Kestrel News

picture credit: dilmanns.com

This is a kestrel and we have a kestrel nesting box in our yard.  Last year we had a pair that had 4 babies.  That was pretty neat and we hoped for it to happen again. This year they came to the nest and layed eggs and then we found the female with a broken wing.  We ended up taking her to fish&game.  They will repair the wing and then release her.  We didn't know if the male would be able to hatch the eggs or not. We looked in the box last week and found a mess. There were 4 eggs and a dead starling in the box.  This is what we think happened.  The starling entered box, killed the kestrel eggs and laid some of her own.  Then the kestrel came back and killed the starling.  A sad story for sure. The starling eggs are like a stone.  

Here they are in a nest I had. I put them in it just to take the picture. I am hoping that a new pair of kestrels will set up base here next year.

Good news on the health front, finally. Yesterday was not good, I was feeling dizzy so I went back to the Doctors and my BP was 80/50. That is pretty low for a person with high blood pressure. I stopped taking my meds and went back today and it was 110/73 which is much better. So now I am going to stay off the meds till after the holiday and see what happens. Low blood pressure makes you really tired and you don't feel like doing anything. Other good news is that my blood sugar has gone down. That is something I have been working on so I am happy about that. It feels great to have some energy back.

I am in a cleaning organizing de-cluttering mode right now. I have my weaving room half done so I am anxious to get back to it

Wishcasting Wednesday - What do you wish to take a break from

Today Jamie of Jamie Ridler Studios asks us What do you wish to take a break from?


I always like to go with my first thoughts on this one but decided to mull over the subject a little before settling on what I need a break from. It could have been worry or my to do list or any of a million other things. I have settled on health problems. I talked about problems with my feet before but I have also had problems with my blood pressure and then there is the arthritis I have in my index finger and the issue with losing weight and so forth. I don't talk about it because I don't want to create even more of it in my life. I definitely would like to take a break from it all. I'd love to just get up in the morning with boundless energy and be able to do whatever it is I choose with a healthy body and mind.

To see what others are wishing or to take part yourself you can go here.

Some More Benches

I took a break this morning at the greenbelt to write my morning pages. I sat on the blue bird bench and then thought I would take pictures of some benches nearby. The Appaloosa was very shaded so it is not a very good picture.

Here he is from the other side. I think its a he because my neighbor has an appaloosa and his horse is a he.  I know strange logic.

Next are the canadian geese benches. They are only big enough for one person or perhaps two kids.
You can only see two here but there are three of them.

It wasn't the best  time to be taking pictures but here is one of the geese close up.

With a closer look I discovered water in the seat, so no I didn't sit there. They don't look very comfortable to me. I think they are for kids.

Sunday Sketches

This is my drawing for Sunday Sketches. It was drawn in a moleskine watercolor journal. I started it a week ago and finished it up today. I used Pitt artist pens in black and grey. It is from a drawing I did of a raven previoiusly. I just traced the image, added details and then all the patterns. I think with the rings around his eyes he looks sort of fierce.

To see what other sketchers are doing go on over to Blue Chair Diary and check them out.

My Baby is 23

Its my little girls birthday today. Well maybe she is not so little anymore. She was sitting on the couch making the finishing touches to the kindle cover she crocheted yesterday, when I snapped this picture. It hard to believe its been 23 years since I became a mother. So far the best years of my life. Happy Birthday Sarah!

We are headed out to Red Robin for burgers. That is where Sarah wanted to go. We won't have dessert there because I have made my Dad's cheesecake with blackberry sauce to go on top. It will be yummy.

Have a great weekend everyone.

International Faerie Day

I haven't been doing any art lately so today I just went into the studio even before breakfast and played in my srt journal. Since today is International Faerie Day it seemed appropriate to have a page for it. I looked hard for some faerie paper to use for the page. I knew I used to have some but I couldn't find it, so I dug out some of my stamps and played with them instead. Perhaps we should all go out at twilight and look for faeries tonight.

If your in the mood for faerie stories, I loved Laini Taylors two faerie books, Faeries of Dreamdark and Silksinger.  Or you could try Faery Rebels by RJ Anderson. It is also a good story, along with the sequels Wayfarer and Arrow.

This started with the Laurel Burch tag from a tote bag I had bought. I loved it on the black gesso so I just pulled some papers out to match the colors of the cats. Both of these papers were tyvek I had painted on. I was amazed how weel white gel pens work on black gesso.  I wish they worked as well on all surfaces.

It's Coming Up Feathers Around Here

I saw this tutorial on making feathers and I just had to play. Its from a blog called Todolwen.  If you look on her sidebar she has lots of other fun tutorials that you might want to check out.  I just love it when I find things like this on the net.

On this first one I  followed the instructions and made one out of old music pages. I couldn't make just one so on the next one I started experimenting.

I made the feather smaller and added some stamping ink and tried to make it look like a real feather. I didn't use the template, just drew a feather and I think it turned out fine.

Then  I made another striped feather and added some circle with white gel pen to make it look like a great horned owl feather.

Then I went for color, this feather is made with old book pages and then I added stamping ink in several colors.

Then I tried a red one.  This is from music pages and its much smaller than the others.  I had a tiny piece of wire left that I wanted to use up.

Here are all the feathers I made. When you see them all together you can see the different sizes,  The first one I made I doubled the wire like in the instructions but in all the others I used a single strand of wire and it worked out fine. These are so easy to make and can be addicting, I am not sure what I will do with them all but they are fun.

An Awesome Video

This is a TED talk you may know of or not, I heard about it from Jamie Ridler and it really is wonderful so I thought I would share it with you today. Its long but well worth watching.

Happy Fathers Day to all the dads out there.