Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you. - Frank Lloyd Wright

I've been exploring new green spaces and revisiting now familiar green spaces in Anchorage, often meeting some lovely people along the way.  Lots of birdies, plenty of moose, and loads of lush greenery.  Too many mosquitoes, but that's to be expected this time of year.

In our new house we have a rather small back yard, but it's well-visited by birds.  The neighbor whose yard backs up to ours found a nest this afternoon.  He called to me through the window to let me know he wouldn't clean the gutter on his shed until the eggs hatched and the babies flew away.  I suspected that a pair of dark-eyed juncos had a nest just under a pine tree branch which is precisely where he found the nest.  

Last week I was able to watch an adult male robin encourage and feed one of his offspring that had landed in our yard and was having trouble flying higher than a few feet above the ground.  I watched and whispered encouragement for about fifteen minutes before looking online to find a local bird rescue in case the fledgling was injured.  When I went back to the window, they were gone.  I was relived and elated, to say the least.  After ten minutes I went outside just to be sure the fledgling hadn't been abandoned or simply wasn't visible from our windows.  It was nowhere to be found, and I was grateful.  There's something quite special about watching a young bird or animal learn to fly or walk.  I spent many an hour in Yellowstone watching baby bison and newborn elk calves get their feet under them for the first time.  Knowing predators could be nearby and watching, there's real joy in seeing a calf or a chick attain mobility.

This word is what I say to myself when I start stressing over how many empty packing boxes are still in our garage or where I'm going to store all of my books and magazines.  This is painted on a sort-of pedestrian bridge over the Knik River.  

Land of the midnight sun

Tim and I moved from Utah to Alaska in early April.  We drove for three days to get to Tacoma where we spent a few days with old friends and their young son.  Time was well spent catching up and then on we went for a flight to Anchorage.  I have a very clear memory of a friend from my first summer working in Yellowstone who then went on to work and live in Alaska.  He told me once "Kelly, you would love Alaska.  As much as you love Yellowstone, you need to come here.  The whole state is like Yellowstone.  Imagine that."  With my list of places to see in the world getting longer and longer, Alaska remained on the back burner.  I hoped to see and experience it, but it wasn't even in my top ten of places to see and experience.

On Mother's Day this beautiful moose spent about three hours in the garden at the front of the cabin we were renting.  She mostly napped and eventually grazed a bit before disappearing into the brush.  I once woke up to a cow and her twin calves outside the bedroom window at this same cabin.  Large tinted windows and a mostly wild landscape allowed us to watch and photograph while safely inside. 

That changed when Tim was offered a job in Anchorage.  We both knew that living and working in a remote part of Utah on the edge of the west desert wasn't going to be our forever home.  So together we decided to move a further 3,000 miles away from our hometowns and families and my beloved Yellowstone.

I believe this is a yellowlegs we spotted in Kincaid Park. 

Red-necked grebe.

Breeding red-necked grebes who put on quite a courtship display.  They could be heard from well across the lagoon, and we watched them for some time along with a gentlemen who gave us some tips on other places to spot bird life in Anchorage. 

A common loon.  I've been told these lovelies are a fleeting sight for a mere few days in spring before they move on.  I was grateful to spot this lone bird on a lagoon close to downtown Anchorage.

A tree swallow at Potter Marsh.

 

An Arctic tern taking a brief rest on a sign informing humans what not to do along this stretch of the Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge.  Don't feed the birds or disturb their nests.  Gulls and terns were nesting in the mud and reeds among the shallow water.  It's hard to fathom how far terns fly annually - from their nesting grounds in/near the Arctic to Antarctica and back.  Phew.

Having come from a place with only a few hundred residents to a city of over 300,000 has been daunting and a bit overwhelming.  It seems difficult to find a spot away from the noise of traffic and airplanes here, but I'm slowly discovering that these places do exist.  It's similar to living in the Old Faithful area at the height of summer.  One learns when and where to find the quiet places, unperturbed by human presence or voices, especially when it's their link to sanity and solitude.

Part of a mural on the back of the library in Seward.

Seward again.  Gotta love a town where someone goes to the trouble of painting a public garbage can!

Aside from the massive amount of wilderness in the state as a whole, Anchorage itself has many parks, green belts, trails, and places to view nature.  It's remarkable how much land within the city limits has been kept mostly wild as respite for both humans and wildlife.  A large part of my time here so far has involved seeking them out.  I've been rewarded with many moose sightings and plenty of bird spotting.  We've also seen a lynx and scads of snowshoe hares. 

Caught sight of this little one while doing dishes.  I watched it groom for several minutes.  Much to our cat's delight, snowshoe hares zipped through the garden and around the cabin continuously throughout the day.

From outside, the tinted glass acted as a mirror.  This effect caused many a robin and dark-eyed junco to sit on the outside sill and peck at the glass or hop toward it.  We wondered if they believed they were seeing a competing male during breeding season.  Penny had a front row seat.  She often just watched but occasionally would run to the sill and bat at the glass.  It wouldn't take long for her to deduce the birdie just inches from her was unreachable.

As summer gets fully underway and the hours of sunlight continue to grow, I hope to spend many, many more hours exploring what Anchorage's green spaces have to offer.  

Paper birch trees are everywhere here, and I love the bark - the color, the texture, everything.

Things growing on an old picnic table.

Heart Wall

I'm listening to a 1973 live version of Angel From Montgomery sung by Bonnie Raitt, enjoying the emotion of the song and simultaneously wishing I had a soulful singing voice like hers.  Prior to that I had been looking at photos of my heart wall.  I've been drawn to heart-shaped things for as long as I can remember.  My collection of heart-shaped rocks is ever growing and so, it would seem, is my accumulation of heart-shaped items.  What you see below doesn't encompass all of the pieces, but these live on a short section of wall that greets me every time I step into my craft room.  Two were gifts, others were bought on travels through New Mexico and New Zealand, and a few are mass-produced items from box stores.  Some of these started with clay pieces I made while taking pottery classes in Montana and New York a few years back.  To a couple I added wire, beads and ribbon.  These bring me a lot of joy to make.  Digging through my beads is always fun, and using different mediums together inspires me.  I've made several more of these, but they can't all fit on this wall, and some were given away as gifts. 

I just quickly looked up the symbolism of hearts.  Among many things I read the following: It is the resting place for the creative spirit.  It is the source of the flow of our creative life energy.  It represents the dream we wish to manifest.  

While this surely refers to one's actual heart, having recently had a conversation with a dear friend about something I'd like to pursue creatively made that last sentence really hit home.  Perhaps I need to surround myself with even more of these clay-bead-ribbon-wire heart tchotchkes to encourage my creative spirit and to find the courage to do what my heart is telling me to do - to manifest a very specific dream.  Funny how we find things precisely when we need to.

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows. It’s what the sunflowers do. – Helen Keller

Sunflowers are believed to represent varied things to various cultures and faiths - loyalty, warmth, admiration, longevity, lasting happiness, bounty, appreciation, gratitude, harvest, friendship, and vitality.  

I've read that Victorian England took assigning meaning to specific flowers to a whole new level due to the social restrictions and stringent expectations of proper etiquette of that era.  Once could say a lot just by choosing a particular flower or opting to mix a distinct blend of blooms into a bouquet sent to a friend, lover, enemy or public figure.  Some folks to this day take to heart what giving a red rose means (love) as opposed to giving, say, a marigold (despair).

While I find flower dictionaries interesting, I can't say that floriography (the language of flowers) guides which flowers I buy, send or enjoy.  As for sunflowers, I have been a fan since my aunt grew them in pots along her driveway when I was a kid.  I even have a small collection of greeting cards with sunflowers on the cover.  Sunflowers, to me, are a lot like daises or a field of buttercups - cheerful and bright, perhaps a little showy.  They make me smile, and I'm always drawn to them.

 

Merry Christmas!

Loving Tim's painted fake mustache! 

dilly-dally

 
While I've neglected this blog in that nothing new had been posted since early October, it has been lingering in the back of my mind to post something.  As in, I really ought to find a photo or a YouTube video of a song I love and put it up. 

Well, today is Christmas Eve, and I'm clearing my desk of "to do" stuff.  Checking things off my list that have been on there for way too long.  Things that take up more space in the back of my thoughts as stuff I should be doing, items I should be addressing.  Why today?  It's a quiet Sunday, it's cold outside, and the inspiration to purge items on my list hit me at around 11 am.  As the year quickly comes to a close, I've no wish to have these things still hanging around undone, cluttering my desk and my mind, preventing me from doing things in the space where my desk lives that I'd much rather be doing.  You know, creative stuff.  Sewing, jewelry-making, writing, perusing my ever-growing collections of postcards, fabric, paper and beads.  In a nutshell, pleasurable activities.

Do you ever do that?  Allow the little annoyances of life like balancing your checkbook or updating your life insurance policy or switching an old 401K to an IRA to go undone where it becomes a burden just knowing they're STILL on your list?  What's that word?  Oh, right....procrastination.  I'm really good at it.  Better than anyone should be, really.  There have been times where it has spurred creativity.  More often, however, it causes stress.  Especially when it interferes with activities that bring my life joy and a sense of fulfillment.  Procrastination throws off the balance. 

So I'm taking care of most things today.  By Tuesday afternoon I should be able to devote time to what brings me comfort and delight - creating.  It's quite likely holiday movies and hot cocoa will be included.  Maybe even a nap.  

The first two photos above were taken at Red Butte Garden in Salt Lake City, and the others at Clover Springs Campground near Rush Valley, UT.  The photos below are from a trip Tim and I took to Yellowstone in mid-October.  

 

 

We saw Alison Krauss in October at USANNA.  It was something like 36 degrees at an outdoor venue, but her angelic voice and the incredible musicians that accompany her made the slight discomfort well worth it.  David Gray was her opening act.  Lovely performances all around plus there were two barn owls swooping back and forth under the canopy of the stage throughout the show.  Tim had to keep reminding me to watch the concert rather than the birds!

  

Alpine Loop Scenic Drive and Sundance Resort