Off line for a few days!
Be well...

I spent some time with a few great men, Tunnicliffe, Liljefors, Eckleberry, Singer, Fuertes, to name a few. I was in a library lest you get the wrong idea! It was an enjoyable time, looking, at how the masters made their birds. I never tire of studying them, the work, the turn of a feather, a shadow here and a highlight there. Some perfect in symmetry and others in design. It comforts me to know them and see the passages of their hands to create life. My work is changing as I study and it grows slowly into something new.

Flying in twilight

The days go quickly past and I am busy preparing for the always uncertain future. I have had a major disappointment today in something I was hoping for, we shall see how it pans out but so far it is not good. So I tap into the strength reserve, which you would think was running on empty but there is still a bit left. The dregs of it, really. Still I push on with an energy that just doesn't stop, despite everything. I go on and on because what else is life? I would not have traded a single step with its misguided hopes, not for a moment. I will do what it is I am meant to do. I cannot regret trying, hoping, or loving. I so much still want to believe. Why does darkness have its way of coming to call? I am not home sorrow, knock all you want I will not answer.

Blue flowers

Moon rise

In the winter garden

How real it would have been
delicious meant to be
We'd have laughed sharing memories
...
I cannot bear the slow still rise
of the moon.

-By the Corbyhawk

The Corby is landing

There is always a little let-down when you come home from a great trip. So many things fill my head and so many connections were made. I am overwhelmed with all of it and have that odd sense that I no longer fit into my life. I feel the potential of so many things and I am anxious to sink my teeth into them.

When love's light is shining elsewhere
the cold is hard to shake
but when its shining on you
the winter melts away.
I don't want to know how so
I just want to feel the heat.

O please be good to me.

From Please Be Good to Me by Sarah Slean

Fuertes study skin

The yellow billed cuckoo

What a whirlwind the last few days have been, it will take a while to digest it all. Somethings were just excellent, inspiring and motivating, others were a bit heartbreaking. I am watching the sunset over Cayuga lake as I type this. The hills that slide into the lake are blues and violets cool with a sheen of white haze. The lake is glowing upwards as brightly as the sky above it, maybe even more so. I find I want to stay and go backwards to make hope come again, but it is over isn't it? Today is done and cannot be once more. I may have done things differently a million times but I guess I cannot. I will watch as the sun slinks beyond me into some other world where they are begining. I mourn its light as it leaves everything, slowly dragging itself away. What a beautiful sun it was, a dream really. I have listened and I heard it clear, but perhaps in my hearing I did not know it at all. In a world going ever forward I find I am constantly trying to look backwards.

I am a bit on the

Bailey Hall

I love you in the silence after sound
in echoes of your old memories
in who you are
and who you once were
I love you as footfalls
down old paths
into empty spaces
filled with whispered sounds
of voices long lost.
I love you as the note rings true
out of the throats of birds
as the string is struck
resonating endlessly forward.
I love you when the crow caws
evening, evening, evening
as the sun settles himself
and the curtain of twilight falls
I love you as I dream you here
imagine the soft weight of your fingertips
pressing in
what notes you sound from me
tuning my soul
that now mute
waits for you to play on.

-By the Corbyhawk herself

Tree Ladder

Magnolia

I would take you to
the dark understory
below daylight green leaves
to the places of wet earth
and rotting branches
I have no scruples
and would sit at your feet
sharing your great boughs
with the light
I would wrap my arms around
and lay between your roots
be the pulse that feeds you
underneath-
I need to title, no age
no ring, no name
the humid darkness of beetles
the small movers of earth
I wait and stay ever present
throw down your vines
look down, love has no mercy
no title, no age
no ring, no name
it sits below your feet
I want to paint you
as my Abbot Thayer
ever rising above me
standing on my hands.

-By the Corbyhawk herself

I am bad really, in all that time I wanted ...

Hey everyone, this will be short as I am in ap public place and cannot get my personal computer to work. Ugh, anyway things went well with my presentation and I have my other one the day after tomorrow. Wish me luck on that one!! This one is already over and it went fast... maybe tomorrow?

Goodnight and sleep well ..

No I do not photograph well...

So I am off tomorrow morning for a conference that I am presenting at. Blogging may become light for the next week since I will have sketchy internet access. Honestly I am a bit nervous (ok very). I plan on having fun despite my nerves, life only happens once so I intend on living it fully, in every aspect. We will see how it goes... Be well.

What zoo animals really think of the general public...

I am rather uninteresting of late. Some brief updates on the Corbyhawk which I am sure you are all just dying to know (ok I get how self-absorbed this entire blog diary thing can be, I mean who really gives a toodle doodle) (remember as well that I am rather uninteresting so use your discretion on reading any more of this drivel). I have a BIG event coming up next week so blogging may be interrupted since I may actually acquire a life, yes I know dream on... but I do, pathetic really. I am looking forward to it and am determined to have fun. I am a shark in the water, my lap swim is going well, 3 times a week 40 minutes of laps. I am fighting the good fight and look younger then I have looked in years. Shaved off down to at least 22 years old, give me a month and I will be back in diapers. I generally nit pick my paintings to death and returned to a painting I left a long tine ago. With some tweaking it is so much better then it was and ever so tempting to paint the background again. I am being good since I will be taking it to said BIG event and it needs to be dry. I sat down and just so effortlessly fixed everything I hated about the painting that I had struggled with before. Give me a year and I am going to be a shark with a brush also. I work like a crazy nut people, I paint all the time and can't imagine doing anything else. Off I go to be rather uninteresting somewhere else.

The world underneath

If you are bored and are interested in having some fun with Google Earth's street view.... Have some mindless fun here (this one is my favorite post it notes on a car)

**The Google car came by this week to photograph my house. I was home and I hope not outside so that my nether region winds up on Google since I am usually weeding. Which I had not done to the front garden so if my house gardens look crappy well I just weeded them today....but I digress.

He and She

"Should one of us remember,
And one of us forget,
I wish I knew what each will do-
But who can tell as yet?"

"Should one of us remember,
And one of us forget,
I promise you what I will do-
And I am content to wait for you,
And not be sure as yet."

-Christina Rossetti

No, I do not in any way resemble Beaker from the Muppets...

The rain did not do anything to inhibit the spirit of those young boys as they ran to each tent. He would look over at me and drop his head a bit to give a secret smile. The adults rushed about; preparing, doing, and talking to one and other. He danced around us as a weight lifted from him and I knew he was going to get through the darkness he had faced. So many of them called out to him, grasped his hands and kissed his cheeks. His smile at me was like the rarest of flowers, so beautiful in its every aspect that it steals your breath and for a moment stops your heart. I knew we were both making pictures in our minds and sealing them away for those lean times that would come again. Today we were all filled with it, with the rain that would make more of those rare flowers bloom.

No dahhhrling we are not easy to paint....

The fledgling grosbeak died. I found him just now in the yard already turning black and filled with maggots. A sad sight for such a beautiful creature and I find I am feeling enormously sad about it. I question my decision to release him, was he not well enough? Did some underlying illness strike him and end his life so early? Was it the neighbor's cat, which I hate with the fervor of a religious zealot because he so greedily kills my yard birds and leaves them uneaten in his gluttony. I suppose I should not blame him and I do like cats, I have one of my own and I adore her. Still I think people should not let them out, they are perfectly content to be indoors, safer for the cat and the birds. Still this little magnificent bird is now dead and rotting. How quickly these things can happen and it strikes me. This blow feels stronger perhaps, because even now I border the yawning edges of a great chasm of grief. Lately I have been dancing around it and throwing things down into it to see how far it goes. I am almost cavalier about it since I am just reluctant to feel a damn bit more of grief and its cold maggoty hands. It is the tender-hearted nature I have that gets me. I am so painfully optimistic and hopeful, sometimes the world does not write fairy tales and when it does they are brief, beautiful and full of wonder. So here is to my little grosbeak friend and for his finding a way despite my better judgment into my heart, may you be reborn as a giant great horned owl, for reasons I will not mention...

Trumpeter E32

In your light I learn how to love.
In your beauty, how to make poems.

You dance inside my chest,
where no one sees you,

but sometimes I do,
and that sight becomes this art.

-Rumi

Buy local by joining a CSA, I have been a farm shareholder for the last 4 years and I love it, inexpensive amazing vegetables every Saturday, a real treat!
Read how others are catching on here:
I know you are jealous and you should be, so find one near you here

(A couple of good books on the topic, Michael Pollen, The Omnivore's Dilemma and Barbara Kingsolver Animal, Vegetable, Miracle)
I am finding that I am becoming a locavore and loving every minute of it.

Um, another orange please...

I have not been very conversational as of late, in fact I am a bit of a recluse. There is a show I am in tomorrow and well I may just not go, although I really should go. I just do not feel like dealing with the stress of trying to make conversations and fit into the mold of the group. I do not feel much like fitting into any idea of what I should be. There have been many days where I pull on the same paint stained shorts and an old t-shirt and go paint a study. This is interrupted by some cooking here and there, a walk or a swim. I have been rather indulgent and read an entire fantasy sci-fi book in two days, a mindless pure enjoyment read. I am reluctant to give over this time to any other responsibilities, travels or even the mildest stress. The other day the highlight of this quiet state was finding a very old cherry tree on my walk. I was able to get some of the fruit on the low hanging branches and it was simply delicious. Kissed by the warm evening sun the cherries just sang with their slight tartness, wonderful. The next day they were mostly gone already, rats. So maybe I will muster up some desire to go to the show tomorrow. I have already skipped one show I am in, so perhaps I should dig out for the evening. I just like being invisible, here in the quiet slow days of summer. I can't imagine my absence would even be noticed at all.

Back home again

Ouch they bite!

Grosbec- French for large beak- and now I know why. This guest was not happy about being checked for injury.

I had a house guest last night. A Rose-Breasted Grosbeak fledgling was hopping around the yard. He was really having a tough time getting anywhere and I had found a dead Grosbeak fledgling in the yard earlier in the day. I was debating catching the bird, it is sometimes a tough call. Do you stress the bird, in the effort to give it assistance or do you let nature run its course? I usually always opt on the side of the natural parents and I am a seasoned/licensed wildlife rehabilitator, so I am making an educated guess. After weighing the options, I made the decision to catch, check and overnight the bird. This decision was made after seeing the neighbors cat watching us and the influence of a dead sibling. So I caught him, checked him, fed him (again remember I am trained people, do not attempt this if you are not as you will most certainly kill the bird by trying to force feed it, and not all birds are seed eaters...) and overnighted him comfortably. The next day he was eating well and seemed to get his energy back so I released him into the back yard. Mom came in after about an hour or so and checked on him. He then proceeded to the serviceberry tree and pig out on berries. If you find a fledgling remember that the parents will not just forget their offspring, so make sure it is safe from predators and leave it alone.

Trumpeter Swan

Very often, however, ignorance of the way to learn, more than the effort of learning itself, breaks the spirit of men who are both studious and anxious to do so. So let us explain how we should become learned in this art. The fundamental principle will be that all the steps of learning should be sought from Nature: the means of perfecting our art will be found in diligence, study and application.

Leon Battista Alberti -On Painting

Mute Swan Cygnet

Brant-who is way too far South

If you look at a range map for this species of goose, he should not be in Southern Ontario in July. I guess he decided to not finish his migration this year. Lucky for me, since I have only seen this species once before and I think they are gorgeous.

I have been cleaning and organizing my house like a fiend today. All those things I have been needing to get to, got done today. I always get in these moods when I am restless and I find it difficult to stop working. My mind is quiet like it gets before something changes or happens in my work. I am not sure what that will be and cannot speculate about it. I am trying to sit down in front of the latest study I am working on in hopes of finishing it tonight. I may not, as I am still restless and wanting to do this or that. I cannot settle myself at all. I do have work I should be doing on something important so this is kind of putting it off. Even this little note is an avoidance of my painting. Off I go to try and not find more chores to do this evening.

When I started today a Mourning Cloak butterfly flew down and landed beside me as I sat. He pumped his wings and flew off. I saw so many beautiful sights today, a Brant, many of my all time favorite-Trumpeter Swans, and Red-Necked Grebes. I even managed to sketch the Brant and the swans. I have been sharpening my skills of drawing in the field and taking the results into small painting studies. It has been a bit of a learning curve but I am getting there.
So tonight I say happy fourth of July and sit by the fire with me, listening to frogs and the sounds of fireworks all around.

Nothing more to see here human, step away slowly

...the moment you fall you fly

-Sarah Slean

Sun Drops

You will find the right words
just you wait and see
they'll be falling from the rooftops
on a blossom colored breeze
and the song you need to hear
will be singing through the trees
are you listening?

you are on the right path
you will realize
that the tears will always leave you
with a brighter pair of eyes
and the pain that you've been fighting
is an angel in disguise
it is love and love,
love is wise

There's still time to notice
still time to believe
that a door at last will open
where the darkness used to be
and the paradise you long for
is underneath your feet
what are you running for?
where've you been?

throw you heart into the ocean
throw your heart into the sea
you will find that all the right words
will come out naturally

Prologue by Sarah Slean
from her album The Baroness which is really just great.

To a person uninstructed in natural history, his country or seaside stroll is a walk through a gallery filled with wonderful works of art, nine-tenths of which have their faces turned to the wall.

-Thomas Huxley