Weekend Accomplishments

It was one of those weekends when several small chores that have been on the chore list for a relatively long time actually got done.  The first chore is something D did for which he'd had to wait for the ground to thaw.  He put up birdhouse #6!  I'm quite excited about this one for several reasons.  First, we found it in D's childhood home, second we like its shape and the colors plus it has a tin roof, and third, it's the first birdhouse in the front of the house.  It stands in the back of the white flower garden behind the white rhododendron that blooms twice a year - in the years that it feels like blooming.  My hope is that it might encourage the robins to nest somewhere other than over our front door light.  The opening for this house is probably too small, but still, I hope.  By the way, did you notice the background?  I mean the leaning oak tree on the right with the counter-leaning fence behind it.  Funny . . . or at least until the fence decides to fall!

A second chore was mine, and it was quite easy.  The difficulty lay in managing to have my camera with me in the morning of a bright day.  I had a tree that I wanted to collect, and there it is (oh, it also had to be when the tree didn't have any leaves).  I suspect this is an oak given the way the branches are growing, but I'm not sure.  Sorry about the power lines, but sometimes one simply can't avoid them.  I needed to be far enough away to get the entire tree and didn't want to encroach on private property.  At first look, it may not look like a very special tree until you look closer.  See the detail below?  This tree has the most wonderful twisted base that continues almost to the top of the house on the left!

 

 

I wish I knew an aborist who might be able to tell me why some trees do this.  As you can see, the tree has no competition and certainly appears to be healthy (just look how tall it is!).  Maybe I can have D ask his bonsai teacher.  Whatever the reason, I now have a wonderful specimen for sketching.

 

Which is something else I did this weekend.  I sketched a solitary waterlily with its leaf/pad that may be my new painting - possibly starting this week - again on that too-large-for-the-computer-to-copy paper.  So I won't say more about it until I find a way to share the sketch.