between-time

Migratory birds are being spotted around town - Trumpeter Swans, Northern Pintails, Common Mergansers, Gadwalls, and my personal harbinger of spring - gulls.  Breakup season is upon us, but you could be fooled into thinking winter hasn't yet left as today we have fresh snow on the ground.  Waterways are opening, however, which is allowing our avian friends from the south to return.  Looking forward to heading out with binoculars in the upcoming days. 

As it had been brightly sunny and warm for a few weeks (snow melting, songbirds collecting nest building material), I'd been thinking about our back garden.  More specifically, I've been thinking about the beady ornaments and garden knickknacks that live there during summer and fall.  Ever one to keep things until they are just this side of useful or only slightly damaged, I decided to dismantle a few mobiles.  They have been hanging from metal hooks on our fence, but on windy days they often get tangled between the pickets.  Rather than have to potentially bug our new neighbors for access to their yard to collect broken strands of beads, I took them apart.  And now I get to daydream a bit about where/how these stone chips, plastic flowers & glass beads will be used next.  Hmmm.

handiwork

I am not all together sure when hearts became my thing, but I am drawn to keep making them.  Over and over in clay, of fabric or felt, from wire and beads, on paper.  I've read some artists find hearts trite, but I suppose that could be said of flowers or fruit or landscapes, no?  As my mom would say "to each their own."  Here are some hearts I've made, some quite recent and others within the last year or so.  A few were given as gifts, and the others live on a wall in my craft room.  Do I have still others in the works, projects started and others in mind?  Yes, I do.  

dilly-dally

It is currently -13°F at 10:00 am.  We're seeing some of the coldest temperatures on record in Anchorage of late.  The upside is how sunny it has been.  The downside is that it's uncomfortably cold to go for a neighborhood stroll even with multiple layers, thick socks in thick boots, an ear-covering hat, fleece scarf, shin-length down coat, and snow pants that loudly swish with each step.  A few months back, a cow moose gave me a look while wearing said snow pants.  As if to say "darn, lady.  Those pants are ridiculously noisy!" 

Winter lingers on.  Or you could say it is dilly-dallying along.  As this season does in Alaska.  An email in my inbox today suggested March is the time to start prepping your garden for spring planting.  Well, our garden is under several feet of snow and will remain so for many weeks to come.  I suppose I can daydream about it for now.  Imagine how our ferns will start out as tightly curled fiddleheads that will later unfurl into tall and wide explosions of green.  Wonder what annuals will be available to buy come June.  Hope that a local nursery has another great crop of geraniums in every hue to plop into pots.  

Meanwhile, we will get out when temps allow us to explore and move.  Last week at the spot above - Baxter Bog - we saw loads of Black-capped Chickadees and Black-billed Magpies, several sets of animal tracks, and a few heaps of moose scat.  It was a gorgeous day, and it was around 30° warmer than this morning.  Today feels more like an indoors kind of day.  Letter writing, laundry, baking, and lots of hot beverages kind of day.