February Sunrise with Avian Surprise

February sunrises paint the sky in layers of lovely soft lavenders and mauves. Our steady wobbling and tilting towards the sun gives us a few more minutes of light each day. We are happy for it. 

The Mount Holyoke range reclines beneath purple pastel washes, shadows and fuzzy lines.

A delightful surprise perching within one of our strong oaks. A pair of Red-tailed Hawks. I see these stately raptors, sometimes daily, resting high in the upper limbs but never before two at a time. Looking out the barn studio windows at just the right moment often brings such joyous sightings.

The five year mark just flew by for my Flower Hill Farm blog, and as it turns five years old there are changes going on behind the scenes. Our new website will hopefully be launched soon. Working with my builder is a lot of work and a great distraction, which is why there are not as many postings here of late. It is exciting too, and I look forward to sharing it soon. 

Meanwhile, best wishes for an inspiring February. 

A Winter Focus ~ Cedar Waxwing Ornaments and Long Nights Moon

The nakedness of winter's landscape can sometimes seem cold and lonely, when suddenly, whoosh, all together in flight, a flash of fluttering life lifts the spirit high towards outermost tips of a beloved Black Cherry tree. Offering light and enchantment to the lucky viewer, a flock, an 'ear-full', a 'museum' of over sixty Cedar Waxwings alight, sprinkled along the top of the skeletal cherry canopy, resembling delicate ornaments bedecking leafless limbs. 

A closer focus reveals hints of waxwing antics, patterns and forms. A group that may rest and then be off together, a burst of beaks, trebles and feathers, winging through the crisp air down to our crabapple orchard.

Surrounded by colors of autumn and captured through glass, so as not to frighten the timorous Cedar Waxwing, I cannot quite focus the bright yellow tip of its tail or the yellow wash covering its downy belly. Tiny apples are hanging temptations, little-bitty baubles, winter apples waiting to be plucked. Only these are nourishing . . . vital winter food for the waxwings, robins and wild turkeys too.

Every inch of branch, twig and dried stalk, wearing icy snow-coats all across the fields, groan of winter's beauty. 

During a storm . . .

After a partly sunny day . . . snowy mantles melt away.

Into wonder of long black nights, native cherry, charcoal raven touching crumbling cerulean sky, tickling the 'Full Cold Moon'. A joyous interlude between dark and light.

Rising up from swirling surf of clouds, following the setting sun, the 'Long Nights Moon' sails across the painted pastel sky.

Night folds us into our dreams until daybreak, shattering the dark, while scattering light and soft puffs of rosy pink, awakens a new day. An old, softened mountain slumbers still beneath a mantle of lavender smog, as days, nights and solstices dissolve one into the other.

Dreamy underwater illusions, a world of sediments worn down over millenniums, torrents of lava flows from time and crust torn apart. A deep plentiful supply filling an ancient tectonic rift . . . pressure forced up molding forms Native American-like silhouette looking up longingly, for millions of year, towards the sky. A segment of the Metacomet Ridge, of the Mount Holyoke Range dreaming since days of dinosaurs, within my view.

Presently, with placid anticipation, life moves through a calendar of months making what it can of each. Filling the hours minute by minute, spilling seconds by the spoonfuls. It is all over in a wink.

Winter Solstice 2013 is marked on our calendars for tomorrow December 21st, for those of us in the northern hemisphere, the exact moment is never certain, when the shortest day will give birth to the longest night of the year. After a few days, we will note the lengthening of light, as a rebirth, a celebration of our sun, leads us deeper into winter. Peace and Goodwill and Good Day to All.

Flower Hill Farm Butterflies of 2012 ~ American Copper

The teeny tiny American Copper (Lycaena phlaeas) packs a sizable palette for one so small.   I was happy to find this little butterfly sunning in the south field back in May of 2012. Its wingspan is only 7/8 x 1 1/8 . . . a delicate, miniature, ephemeral painting belonging to the Gossamer-wings family . . . offering distinctive marks and textures that one can identify but never own. However, photos and happy memories are filed, of a late may day, walking in the south field along side a fragile, yet plentiful living jewel. 

We might pause before pulling out all of the invasive Sheep Sorrels or Curly Dock of the Rumex family growing in our gardens and meadows. I am sure to examine plants carefully before composting them in hopes of finding eggs or caterpillars of this lively and vibrant butterfly. Stands of sorrel are left to grow along the south field paths . . .  in honor of American Coppers.

The American Copper butterflies are on the wing or in varying stages of metamorphosis from mid May through the middle of September. They overwinter here in their chrysalis stage or as the Massachusetts Butterfly Club's great website mentions ~ in half grown Larva state.

It stimulates the imagination, to consider life waiting beneath heavy blankets of snow now filling our Western Massachusetts gardens, fields and forest . . . and as far as the eye can see, lightly coating every twig and tree. Hemerocallis sleep within a deep frost . . . waiting to feel alive again.
Color will run riot in just a couple of months, but for now, just outside our windows and doors the dawning sun paints the sky, clouds and mist ethereal hues of lavender and pink.

March continues to hold fast to winter's quiet and cold beauty. 

Bluebirds are patiently guarding their house, while the Mount Holyoke Range sits shrouded in pink mist. 

Spring seems content to stay away for now . . . I shall have to visit 'early spring' at the Lyman Conservatory on the Smith College campus just fifteen minutes away down in the neighboring town of Northampton, where visitors can inhale an elixir of hyacinths and other flowering bulbs of their Spring Bulb Show.

Colors ~ Sunrise Sky 'Intuitive Palette' ~ Painting Workshop ~ Provincetown Art Association and Museum

"The whole world, as we experience it visually, comes to us through the mystic realm of color. Our entire being is nourished by it. This mystic quality of color should likewise find expression in a work of art." 

Hans Hofmann

"My aim in painting is to create pulsating, luminous, and open surfaces that emanate a mystic light, in accordance with my deepest insight into the experience of life and nature." 

Hans Hofmann

"Colors must fit together as pieces in a puzzle or cogs in a wheel." Hans Hofmann

"Color is a plastic means of creating intervals . . . color harmonics produced by special relationships, or tensions. We differentiate now between formal tensions and color tensions, just as we differentiate in music between counterpoint and harmony."    Hans Hofmann

"Being inexhaustible, life and nature are a constant stimulus for a creative mind." Hans Hofmann

Beginning . . .  First day~ Color Workshop with Robert Henry Provincetown Art Association and Museum 

It is not the form that dictates the color, but the color that brings out the form." Hans Hofmann

Still only a beginning ~ Second Day ~ Color Workshop with Robert Henry Provincetown Art Association and Museum

"An idea can only be materialized with the help of a medium of expression, the inherent qualities of which must be surely sensed and understood in order to become the carrier of an idea." Hans Hofmann

Beginning . . . Third day ~ Color Workshop with Robert Henry Provincetown Art Association and Museum

"When the impulses which stir us to profound emotion are integrated with the medium of expression, every interview of the soul may become art. This is contingent upon mastery of the medium." 

Hans Hofmann

"In nature, light creates the color. In the picture, color creates the light." Hans Hofmann

Pieces of the sunrise sky ~ Left photo below

In March I had the great privilege of attending a painting workshop at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum taught by a former student of Hans Hofmann.
Robert Henry is a fabulous artist/painter/teacher whose relaxed and generous teaching style made the three day color workshop so rewarding.
I begin each day by stepping out of our cottage and standing on the dunes of North Truro bathed by the light and colors of the sunrise and ocean. Later, after lunch, I enter the museum painting studio and apply paint to canvas, while Bob shares his vast knowledge and interpretations of color. Three hours or so later I am feeling, thinking, seeing, sensing and cleaning color off my brushes . . . then back in nature with J. walking, exploring, dining and once again bathing in the vibrant colors of the sun as it vanishes beyond the ocean.
It had not occurred to me, until I began assembling this piece together, that the colors of the sunrise were intuitively chosen by me for the palette of my small paintings.
I have such a long journey to "master the medium". . .  though it is often a struggle, the process is ever enriching. 

Pieces of the sunrise sky ~ right photo above 

I published a post on the amazing Right whales off of Race Point Lighthouse over at Focusing On Wildlife. It was truly a spectacular event!

Meanwhile out in the gardens and sky here at Flower Hill Farm . . .

In keeping with our color theme . . . here is a glimpse of BLUE ~ a peek at a future posting.
The male and female bluebirds are busy guarding and building their nest.
The middle photo is the female and the far right is of the male. The female bluebird's head is not quite the intensity of blue found in the male bluebird. The greens and grays in the background enhance the colors intensity.
What would you call this blue? Cobalt, Ultramarine or Cerulean?
It does not come out of a tube for sure.
If you click on this photograph you can see the colors more vividly.

Hanging in a blue sky April's full moon is known as the Full Pink Moon (grass pink or ground phlox) or 'sprouting grass moon' . . . Native Americans along the coast call it Full Fish Moon, in honor of shad returning to streams to spawn. The first full moon of spring is also known as the Paschal Full Moon.
Passover or Easter . . . whichever you celebrate (or perhaps another ritual) . . . I hope it was a good time with family and friends.
May light fall through your prisms . . . may color inspire and warm your heart . . . may there be double rainbows after soaking storms.
I gladly dance beneath the moon for rain.
Peace.

Flower Hill Farm BUTTERFLIES OF 2011 ~ Mourning Cloak and Red Admiral

Mourning Cloak Nymphalis antiopa is the first butterfly to appear in April here at Flower Hill Farm. It hibernates as an adult and will awaken sometimes earlier, when the temperatures rise and stay warmer for days . . .  as they often do in March.
They might crawl out from under a piece of bark or out of a small hollow opening in a tree.
I was surprised to learn that a Mourning Cloak butterfly can live up to ten months.
This male or female is perched on the ground and as you can see, there is hardly a sprout of green up yet. 

Mourning Cloak butterflies lay their eggs in such a way as might alarm those who care for their preferred host trees or shrubs. Their off-white ribbed eggs are fastened in large numbers of up to 250 placed often in rings around the main stems of host plants or trees. They prefer willows, poplars and birches but will also feed on maples, ash, roses and other trees and shrubs.
The caterpillars remain together chomping on the leaves and it may cause a most unaesthetic appearance for a small time, but the tree or shrub will not die from these native caterpillars that must not be confused with the invasive non-native gypsy moth caterpillars.

Red Admiral Vanessa atalanta is also a migratory species like its cousin the American Painted Lady. I rarely see one of these lovely creatures. This May portrait is the only capture I have made, and it, sadly, is not a very good one.
If the migrating period is a success and you have nettles growing about your land or gardens, you might just have a visit from a Red Admiral . . . once referred to as Red Admirable.
Here on our hillside, these butterflies will lay a single egg, finely crafted into an exquisite green dome, upon the leaves of a variety of New England nettles. The caterpillars fasten the outer edges of a leaf together with silk and feed within the protected enclosure.
It will also make its chrysalis using this method . . .  hidden within the last leaf it folds. When it emerges as a butterfly, its sustenance tastes vary greatly from tree sap to decaying fruits and excrement. As my photo reveals, these butterflies also indulge in sipping nectar from flowers.
This Red Admiral might be a male that has migrated up from the south and has yet to find his mate. I truly have no knowledge for identifying the male from the female. Males will find a good look-out perch to wait and eye an area for a female. After three generations here the fall butterflies will again fly south but there is not enough research to know of their successful migration flights to a warmer climate. We know so much about the Monarchs migration, so hopefully more research will result in understanding these beautiful butterflies too.
You might help by going to the link above and sharing your information. 

Winter is a time for watching the sun and noting the remarkable turning and tilting of our earth, as we notice the sunrise moving from south to north painting brilliant sky paintings as it goes.

The Winter Solstice . . . around the time of the photograph above . . . and the Summer Solstice . . . close to the time of the photograph below . . . mark the times when the sun has climbed to its lowest and highest positions in the sky. The shortest and the longest days of sunlight occur on the solstices. 

Sunrise over the northern part of Walnut and Carey hill nearly one month after the Summer Solstice.

Now, the sun is spilling a wash of light stretching longer each day, as it continues to move farther away from the Winter Solstice towards the Spring Equinox, where light will be equal to night and onto the longest day with Summer Solstice.
These images showcase a few minutes as the sun rises over Walnut hill a few days ago. It is a winter ritual to stand and watch this new beginning and celebrate the amazing brilliance of color splashed across the clouds and sky.

You can still see the edge of blue belonging to the Mount Holyoke range in the bottom right corner of the photo above.
 In December the sun was rising more to the right, directly over the Mount Holyoke Range, as seen in the photo further above . . .  just below the Red Admiral photograph.
Now in March, the sun is cresting more to the north and left . . . climbing over the southern part of Walnut Hill.

We are in that time of year that is akin to a bucket filled with uncertainty like piling a stack of wood in the dark and when placing the last few small logs the entire pile tumbles down. You might believe you could feel your way through anything . . . but March, with the fluctuating degrees of chill and heat, can drag you down at times . . .  casting off a sudden six inches of snow that soon turns to hard packed ice.
The waxing moon pulls the mercury in the thermometers down into the single digits.
This years rising and falling of temperatures has been kind to our Maple Sugar Industry here in Western Massachusetts. It has been an early and lasting season so far, according to my friend and neighbor Roger (seen above in a 2010 photo - today we have much more snow.)
The sweet sap is running and before long spring will have her say and kindly bid farewell to winter . . . until another day.
Old man winter does so like to tease and may step back into the waking landscape with its frosty touch.
Hopefully Mourning Cloak butterflies will not be caught without their antifreeze!