Spring Finches

It's so darned nice to see the birds back. This time of year it's the cliff and barn swallows, the goldfinches and their cousins the little purple finches and of course the hummingbirds.

The swallows are so joyful in flight, they are mesmerizing to watch. They build their nests all over our buildings on top of our knoll so we also get to see the babies hatch and learn to fly here. They are constantly zipping around catching insects in flight and I feel like they keep the mosquitoe's at bay for at least awhile.

The finches which normally have plenty to feed on since the grasses grow very heavily here, are sometimes, like this year, a little too early so we subsidize with a thistle feeder and they frequent it heavily. We taper this seed feeding off later in the summer as the natural seeds become abundant.

Here's a look at the feeder with birds. Endlessly fascinating to watch. We had to move it from where we initially placed it - overhanging the bank - because the neighbors cats just got a little too close and a little too interested.

A little rain, a little sun.

I really like these Spring days. Because I do a lot of gardening and landscaping now, I welcome the rain because it means less watering for me. But I like the sun as well because it warms the plants I've just put out and takes the chill away, starts lawn seed germinating and generally makes me feel good.

It has been a few days since I've added here because of my outdoor chores but I thought I'd show you a cute little piece I did called "Watching" it's 8"X10" and is $45.

I'm preparing boards to do monoprint color splashes as starts - one canvas just has the acrylic gesso finish that comes with the canvas, one has an added coat of gesso, and one has 3 coats of absorbent ground which makes the canvas surface act like watercolor paper. I'm going back to trying my initial process to see if I like that better than my texture experiments. I'll let you know.