an oldie from Impression Obsession) worked perfectly with the images on this page, except maybe instead of King it should have said queen or princess. Grin.

   To bring spring into the house, I bought a jar of tulip bulbs at Costco a few weeks back. Right now they are blooming.  I have them on the windowsill, and if you look carefully you can see all the snow we still had/have each day when I took the photos...although it is melting.

   These tulips are so lovely that I wish I had several jars of bulbs around the house. Grin. But it's great having any color and any signs of spring at this time of year.

  That's all for me. Have a super rest of your day.

T Stands for Happy Birdday and Beeday

    Hi everyone. Happy new week to you.  It's also time for T over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog  so hello to everyone who stops by for T day.

    Last week was my birthday. My big event ended up being on an absolutely gorgeous day (50 degrees F/10 degrees C) with blue skies and no wind. It was even better since this day was squeezed in between a couple of snow events. March is so bi-polar like that, isn't it? At least in my area  it can mean 6 inches/ 15 cm of snow one day and then true spring weather the next.

   Anyhow, my birthday was a gorgeous day, and I didn't have anything going on. No was around and available to do anything either, but I was OK with that. I decided I wanted to go on one more snowy owl hunt down at Salisbury State Reservation in Massachusetts before the season was over. I brought the dogs with me because even if it wasn't a good birding day, we could at least go out for  a walk.

   It ended up being a fantastic birding day but because of all the fresh snow melting, as well as the full moon and it being a really high tide (spring tide), it ended being a terrible walking day. (Well terrible in the fact that had I walked the dogs, my car would have been a disaster zone with water, mud and sand.  And it already is a dog hair disaster zone 😉). I'm sure the dogs would have preferred a walk to my looking at birds. 

 The first bird I saw when driving in was a raven. Then I pulled into a parking area where there were a couple of cars. A man walking to his car told me I should go over to where the 2 women were standing because there was a barred owl visible from there.

   If I saw no other birds that day I would be thrilled because I really like owls. Even though I've seen barred owls a few times (there is even a pair that nests in the woods near my house but I rarely get to see them close up), and even though I hear them a lot, they are pretty spectacular birds.

  On my way back to my car I decided to walk a snowy trail out towards the marsh. There were a lot of ducks out there, but then I spotted something that didn't look quite like a duck nor a mound of grass.

   I used my camera's zoom to see that far off,  and the lump was the Northern Harrier that lives on the marsh.  But wait, is she sitting on a nest? Maybe. I looked it up when I got home, and these birds  nest on land in marshy areas. And in Massachusetts, they start nesting in March.  Plus the nests I saw online did look like this mound.  I'm not sure so I will have to go back  another day to see if there is a Harrier in this spot.

    With the fresh snow the views were nice too. (Although at this point spring  views would be better than snowy views...)

Ha ha.  I'd offer you a seat  so you can soak in some sunshine and enjoy the beautiful day, but I think the seats might be cold and a little wet. 

   This next photo is usually a parking lot and is usually filled with lots of gulls, but on that day it was a field of fresh snow but still filled with lots of gulls.

   When I went to leave I saw some orange traffic cones along the road and a few people there. I parked the car and walked over and asked what people were looking at. I was told there was a long eared owl in the trees.

   I never did see more than the top of the back of the  head and the ears. But since I have never seen a long eared owl before, I'm OK with that. And besides, seeing 2 different species of owls in 1 day was definitely something to celebrate. 

   One woman told me that there are 3 long eared owls that nest in this area, so you can guess I am going to go back and see if I can see more of one of them some other time. 👍

   Before I left for my owl hunt, I went down and shoveled out in front of the bee hive. There was quite a lot of snow down there, and since it was going to be warm, I thought there might be some bee action. Although there were no bees in the snow  before I shoveled, shoveling made more room for them to maneuver in and out of the hive enclosure.

    There's definitely some life in the hive since they did a huge amount of hive cleaning that day. This (photo above) was the view below the hive entrance the next day. I'm not sure whether it's the variety of honey bees I have right now  (Caucasian- A.m. caucaia) , whether it's the temporary winter shelter my husband put up, or a combo of both, but I'm happy they made it because this was one long and very cold winter. Whichever it is, I'm happy see all these signs of life.

    Even better, since today (Monday 3/9) it was warm,  there were lots of bees buzzing around outside. 😀👍❤

   Since this is T day, I need to share a drink. 

   This past Saturday my husband and I took a trip out to my daughter's home which is about 2 hours west of us in New Hampshire. We were going to have a family birthday celebration for me.  I haven't seen my daughter since Christmas, so it was nice to visit. Later in the day we all went out to dinner (my husband, my daughter, my son-in-law and me).  Here's my drink with my meal.

   I went with a beer because I figured it wouldn't be as strong as a cocktail style drink. The menu didn't list any alcohol volumes for the beers, and I thought I'd try this stout. Ha ha. I didn't realize it was 10% alcohol. Luckily I wasn't driving, and I had enough food that it didn't go to my head. 😉

   We went to a restaurant that was new for my husband and myself, but one my daughter likes to eat at. Even though they are not near the ocean, the restaurant is on a lake.

   My daughter raves about the chicken tenders. I noticed on the specials menu that night they had a combo meal: chicken tenders, haddock nuggets and clams. We were celebrating my birthday so I decided to go for it. I haven't had any fried clams since last summer, and they are a favorite of mine.

    I actually liked the fish and the clams better than the chicken, but the chicken was still delicious. And even better, it was a big enough meal that I could take half of it home for dinner the next night. :😀

   That's it for me. Have a great start to your week and Happy T day too.

Spring Art

   Hi everyone. I hope you're having a good weekend. Last night we changed the clocks (spring ahead), and so today I will probably be all out of whack.  😂 The light evenings are going to be great though, and it means we're on our way to better weather. 👍 (Hopefully soon.)

  Today I am joining lots of different challenges with some spring themed art. It is Sunday so I'll be joining Nicole for Sunday in the Art Room  (also known as SITAR). I'm also joining Gillena for her  Sunday Smiles . I have a journal page so I'll be joining Chris for her Spring Forward challenge over at Art Journal Journey. And last but never least, I have a spring flower tag so I'll be joining  Tag Along (and ATCS) for Lynn's Spring Flowers challenge.

   My journal page today is definitely a mixed media piece. My inspiration started with this set of metallic stickers with a couple of children and lots of kites. I'm not sure why kites always make me think of March and spring, but they do.

   Besides the stickers, I also used some paint. I started by inking the background with a blue ink pad. Then I used some blue watercolor paint over it to brighten it up a bit more. The paint also covered in all the little spots that the ink pad missed.

    I wanted the children to be flying their kits in a grassy field. and I didn't want them to be way down at the bottom so my page would be all sky. I placed them part way up the page. At this point they were floating in the sky. 😉 Then I used 3 colors of green acrylic paint and painted "stripes" to represent the grasses. The beauty about metallic stickers is while the paint is wet you can wipe it off the image, and even when it dries, you can lightly scrape off any little bit you don't want.   I also covered up the foot on each person who was standing in the ground because my stripes made the grass look long, and therefore their standing foot wouldn't be showing.

   It didn't look exactly right at this point, so I used some green paint and painted a few horizontal stripes to create the actual ground. When I was doing a bit of watercolor splatter on the other page of this journal spread, I accidentally got a bit of red-brown paint on this one, but I  don't mind that. In fact, I'm happy with the way my ground came out. Making grass come out is a trickier process than it seems. 

   I colored the kites with Sharpies and added a couple of other kite stickers. I used some slightly watered down white acrylic paint to make the white clouds, and I cut the blue clouds out of a sheet of paper.  I  outlined those clouds with a black Sharpie. The sun is also a metallic sticker from another sheet, and I used Sharpies to color in the face.

   To finish off my page I stamped the main quote from a TH set, and I pulled off a quote and mini butterfly stickers from the same sticker set as the kites and added them to the grass. It's hard to read that quote but it says laugh and play.  Finally, to pull it all together, I used some of the same blue watercolor paint I used for the sky and lightly splattered it on the background and I used some more watered down white acrylic paint for a second light splatter. 

Now that was a long explanation. Sorry. 😏 Here's my tag that I will be linking a up to Tag Along (and ATCS).

    I started with an old black tag from my stash. The right side was a bit rough so I used a black Sharpie on the edge to cover up where the black had worn off.

    Then I experimented and took some iridescent ink pads and rubbed them directly on the tag. I then let the ink on the tag dry for a few days.I really like the sheen that they created

   When the ink was dry, I fussy cut some spring flowers from some 49 and Market paper and added them. I then added a punch out letter from a set from Stamperia (I think). I die cut the green clover using an old Quickkutz die. I inked the clover to give it some depth and drew in the details. I then added some metallic paper items. They include the gold clover, the pink flower border and also the yellow chick. I did  a bit of coloring on the chick to bring out the details.  Finally I stamped  the quote in white from an old clear stamp set, but since I don't have the paper labeling any longer, I am not sure who made it. 

    That's all for me. I hope you enjoy the rest of the weekend and have a super start to the new week.

    

Last Friday in Vermont

    Hi everyone. Happy end of another work week for many people. Today I am joining Nicole for Friday Face Off  and Gillena for  Friday Lunch Break.

    Last Friday my husband and I took a road trip over to Norwich, Vermont. I wanted to visit the King Arthur Flour baking store. (You can check out this post: T Day-Trip to King Arthur Flour if you're curious about the baking store.) Plus the change of scenery was nice.

 One place that is fun to visit (besides King Arthur's baking store) in Norwich is  Dan and Whit's.  Dan and Whit's is an old fashioned general store, and their motto is

  It doesn't look like much from the outside, does it? When you walk inside it's like walking into a mini-food store. If you didn't know better, you might grab a snack, a drink, or maybe lunch from the deli in the back. But if you wander behind  the deli, (and it seems like you are walking into  the employee only section)  this store seems to go on and on. You'll never know what you'll find there. Here's a small selection.

There's garden supplies of all kinds, not just seeds.

It's  sap season so maybe you need maple syruping supplies. You can get everything from the tubing you run from tree to tree along with buckets and syrup bottle.

I haven't seen one of these sleds in years. I didn't know they still made them.

And if you have horses, there's a selection of supplies besides this grooming block. They have dog and cat supplies too.

     They also sell some kitchen supplies. If you have anything you need to can they have what you'd need, or if your oil lamp needs a new wick you can get those too. And you could get a ladle, a tea cup. a serving spoon or lots of other things too.

   My dogs are old, but I took this next photo of these orange  fleece dog coats because I could have used them during hunting season when the dogs were younger. Then they had the energy and sometimes would  run off into the woods behind the house. Well maybe the next dog (some  day in the future) will need one, and I'll know where to get one  should that be the case.

And even though I don't need any, I love Soulmate socks.

Isn't this a fabulous old chest in the hardware section?

And if you're brave enough (or able enough) to climb up these steep old stairs you'd get  to the clothing section.

    They have some work style clothes for sale, and of course, Dan and Whit T shirts. Plus there is this cool old stage.  I wonder if this building was an old school at one time.

    Even the floor and a couple of those hanging lights look vintage.

     I wouldn't mind a couple of those old filing cabinets  in my house. I wonder if they held student records back in the day; that is if this building was an old school.

      And here's my face for Friday Face off. I really like this photo. I just wish the floor vent wasn't there, but even with it there,  I still really like this photo.

     It is always fun to walk through Dan and Whit's to see what you might find. I love that's it's an old fashion store and not a big box store and also that it hasn't really  modernized all that much. There's enough of those modern stores around everywhere else. 

     That's all for me. Have a great Friday and start to your weekend.