sitting around on a wintery day

Taking a moment today to sign in and write something and show you a few of my new creations , you might say i have nervous ,busy hands and mind, still waiting on a fingers crossed big lets just refer to it right now as "big project". My studio ,gallery are ready in prep and my mind and heart are excited to begin...so I have been poking up a storm needle felting and am very happy with My finished pieces, here are just a few right now. The weather is still Winter out there and we have not been walking daily lately because of the cold,yes we could bundle up and yes, we should, shame on us but I can honestly say I, as well as I am sure you all are as well ,tired of Winter.

Liverpool is getting a new Tourist Bureau and my goodness it is beautiful, a great description for a good looking building and big, Wow!!!a change from the little cabin like one we had. A half boat piece of mine which I have a picture of in a previous blog hung in the old bureau and will hang again in the new one if still here when opening time arrives. My plan is to do some more strokes on her before she returns. These unique pieces of boat are harder and harder to find ,now that our fishing industry and just ordinary folk no longer line our shores and harbors with fishing from large Trawlers and little dories and boats seen daily back when. The romance of it I remember, those days are gone. I have been in and thinking of Lunenburg a lot these days and I remember moving there in 1974 and getting a job first working in the old "Dolphin Tavern" well I have stories I could tell about those days and will some day in another form, for this one is too public....laugh!!!!out loud!!! but, now back to what I was talking about, the fact these rare pieces of boats are harder to find because they simply are gone from our every day life.

We were telling a friend about a very special rock we found when we use to sleep outside on this rock in a crack in the rock with a small fire at the end of the crack, jutting into the ocean looking into Lunenburg Harbor with boats of all sizes going by 24 hours a day. We are going to take her to see what we found on this rock, carvings of tall ships and names scratched into the rock from back in the 1800's, where we believe and can see for ourselves from the scratchings that lovers would spend time on this rock, watching the ships roll in and spending time with their lovers dreaming of days and lives yet to come, the Iron Men with their soft hearts. When the wonderful red buildings along the wharf road in Lunenburg were stocked with rubber boots , sou westers , wool mitts and socks ,hand knit by every one's Granny. Where you could smell the many rolls of jute rope and still buy a good old fashioned corn broom. One particular shop I use to frequent for my needed supplies of such things had ,picture it,a little wood stove in the middle of the floor with chairs and barrels and fishermen sitting all around her ,telling their tales and joking with everyone who entered. They enjoyed seeing and teasing me when they saw me and then when I got the job at the local tavern in town being the first female to ever work there, they had fun with that too. When I met Chuck and we began our lives together we as I mentioned again in a previous blog writing tried our hands at inshore fishing. That was one of the best experiences I believe I can speak for both of us...the best experience in our lives and we have the stories and memories for our enjoyment,and love to share these stories with friend's, always good for a belly chuckle indeed.

Again back to the boat pieces, I do ramble on..sometimes not so funny..as my dear friend's may read this and shake their heads ,"yes!" Behind our fence here in town, Thank God for the fence ,for if not for the fence the town might ask us to move ,if they could see what some may call junk ,I call painting surfaces behind our fence. I still have some wonderful special pieces here which scream to me everytime I see them out back waiting for me...did I ever mention how small our new home is here? We dearly Love our charming little house but I can only get a couple of these pieces in at a time to work on.

I have some thoughts and ideas for the summer, last year I got a vendors permit to sell my,lets call everything I/we make, our wears downtown where I was hoping to have somewhat of a social life as well as of course sell, I love to meet people ,and the fact we no longer do all the shows we once did over the years , because we are getting older and doing these long shows is very hard on the old tiring bodies. Last Summer the weather would not cooperate so I stayed put here at my Gallery instead of town vending and was found here in my Gallery by some great folks over the summer. This coming Summer ,now that Chuck is retired ,I am going to look into maybe doing the downtown thing again with a spin on my idea if I can do it, I would like to find or work something out with a place to work on one of my very large boat pieces ,someplace to keep it there without lugging it too far at night, I am thinking that would be fun, and I could still direct folk's to the gallery here where Chuck can be working and greeting those who want to drop by.

I keep telling myself not to worry my little head with too many things at one time these days, thinking about summer when there is still snow on the ground..but yes you are thinking and I too, we will wake up one of these mornings with birds singing and making their nests. Speaking of birds and nests, I have made a couple birdhouses from old recycled cowboy boots , I kept one for myself here ,there is a picture of the other one in an earlier blog writing. Well I put mine up last Autumn and I had a couple Chickadees looking in and around it and I am so excited at the thought they may return and move in this Spring. I will tell you all about it when hopefully that day comes. I will admit, one thing we dearly miss from our 23 years on 20 acres on the Medway River is our wildlife, we could feed the Crows there without bothering anyone, we had our own Crow family for years which now our real estate agent/friend who sold our farm for us, believes she now has this family of Crows being taken care of by her now, how wonderful!!that is. As well as every other little bird you can imagine,Bob cats, Coyote's you name it... they were all our family along with all our critters over the years on our little hobby farm, those were the days my friend's ,those were the days. But today is a day too , in our charming Town house with one tree and many welcome signs for our new little feathered friends to yet find us in droves. We don't bother to feed the in town Crows,which i honestly wish people would not as well, the in town Crows don't need a hand out, there is plenty for them to eat . I believe feeding them by throwing out garbage draws rats in fact ,I have seen this for myself. Another story for another day, today we will only talk of nice things.

So speaking of nice things I wonder how many of you who live with Winter snow took the time to build a Snowman this year? Come on next snow Storm, do it and think of me, for I believe there can be nothing more fun then to do just that, even if a little one, come on Kid's go for it.

So off I go back to work, I have enjoyed my time with you today . Lets see what I can up up with on this, another great day in Nova Scotia as I poke away today. I will be back to painting again one of these days soon . Getting ready for Summer on the South shore .Comments from you are always welcome.

Stay warm!!!! back soon...