Rainy California Visit

It rained my entire visit to southern California. My flights in both directions were late. On my return, part of the baggage machinery broke down and it took an additional twenty minutes to get my bags. And then it poured last night here in Arizona. However, I am home and sleeping in my own bed. There is no place like home!!!

In California, my mom, sister and I baked cookies and cakes all day Sunday. Here is a picture of mom hard at work. 

 

We had a great time making and sampling our products. Monday, we took mom shopping and watched a movie. We had fillet mignon for dinner that I cooked. As many of you know, my husband does almost all the cooking in our house since he retired. 

As I was typing this post, the cookies I put in the oven almost burned beyond recognition. I set the timer for 45 minutes and came into the studio to write this post. I had the clothes dryer on which is between the studio and the kitchen. Ali was making chestnut soup for dinner. This was a new recipe from book his Austrian friend sent him on Trieste. 

The timer went off for the cookies and he just ignored it. I did not hear it because of the clothes dryer.When I came into the kitchen for dinner I remembered the cookies. The other rim is burnt, but the inside is okay. The soup was just okay. Ali did not like it and did not even finish it. So we joked about our two cooking fiascoes over dinner. Better that then cry!!!!

Florida Bird Safari

Last week, my husband and I went to Florida to visit the Everglades and the Keys. In reviewing all of the 351 photos I took, I decided that I would characterize them by topics. The first topic is birds. While we did not see any bald eagles, we did same some amazing birds. First, were the birds we saw on the beaches on our trip from Tampa to the Everglades.

Next were the birds we saw in the Everglades while on a boat trip through the coastal mangroves.

As we traveled down a creek in the mangroves, we kept starling many of these white birds from their sanctuary, as depicted in the next photo. This was an awesome adventure.

The next bird is an Anhinga. They have no oil on their wings, so they have to dry them in the sun after diving into the water for food. Their feathers are beautiful.

We next visited the "River of Grass." While walking on boardwalks we saw a blue heron and other friends.

All of these ducks had eyes that were this gorgeous green-blue color. I was amazed!

                                         

Then we drove down to the keys. In Key Largo we had lunch on a boat dock. While there, this great white heron also came by for some lunch.

This small sea bird was not very happy with the heron.

When we arrived in Key West, I noticed that free range roosters and hens just wandering the streets. Check out this color guy!

I leave for California tomorrow to visit my mother and sister. Rayna, I will post some non-bird pictures when I return next week.

Mix Media Wood Collages

Yesterday, I finished five mix media collages mounted on wood. I am getting ready for the Wild Women Artists Trunk Show which is scheduled for this Sunday. I will be selling my dyed clothes, dyed scarves, mix media collages, and cell phone purses.

Four of mix media collages contain fabrics that I have colored either with dyes and/or fabric paint. A variety of techniques were used to created the interesting textures on these fabrics. The first two collages were mounted on solidly painted wood panels.

I decided to get a little creative with the painting of the wood panels for the next two fabric collages. I just love to paint. 

The fifth collage was made using colored tissue paper that was torn into pieces and glued together with a mixture of elmer's glue and water to form a new sheet of paper. I plan to do some more with this technique. Texture was created on both the paper and the wood panel by applying gold metallic paint with a large holed sponge.