Into August

"Prairie Bale - No.1" - Oil Painting - ©Bruce A. Morrison

 

Although this month has half expired, I still think of it as new.  I probably exhaust people with my lamentations of time slipping through our figurative fingers, but in my mind - August just arrived!

I just recently finished a small oil painting of a hay bale in a nearby county area planted to prairie.  It brings about many thoughts to mind.

About 25 years ago I met a farmer down in Larabee, Iowa who had hayed the prairie ground on Steele prairie (Northern Cherokee County) every summer during his youth and younger years. He talked of the amazing flowers and grasses, the Prairie Skinks, and the grassland birds...the ground had never been plowed.

 

It must have been just like the early settlers trying to make due with life on this virgin earth...imagine the smell of the fresh cut prairie vegetation, the sight and sounds of bounty back then!

 

A small plot of county land a couple miles north of us holds nothing quite as dramatic, but when I discovered the prairie planting there had been mowed and baled, I couldn't resist taking some photos and trying an oil painting of one. (SE O'Brien County)

 

Although the haying of prairie 100+ years back would not resemble the round bales of modern farming by any stretch of the imagination - I cannot resist the temptation of images of hay bales in the landscape. The Black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta) flowering around in the recovering native grasses give that hint of those days hearkening back to the pioneer beginnings on the tallgrass.

 

As the painting sits on my easel drying, I contemplate another perhaps...time will tell.

I have been posting fairly regularly on my You Tube Account the past few weeks...one from this week featured Cup Plants while another this week featured Swamp Milkweed.

Feel free to check them out! 

 

Consider subscribing to my You Tube Channel as well!

We seem to go from feast to famine here.  The rain shut off in early July...little over an inch of rain through some very hot and windy weeks.  Georgie has been having to hand water her two gardens, which never works as well as rain.  She has now gone through all 8 rain barrels.  We have no well here.

The pre-Christmas seeding I did on the south pasture has mostly dried up.  I don't know if the heavy spring rain here brought them on too quickly?  But they sprouted upward and had quite an impressive canopy of leaves - really surprised me.  Then the sky turned off and the heat and high winds turned on...now most of the new growth is shriveled and dried up looking.  But that pasture is mostly gravel slope...just drains too well.  I'm of the thought that the early abundance of moisture may have handicapped new plants...hope I'm wrong.

A wet Red-headed Woodpecker appreciates any rain showers as well!

 

We are getting some light showers right now - about time!  So appreciate any rain what-so-ever...

I hope everyone out there is doing well and having had a decent summer so far.  We still have about 5 weeks of it left to enjoy out there - please do!

Be good to one another, we are all in this together!

July Only Comes Once a Year...

 

Red-headed Woodpecker - photograph - ©Bruce A. Morrison

Of course it does!  I guess I'm trying to be metaphorical...or maybe melancholy?  Even I don't know.  Maybe getting older has me thinking about things too much.  I was so used to saying to myself things like "I've got to try and see those next July."  Or maybe "We really should take that trip to (fill in the blank) next summer.  I'm not quite there yet but so many things are now out of my reach - they were great ideas but now no longer in the cards.  Especially things like that long hike or trek I always thought would be great to do...even some places I've long had permission to walk with my camera are beginning to be out of the question any more.  If you haven't reached that place in your life, it is sobering when they confront you, and you realize fully, I shouldn't have kept putting it off.  That is "life".

 

 

Lately, when I'm up to it, I have been trying very hard to take each moment and have fun with it.  When I was younger, I was busy with things that seemed important.  Now I know so much of it wasn't.  And now, everything is (important).

 

Female Eastern Bluebird - photograph - ©Bruce A. Morrison

 

We have had such a fun year with nature here on our little postage stamp sized acreage.  Every day I try and watch and catch things before they pass. 

 

Cottontail Rabbit...rabbits make Georgie crazy! - photograph - ©Bruce A. Morrison

Echinacea angustifolia in our pasture - photograph - ©Bruce A. Morrison

Pearly Crescentspot (Phyciodes tharos) - photograph - ©Bruce A. Morrison

Asclepias tuberosa in the pasture here - photograph - ©Bruce A. Morrison

 

 

Now I haven't caught everything with the camera or easel of course...it's just not possible.  But what I miss stays with us in other ways - the Yellow-billed Cuckoo which calls from high in the grove, we know its there as it sings for us each day.  Then there's the Eastern Wood Pewee that we also hear each day; we do see it "fly catching" from the lower branches around the yard, but often we only hear it talk to us.  

The morning chorus has been amazing.  I used to try and record it with audio equipment in past years...maybe succeeded in a small way but could never do it justice!  Always first seems to be the Robins, then the Catbirds and Mourning Doves, then the Chipping Sparrows and the Orioles and Meadowlarks and Dickcissels, House Wrens, and so many others...sleeping with the windows open is a blessing!

We have noticed those missing this year...we no longer hear the night time calling of Sedge Wrens, and this year no juvenile Great Horned Owls or summer Redtailed Hawks.  Although the Great Blue Herons returned to the Waterman Creek rookery this spring - they abandoned the rookery in June and none raised their young here.

Not every year is the same..some things change, and not always as we'd wish.  Although we still have our ash trees here in the acreage and in the valley out front - there are farmsteads only a 5 minute trip from us that are losing all of theirs as I speak.  We are not far behind. 

But I will try and take in and enjoy in any way I can what is given to us each day as it happens...each day is a gift!  There is so much to see and do and July only comes once a year.

Be good to one another out there - we truly need each other.

After the Solstice

Series of My Favorite Birds (portraits)

color pencil drawings - © Bruce A. Morrison

Its the day after the Winter Solstice as I write - really don't like the days when they get so short! (Day "light", I should say.) But the bright side is day light will begin getting longer again!  There's always a good side to everything!

I had been working on a small series of bird portraits the past month, and have gathered them together here.  The last series I drew were all Sparrow family members - this time I've mixed it up a bit - but I haven't run out of favorite birds to draw yet!  I'm not sure I could ever find enough time to do that.

(Click on image for a larger view)

I just wanted to take a moment to wish everyone out there a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!  Wishing the best for you and yours - hope to see you next year!

 

Thanks for visiting!