Good news! I just posted the Irish Soda Bread recipe at I Live on a Farm dot com. Hope you have some this weekend!
Just a few minutes ago I was out with Blu having one of our morning walks about the farm, when I heard the loud voices of Canadian geese speak up over by the corn behind our willow tree. I took Blu back in the house and grabbed my camera, with a good zoom lens on it, and went back out to see if I could grab some shots of the geese.
It was interesting to observe the various stages of their alertness and reaction to me. I have to admit, I would have looked strange even to humans because I was wearing jeans, my dark green fleece robe, my black "puffy coat" (J. Crew down--it was below freezing), my big black Sorell boots, and a pretty handmade hat. When duty calls, you just grab whatever it takes to keep warm and head outside, whether it is to take the puppy out for his business or to try to capture some wild geese on "film".
At first, as I slowly drew near, they merely turned a bit away and started walking casually toward the corn. They weren't saying anything, just casually moving a bit to keep their distance from me. When I was looking through the photos, that first one at the top of today's post reminded of the movie, "Field of Dreams" ... baseball players walking out of the corn.
At some point I was a bit too close for comfort, though honestly quite far away and very slow moving because of my strange wardrobe weighing me down. Nonetheless, they raised their voices in alarm, and up they went.
I loved the sound of their wings beating the air as they took refuge where they were certain I could not go ... up.
I hope these photos are a visual treat for you, dear reader. This opportunity I have to shoot some photos quickly, get them into my computer, and then live to you when the moment is so fresh is exhilarating.
Thank you all so very much for the tremendous support and friendship you expressed in comments to my last post. This is an exciting adventure, and I look forward to finding where all it leads us ... together.
Quite a few commenters mentioned they wished they could own a piece of my art, but that finances don't allow it right now. I have some ideas that might help make that happen. First of all, I put up a watercolor painting at eBay yesterday as well as on my One Painting a Day blog. It is an Easter Lily I painted in 2005; around the time my oldest brother passed away. It is about 15" x 22", and I put it up for a very low opening bid of only $10. There is no reserve and no "Buy it Now" price. My thought is that at least someone who reads my blog will have a chance to have one of my paintings for who knows what price ... perhaps something affordable. I also have been gathering pieces of wood that have been coming off of our dear old barn. The barn is fragile, unfortunately. I might be able to do something to these small pieces of wood to prevent them from deteriorating further. If so, I plan to experiment with doing very small, quick oil paintings on them. If it all works out, they will be affordable little paintings with a very special significance to the readers of this blog in particular. The first experiment will go on this weekend, so we'll see how it works out. Have a great weekend. ~firefly Copyright © 2006 J.L. Fleckenstein ALL RIGHTS RESERVED