Wild Cucumber

Autumn colours and a wild cucumber . . .



. . . and a bit of early morning computer manipulations.

Last Weeks Flowers

Below are three of 133 wild flower species that we found in bloom last week. Have a look at my wild flower web site for the list of other flowers if you wish.

Berries Again

Oops, "tomorrow" was busier than I expected. Here is another photo of the same berries. It is still close up with the berries looking much larger than life.



These are the berries of the False Solomon's Seal (Maianthemum racemosa).

Berries

I am leaving these berries unidentified for the moment. Feel free to give a guess. They are much larger than life size in this photo. I'll put up the rest of the photo tomorrow.

My Grandfather's Photos

Here are two vintage photos reconstructed from my grandfather's old negatives.



This may be my grandfather's sister or maybe not. I doubt that any alive can tell now. In any case, it was said, by my grandfather, that he had one of the first cars in the county back in earlier Kansas days.



Since my grandfather was a steam engine operator and mechanic, he would have enjoyed seeing and photographing this machine at the local county fair.

Thanks to Kansas Reader for sending me these old negatives a few years ago. Finally I figured out how to reconstruct them.

Art Show/Sale over for another year

We made it through the show and sale and it was more show than sale but still fun. As people approached our barn, they saw one of Églantine's large canvases on the upper barn door.



When they came into the barn, the first walls were covered with photos from Malta by Églantine and me.



Here is one of our younger visitors having a look at a painting or two.



We are hoping that some people will get back to us to buy some of the works but if not, we will move on to new things. I think I will soon start painting over some of my older works and cutting up others for collage.

Photo Play

There's not been much time for blogging with all the art show preparation. Below is one of the items that I've just put together for the show. It was a digital photo that I took apart with the computer, printed on nine separate sheets and then pasted onto a large mat for a David Hockney type of print.



I've done this with one other photo so I have two large prints to go with several smaller prints of photos that I took in Malta last spring.

Busy!

Art Sale Item

Well, the art show & sale are starting to take over my life. I hope I have time to blog a little in the next ten days. Probably very little. Here is one item I was working on today. It is a unfired clay face.



I am adding colour by mixing acrylic paint with car wax instead of water. Most of the paint is applied by hand with a cloth, but a brush is used at times to get into smaller places. At this time, 9:00 p.m., I have applied four different colours but the photo is from this morning when I only had one. More photos will follow tomorrow.

Art Show & Sale

Our yearly art show and sale will be in two weeks on the 16th and 17th of September. It's way past time for me to start cleaning up the barn, where the show takes place, and getting my art items together. I did finally start today. Below is a computer-manipulated photomontage that I printed out to frame.



Églantine is putting in this abstract, acrylic painting.



Our friend, Arlene, is putting in this acrylic painting.



I will have a web page up with these and other works by tomorrow I hope. (I've been trying all afternoon to upload the page to my web site with no luck. Not only that, my wildflower web page is also down for some reason. Sigh!)

A Snake Story

So, I was wandering along looking for wild flower as usual and found a neat thistle that I was setting up to photograph when another photographer wandered by and stopped to watch and look at my camera. As we were chatting, he suddenly said, "Look! There's a snake on that stump."



As we watched, and got out camera focused, the snake slowly crawled further up on the stump and started his way across. There was a caterpillar also crawling on the stump and we waited for the snake to help himself, but he ignored it and slithered over to a spot where I could not see him. I continued to chat and moved my camera back to the thistle when my new friend again said, "Look, the snake has a frog." Close, it was a toad.



While we watched, and clicked away with our cameras from different angles, the snake slowly worked the toad into its mouth. (Must be hard work swallowing something bigger than your head.)



The snake finally got the toad mostly inside and left the area while we congratulated ourselves on being at the right place at the right time for some neat photos.




Some of you may be glad to see more sculptures tomorrow.

To the person who sent me a correction on an earlier post, I have changed the word in question. A native dancer dresses in "regalia" not a "costume" as I wrote before. My error! Sorry about that.