Turkey Attack

I was taking my son to a dental appointment when we saw two wild turkeys in a parking lot in the middle of the city. When I stopped the car they ran to us, circled the car and pecked at it (probably seeing their reflections)

The Candler Oak

A live oak is a species of oak that keeps it’s leaves during the winter months. The live oak pictured is the famous Candler Oak in Savannah, Georgia which was planted in the 1700s.

Helen Terry Marshall, A Christmas Connection

My mother-in-law was de-cluttering her house some years ago and gave me this painting which I thought was fun. More recently, I tried to read the signature and find out more about the artist. I knew the artist was from Little Rock, Arkansas. I found out that the painter was Helen Terry Marshall who died at age 98 in 2007. I could not find other examples of her art on the internet, but one interesting fact (here comes the Christmas connection): her son, Fred Calvin Marshall was a jazz musician in the Vince Guaraldi trio and played the bass in the original soundtrack of A Charlie Brown Christmas which aired on PBS a few nights ago.

Bottle Feeding Calves

I was “down on the farm” last week and got to bottle-feed two orphan calves, Lightning and Thunder. Lightning’s mother was hit by lightning out in the field. Thunder was his mom’s first calf and she refused to feed him.

Ekphrasis for Yayoi Kusama

An ekphrasis is a poem describing a piece of art such as a painting or a statue. Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese contemporary artist. I loved her sculpture of a flower and wrote an ekphrasis about it.

Yayoi’s Flower in the Woods at Crystal Bridges

lime-green serpent stem

red/white polk-a-dot petalsYayoi Kusama flower

Please Feed Me, Seymour

Wonderland, Wonka, Whoville

A Technicolor Triffid

Fungus Schmungus #3

This mushroom was growing on a dead tree in my daughter’s yard. The scientific name is Sarcodontia crocea. Sarco means “flesh.” dontia means “teeth.” crocea means “yellow.”