Thursday, October 31, 2013

Today's bird.

The little Blue or Fairy Wren is tiny but fierce, he protects his band of wife, daughters and immature  males with a pit bull like tenacity. He is not averse however to skipping the fence into another wren's territory, looking to spread his genes a little wider. The joke is on him thought, while unguarded his wife is known to stray as well! A frequent backyard visitor the wren shelters in bushy shrubs and provides hours of entertainment to those lucky enough to host them.
Not sure if the words would qualify as a haiku but that was the intention!

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Tweet!

A couple more bird stamps. Stamp carving is proving to be addictive, so much so that I have had to sally out to buy more carving medium.
The admonition on the first card "sing every chance you get" is something I seriously believe despite having a singing voice that closely resembles someone using a saw. Singing cheers the heart and it is difficult to be miserable if you sing, hum or whistle a tune.
I am particularly prone to "earworms", those repetitive phrases or snatches of song that pester you for hours, demanding that you vocalize them. I sometimes wonder if the fact that I suffer from tinnitus makes me prey to them. In any case it does help to belt out the occasional tune (first clearing the area of sensitive souls).

The little skinny shore bird occupies his own special niche in nature, just as we all do.


Monday, October 28, 2013

Anybody out there?

Naughty me, letting the real world eclipse my cyber world but it is back to business now that we're settled into the new digs.
Life here is unbelievably interesting and having lived in the semi 'burbs for ten plus years I am loving all of the activity going on around me. Ships in, ships out, fun runs along the waterfront, a constant parade of people strolling along the boardwalk and the merry chatter of diners in the restaurants below in our building. Thankfully the noise doesn't annoy me as many of my friends have predicted it would, they are happy noises although the party two floors down was a worry on Saturday night, it shut down at the civilized time of 11pm.
Our state has been ravaged by bushfires for the past couple of weeks and the air is thick with smoke, not good for the dodgy lung people but I can always close the doors and put on the aircon, so lucky we can do that.
One of the lovely things about living on the fourth floor is that we see "eye to eye" with the birds  and fruit bats that fly by. Maybe that is why I have decided to carve bird stamps. The birds here are mainly sea birds but the ones I am carving are rather generic at the moment,  not sure where I'm are going with it but fun to do anyway.
I love the cheeky poem, thank you Philip de Vos.

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Boo!

Back again and it is nearly that time again, the time that dentists love, Hallowe'en. The usual stamp, firstly for my brother who likes this kind of stuff (attested by the large tattoo in Gothic script on his forearm) and whose birthday falls on Nov 2 the day Mexico celebrates the Day of the Dead. Secondly for my correspondents in California who also observe the day and thirdly, well, just because!
I did think of using a line from the old spiritual "Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones but went with something that would round up all the ideas about Hallowe'en.
Don't eat too many lollies (candy, sweets)!

Monday, October 7, 2013

A door closes and a sliding one opens...

To my lovely new view!

Well, we are in the new place and it looks like it will suit us just fine. The only thing left to do is to hang the paintings and sit back and enjoy.
Amidst the madness of the big move I did find time to sit down and carve this stamp. (I find stamp carving to be a very calming activity). I thought the image and quote were very appropriate, we have left behind my big fishpond and the week has been a frenzy of cleaning the old place and painting the  new so I made the stamp to send on an etegami to the two mates, Betty and Jan (remember Jan? she bakes) who pitched in and helped us with the final clean up of the old place.