SnowMoon, LLC

Archive for the ‘Nature Journals’ Category

It’s been awhile since I shared a page from my nature journal. I’m still struggling to find the size that will work for me, but I’m going ahead with the journal that’s the same size as my other journal. However, I think I’m coming around to agree with Susan Zwinger who taught the class I took with the Yellowstone Association – larger is better.

I did this sketch in pencil while waiting for Mike who had a meeting in Fairplay – I rode along to just get out of the house for a bit. The drive through South Park is so pretty anyway. During the wait, I took the time to get to know Curly Cup Gumweed a bit better. Later, I went over the pencil lines with pen for the most part, though the rest of the text wasn’t finished when I took the photo.

Good Friday Morning to you!

Last weekend, I finally opened the bird box since I was sure it was vacant. As much as I would have loved seeing the babies I knew were in there, that’s too much stress and I’d rather know that the babies would have a better chance at life and left it closed until now.

This is the combination of two nests. In March, I went on the Hunt for Spring and found the White Breasted Nuthatches taking up residence. Last year a pair of Mountain Chickadees successfully nested here, using moss and dog fur and bits of this and that to create their nest. We left it there over the winter as some birds use the box to stay warm during our cold snaps. I planned on cleaning it out in the spring, but the Nuthatches beat me to it. I watched them clean it out completely, saving the bits they liked by stuffing them in cracks in the tree bark.

Then they started over, using tree bark as a base. I didn’t get a photo of it when they were done as we were in Yellowstone then. And, by the time we got back and I thought about it, a pair of Violet Green Swallows were working on their nest which they obviously just built on top of the Nuthatch creation. In my research on the swallows, I learned they used feathers in their nest – and watched them carry feathers they found into the box.  And I waited. The Swallow babies fledged just a day or two before I left for the class with the Yellowstone Association. That was the same time the young squirrels discovered the bird boxes and were dive bombed by the parents constantly. Not sure if they had fledged or been too stressed and died, I asked Mike to check on the box. They had fledged. I don’t think we really saw them much after that.

Other birds who have successfully nested somewhere around here, though, have stayed close – Mountain Bluebirds, Evening Grosbeaks, Stellers Jays, Pygmy Nuthatches, Williamson Sapsuckers and possibly a Townsends Solitaire – though the T.S. immature (I think that’s what it is) is by itself.

Sitting outside each morning and just watching all the life that surrounds us relaxes and rejuvenates me in a way nothing else can.

There are so many things I picked up from the class I took at the Yellowstone Association. I’m still working to organize all of my thoughts on it, but I’ve started on a few quick layouts (in random order for now) to include in the Yellowstone 2010 album I’m working on. They’ll be ordered as 4×6 prints and added in somehow.

This first one was a bit blurry, so I altered it until it made me smile.

The mix of people in this class was perfect. Lots of backgrounds, lots chatting and sharing and lots of giggles and laughter.

Used to getting up early, I was out wandering around with the camera. Sorry about the watermark covering the lone bison – it’s the dot in the top of the n.

By the third day…

More to come…

I’m back from 3 amazing and inspiring days. Just trying to sift through all the thoughts, organize and process photos.

Biggest Lesson: Unplugging from cell phone and internet does a body an immense amount of good and should be practiced more often.

Photos + Words to come.

LIVE WEBCAM LINK – “THE VIEW FROM HERE”

For the past week, I’ve noticed a few Williamson’s Sapsuckers around here – occasionally on the hummingbird feeder. So if you see larger birds hanging off of it, that’s them.

There seem to be three immature adults (2 males and 1 female) and a male and female adult – or at least that’s all I’ve seen at one time. They’re out most mornings and evening on the ground eating the ants (Yay, birds!). I assume they nested somewhere near here – more info from Wikipedia.

The other morning I watched two baby mountain bluebirds being fed moths by the parents near the house under a light that’s on at night (the summer bird feeder of sorts).  I took photos, but haven’t even downloaded them yet from the camera. We also have baby squirrels romping around – they might make it into the camera view on occasion – they’re pretty bold (or just young and stupid) right now and seem to have no fear. Rhad and Taylor almost got one in the dog yard the other day, but I think both dogs were stunned at getting so close and didn’t really know what to do if they actually caught one, so they stopped and then chased again when it got farther away from them.

Blurring the lines – YES. I found myself once again pausing the podcast to think – and isn’t that what great podcasts do?  Get you to think about the various opinions shared and see how it applies to what you do.

Paperclipping Podcast – The Yin and Yang of Who I Am

This week they talk about the blurring of lines between various scrapbookers and designers. A blurring of lines between styles and focuses. It’s the change in the industry. While publications have shut down, perhaps that was needed to open new doors to new ideas.  New ways of recording the life in which you find yourself.

Whatever and however you create, you pour yourself into it. You. Pour. Yourself. Into. It.

In our house we have a lot of mementos – Grandmother’s cooking spoon (an item I deliberately made sure we evacuated when a fire raged through Colorado in 2002) – a duck decoy carved by Grandpa – a stuffed bunny my father gave me when I was in the hospital as a young(er) adult going in for back surgery – a lamp that hung over my husband’s dining room table. Stuff. Just stuff. But each memento has a bit of others from those memories poured into it.

Thoughts become things is an often heard statement of late – but while that may or may not be true – I do firmly believe that things become thoughts. That stuffed bunny that sits on my vanity and I look at daily is a host of memories and a representative of my childhood imaginary friends (yes, they were pastel bunnies about that big) – a part of me – that I gave to my father each morning when he went to work and who jumped back out of his pocket and to me when he returned home again. A part of me that I gave to him. That stuffed bunny completely represents our relationship.  That’s the story that needs telling. That’s the story I’m moved to scrap.

I wanted to scrapbook when I was 7 – but I didn’t really know it. I wanted to scrapbook when I was in high school, but life was moving too fast to think much about it. Same in college, but at least by then I started to take more photos. Then I ignored it. Until we got married and that longing started again. But I thought we needed to have kids to scrapbook – and what I saw was one way to do it – and frustration entered when I couldn’t design pages to fall in love with.  Finally, as I pruned out a few things from my life, I knew I needed something to fill that void (to cut it close so as not to leave a snag). We couldn’t have kids and I struggled for a reason to scrap.

And then I found digital.  A method that worked/works for me.  And recording life – our life as it happens, or as it happened – emerged after a long dormancy.  I have to say I welcome the blurring of the lines.  However you remember or connect works – it’s all important.

If you think scrapbooking is just a craft at this point – think again. It’s blossoming profusely right now and if you’ve ever had an inkling of wanting to record life – you’ll find a method that works for you.  And yes, this blog post (and all of them) end up in my scrapbook – it works for me.

Edit: HEY!  I finished listening and Noell mentioned the discussion we had here and here.   Very cool!

The more projects I have on my plate, the more I realize how crucial organization and looking ahead become – as well as working to move each project forward even a half step keeps everything on track.  And I’ve taken a couple more steps to getting my Nature Journal Albums going. I have many pages to assemble still from this spring, but creating a location for these layouts to land in has to come first.

Scrapbook organization is highly personal and what works for one person may not work for another.  So, when deciding where to put a layout, it has to come down to how you use them. Normally I keep all my layouts in chronological order.  I keep my photos that way and along with my morning journaling and notes I keep in The Journal software, it’s the logical way for me to work.  But, because I create mainly digital layouts, I can put multiple copies in multiple albums.

Organization that works stems from knowing how you will use your albums.  I have my nature journal pages entered in our yearly albums, but I want to use them also as a comparison and reference.   So, to that end, I ordered a couple of brown 8.5×11 American Crafts albums that line up neatly next to the red ones I use as yearly albums.  The Nature Journal Albums need dividing by the month.  And I finally got a start on the monthly divider pages – starting many ideas and finally settling on a few digital scrapbooking products: Lisa Carter’s Framed in Foliage (not currently available – but I’ll link/post about it if I can find out where it is available) and Meryl Bartho’s Defining Layers.

Next step – double check that I have all the previous layouts I’ve completed uploaded and ready to have printed (again) at Scrapbook Pictures.  Most of them are already uploaded and just needed to be shifted back to the ‘to print’ album there.    Today’s step is done for the Nature Journal Album.

Short answer: maybe, but then again – maybe not. Right now, they don’t look much like mud.

Over the years the Paint Pots have shifted from tossing up delicate shades of mud to becoming a milky white pond ringed with grass.  It really has become beautiful in a different way.

After my post last Friday about West Thumb, I started to pull together some comparison photos. Even in one summer season, changes occur. The top photo was taken from the lower overlook, so you’ll have to reverse that one in your mind (obviously I walked a different route through the boardwalks that time). I still need to search through my photos to verify, but I don’t recall ever seeing that one pool green.  But this just shows – while not active with lots of geysers, West Thumb invites you to enjoy a quieter beauty and subtle changes.  It’s only about 30 minutes from Old Faithful – and well worth it especially at sunrise and sunset.

Here are a couple of pages from the first day I really went out to look for signs of spring:

Planning ahead. It’s a small thing that reaps enormous rewards. It provides the framework for creativity to flourish.  The idea of creating a digital Nature Journal has slowly taken shape. To that end, I’ve decided to order not only more 8.5 x 11 Albums, but also order extra prints of nature pages done in the past as well as duplicate copies of new ones. I want them in both my yearly albums and in their own nature albums sorted not by year, but by day of the year only.

And, for April this year, I’m planning ahead to have a format to quickly create pages related to Watching for Spring. I’m limiting myself to one digital page kit (wish this one had a value collection, but limiting myself, or forcing myself to add a few elements like the dotted rectangle I created, is ok), two fonts, two pages for each layout – one with photos in a grid determined by the photos themselves and the other page for text.

Watch for more – I’ll post as I get pages completed.