Art Interrupted by Spring


I have been busy working away at the green jays with the wisteria and have the two birds pretty much done. W may be harder is figuring out how much of the background to include. I want to keep the rest of it quite a bit lighter to avoid having it compete with the birds.
In the meantime, spring is knocking at the door. That brings some pleasant interruptions including an early morning visit to a friend's to take some photos of the birds that flock to their house. She keeps dry dog food available in big tubs outdoors and the birds love it. I got some photos of the cardinals, green jays, brown thrasher and Audubon's orioles.

My corn plant is blooming! I've had this happen with 2 other corn plants (Dracaena Massangeana), but believe it is rather rare. The flowers take a while to develop and open, but when they do, it is very fragrant. I was disappointed at first, because the flower stalks (there are 2 on this plant!) had gotten quite large with no fragrance at all. Last night,
when I walked into the room, I detected the fragrance and upon inspection saw that the tiny buds were opening and releasing the aroma. The scent is very reminiscent of the hyacinths I had blooming a couple of weeks ago.
We have had no measurable rainfall since August, so it amazes me that anything is blooming outdoors. The grass is parched dry, but the plants insist on budding out anyway. The lemon has buds on it and the pomegranates are putting out little leaves. It is encouraging to see that the seasons continue despite the hardships.
As much as I enjoy spring, there are a few things that I could do without. Last year the swallows built nests on the light fixtures on the back porch. I think the swallows are beautiful and enjoy seeing and hearing them, but the nest-building made a huge mess! The mud droppings were all over the floor and my hubby had to use a power washer to remove the mess. I decided to buy some rubber snakes to wrap around the light fixtures, thinking that would keep the birds away. Around 4:30 this morning, I let my dogs out before my walk and in the blink of an eye, Hannah had been sprayed by a skunk! I had to cancel my morning walk to give her a bath in the deskunk concoction that I learned about after 2 encounters last summer. To add insult to injury, while saturating Hannah with the deoderizer, I noticed a commotion near the ceiling of the porch. Wouldn't you know, the swallows were merrily perched on the green rubber snake wrapped around the light fixture!
And so starts my day. Hopefully, I will get back to my artwork soon enough!

All the best ~ Linda

Comments

  1. SILVERMarch 10, 2009 at 10:18 AM

    just came by to check out what you've been keeping yourself busy lately.. oh, i love these plant pic. so pretty and delightful.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousMarch 10, 2009 at 10:28 AM

    Lovely birds, Linda!

    Poor Hannah! I am hoping we can avoid skunks this year.
    I've never seen a corn plant bloom. I'd love to smell that sweet aroma. I think I need to move south. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jeannette StGMarch 13, 2009 at 2:36 AM

    Wow, seems like a day with many distractions - if I could only back to painting is what I think on a day like that - love the way the birds are perched in front of the wisteria.
    (We have wisteria in our yard, that is just starting to bloom right now.) Sometimes the background is harder, when the focus of interest is so successful :) Good luck with it!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Linda MahoneyMarch 13, 2009 at 6:57 AM

    Caramba! I have finally admitted defeat and will start over again on this one. At least I learn something no matter whether the result is successful or not. I'll post later about what I learned NOT to do. I'm just aggravated I've used up almost 2 weeks of work time. Maybe I will cut the jays out and use them on something else. Now I need to order more pencils. In the meantime, I'll start some other project. Thanks for the kind words of encouragement. I wish I had wisteria in my yard, jeanette!

    ReplyDelete

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