Saturday, November 30, 2013

30 November 2013 - Family for Thanksgivukkah Part 1

Robin came out a week before Thanksgiving for a long visit.  It was great! She was able to change her flight to come in about the same time I arrived home from Maine. It was quite a surprise when my phone rang while I was waiting for the shuttle to the parking lot to find out she had just arrived as well. 

We spent the first weekend in the shop. I had to finish the August page for the annual Monks and Friars calendar. Robin worked on an impromptu book made completely of found objects in the shop, even including some sorts of type. I'm sorry that I don't have any pictures of it.

I was pretty happy with my page. I used type in a curve for the first time.  It took quite some time to get the type locked up, but it worked!  I also carved a catfish--my second attempt at carving a linoleum block. The page took four passes through the press. That works out to treadling the press 11,200 times. That is probably the reason my hip and/or knee gets sore after a long press run.

Here I am considering my options when I could not get the second run to line up correctly. Then I discovered the type wasn't locked up tightly enough and was about to fall out of the frame. Talk about just in time. Whew!


Robin had never been to Antelope Island and because it is one of my happy places, I dragged her off to the island. That phrase "off to the island again" always makes me think of drinks with umbrellas. Here in late November, it was a bit too chilly for beach drinks, but we had a good time anyway. Because we could, we made a quick stop at Farmington Bay to see if there were any interesting birds. 

The first time I pulled over to look at ducks, Robin looked out her window and saw this little guy right beside the road--a smidge smaller than a tennis ball.  My best guess is a maybe a young muskrat. I will entertain any other ideas. 


It was a pretty hazy day--more smoggy than haze, but it did make it hard to see very far or very clearly. Trying to get pictures was even harder. But there were huge rafts of ducks. This is just a tiny part of the many ducks on the bay.

There were lots of Northern Shovelers, Pintail Ducks, Ruddy Ducks, Western Grebes and Goldeneyes. My guess is there were many others I couldn't see well enough to identify.  I could hear Marsh wrens and see them moving through the reeds. 


But the best part was as we were leaving and we saw a bald eagle sitting in a tree.  

At first I thought he was a golden eagle. He was backlit and with the bare eye and all the haze I couldn't see the white parts until I got him in the zoom. Even then he was far enough away that the camera barely could get him. 

Pretty exciting!






We moved on to Antelope Island.  It never disappoints.

 At a stop on the causeway, Robin ran down to the water to check out the drifts of dead brine shrimp. 

The tumble weeds were still blowing around the island, floating in the lake and otherwise looking picturesque. 



Robin also had to do a head-bump with the sacred white buffalo.

And yes, we did see the real thing. Quite a lot of them, actually. 

You would almost think this guy was the model for the sculpture. 

As usual, the landscape was stunning. No matter what the season is, there is something wonderful to see. 






 
We looked until our eyes hurt. But in all that looking there were some surprises--like a porcupine. At first he looked like a big messy nest in a tree, on a second look we realized he was indeed a porky.  We could only see his butt, but it was spiny. 

We also stopped to watch some large groups of starlings murmurating. When some of them landed in a tree I was ready. 

In the late afternoon the seed heads on the grasses glowed in front of the setting sun.
 





 There is something about the low, southern winter sun that adds a bit of magic to the landscape. Intriguing. Fascinating.

 













All too soon it got dusky and darkness descended as we drove back to the causeway. 









 All three sibs together, cooking and eating too well.  How fun is that? We had decided early on that rather than cook a turkey we would have duck. All of us like dark meat so it seemed like a perfect solution. We also decided not to go overboard with food to keep it simple. Hmm. Simple doesn't mean the same thing to everyone. 

David's idea of simple was two batches of pumpkin bars and a blueberry crisp. Not all at once mind you. 

Robin's idea of simple (?) included making sweet potato latkes to go with the duck. She got David involved in cooking the latkes.

Then later in the week her idea of simple was cooking up some bone marrow for appetizers.

 Here is the marrow, ready to spread on the fingers of toast and then topped with a fresh herb mix. David and I immediately reverted to five years old and were making faces at each other during the process. We should have been relegated to the kids' table, but another surprise? It was delicious!

Since my life is measured out in lyrics, there was nothing for it: I was obliged to sing Eggs, Eggs and Marrow Bones--at least as much of it as I could dredge up. I learned it from one of Pop's Richard Dyer Bennett records years ago. 

My idea of simple involved eating leftovers and not cooking at all.

Robin went foraging in the yard and made the centerpiece.




 


















Several days later, Robin discovered she couldn't stand the idea of not having any turkey at Thanksgiving, so she picked up a several packages of turkey thighs and cooked them. Do you know how big turkey thighs are? I made a double batch of fresh cranberry/orange relish and we totally forgot to eat it. Very odd. I am sure I will find many ways to use to up. 

Robin lit the candles each night and sang the Hebrew blessings. We let them burn down as the three of us played Scrabble and argued fairly good-naturedly over words. I'm still miffed that congo is unacceptable and Robin wants qi added to the two letter word list. When David had an unacceptable word he always was able to make it into something else even better. We each won at least one game.


Wednesday, November 20, 2013

20 November 2013 - Maine fly-by

I have been battling the squirrels in the feeder again. David showed up with a whole new solution!  Even better, it works. Now the squirrels climb the pole and run into the headbanger! Ha. Double ha. I love it. Now the squirrels get to the top, look around sadly then slowly slide back down. 

 
This is a great solution. And the plus is that I have two hooks to hang bird food from now, instead of just one hook on the end of a shepherd's hook. The squirrel lid also works as a platform to put other food out for the birds.  Did I mention how happy I am about this? Very happy. Or in the words of the Duck Commander, "Happy, happy, happy."

Speaking of happy, I noticed my shop guardian one night. How wonderful is this!


I had a very fast trip to Maine and back. It was so fast I almost met myself going on the coming. My plane landed at 4:15 in Portland just as the sun was setting.  I don't think I want to live on the east side of a time zone--I have a hard enough time with it getting dark at 5.  

In ten minutes it went from this:
 to this:
My schedule had me driving from Portland to Waterville in the morning, so for the first time in all my trips there, I actually had some time to wander around the Old Port area.
 
It's a funny thing. So many towns are much alike, not much to distinguish them from each other, but when you are in a city on the water, you know you're not in Kansas anymore.  The weathervane is on the City Hall and the brick edifice is a bell tower on a church.





The chainlink fence along the pier has been turned into a love padlock project called Fence of Love. It started on Valentine's Day and now there are over 300 padlocks. Couples will decorate a padlock with their names and lock them on the fence. If a couple breaks up I wonder if one of them comes back with bolt cutters. Oh, cynical me. But I do love the idea of this as guerrilla art and I'm thinking about where can I start this in SLC?


In the "I love signage" category, here are some of my favorites. 











There are so many kinds of signs to love. Flat, figural, painted, neon and many more.





And a few more in the painted-on-building versions:


Anthoensen Press. What a surprise to see this. It is a legend in fine bookmaking and printing. It was founded in the late 1800s and finally went out of business in 1987 when computers took over the publishing world. Much of their collection is housed at the University of Southern Maine. Now I have yet another reason to go back!

Wow. The old logo. What a delight to see this.











Sunday, November 17, 2013

17 November 2013 - A day along the GSL




 I had a lovely day on the Antelope Island causeway. I went with 10 other people from the Ubird group and not only saw a handful of new-to-me birds, but learned how to identify them too. The purpose of the trip was to look for sea birds and we found them. Here are those added to my life list:


Surf Scoter
Black Scoter
Pintail duck
Long-tailed duck
Northern shrike
Lesser Sandpipers
Bonaparte's Gulls
American Pipits
Rough-legged hawk

Gull is above and Surf Scoters are below. 
 

 It was surreal to be out looking at ducks then realizing you can see hunters out in low boats and hear the shotguns. 



Instead of getting on the freeway to come home, I wandered some of the back roads near the lake while making my way south. Found a few surprises including this metal worker's shop and house. 


 This is the top of his octagonal workshop. 

Below you can see how the sides can roll up and down for ventilation. 

 





The deer in front is not a Christmas decoration covered with lights, but a sculpture made out of metal.




His house was completely metal clad. It looked like the same stuff airstreams are made of, except for the corner that is a fun house mirror.


This will make you laugh--beauty in the eye of--and all that. I thought the flowers were tacky but loved the frog on the roof, the green and yellow sculpture and the metal people. 

But speaking of yard art -- the kind that makes my heart flutter, I was having serious lust over the farm equipment. 





The huge farms that used to surround the lake are rapidly turning into suburbs, but the new homeowners keep pieces of the past as yard ornaments. 

I think I saw 12 or more of these tillers used as decoration in front yards.
Many driveways have post and bar entrances decorated with metal work. I particularly like this one-- the side posts were made from tree trunks with many boles. 















Outfitter ranches often had long strings of pack animals on their bars or fence rails. 

And just in case you thought the romance had disappeared from ranching . . .  or was only still alive in Janet Daily books . . 
the Domar's are here to tell you it is still alive.