Jungle Gym

There was a possum on our porch the other day peeking into the kitchen and Jessica keeps seeing a skunk in the yard when she comes home at night. Its a regular jungle around here.

Littlest Prints

This year's Littlest Print Exchange wrapped up nicely. It was the smoothest running exchange yet. No late drop outs, and all the prints came in pretty close to the deadline. We collated all the portfolios and shipped them out a couple of weeks ago.

The complete list of all fifty 2011 participants:
Chad Andrews, Arturo Araujo S.J., Caroline Battle, Stephen Belshaw, Adrian Chin, Christopher Clark, Aaron S. Coleman, Jean-Marc Couffin, Guylaine Couture, Josh Dannin, Bruce Docker, Allen Duffy, Judith Caroline Feist, Linda Germain, Rebecca Godin, Jessica Gowling, Eric Hansen, Stephanie Harvey, Jessie Horning, Ana Hurtado-Gonzalez, Teréz Iacovino, Micheal W. Jones, Karen Joyce, Hem Jyotika, Rachel Kaiser, Melody Knight Leary, Stefanie Liles, Barrett Long, Brendan McCumstie, Nancy Mungcal, Candace Nicol, Alexis Novak, Carrie Ohm, Christine Panushka, Travis Paterson, Tiffany Patterson, Sage Perrott, Mark Renner, Aramas Ridge, John Ryrie, Sarah Sciba, Tessa Shackleford, Marsha Shaw, Shirily, Heather Smith, Amy Sterly, Jonathan Stewart, Peter Tudhope, Alicia Wierschke, Robin Wyss

As usual, there's a gallery of all the prints available on the LPE website so you can see what everyone sent in. A bunch of artists were nice enough to send an extra proof or two so there's also been an update of the exchange store. Prints are only $10 and I'll pay for the shipping.

Now that the 2011 exchange is finished, we're already looking at submissions for the 2012 exchange. If you're interested in participating, simply send a link to a gallery of your work.

Squirrel

One day last week, we were sitting on the couch watching TV when I heard a little commotion coming from the kitchen door. I glanced over to see a wild squirrel running straight at me under our dining table. I reacted a little badly with a mild yelp and the squirrel high-tailed it out the door. Jess wanted him to come back in, but I haven't quite forgiven him for eating our squash and cucumbers. The next day Jessica and I were exploring Bradbury Mountain State Park. I heard a screechy noise above us and looked up to see a large bird flying away. Something dropped down unto the boughs of a tree a foot or two over our heads. I assumed it was a branch or a clump of leaves or something like that but, in fact, it was a tiny little chipmunk. I guess he was dropped by the bird.

Today were were coming home from shopping and that squash eating squirrel was hanging out in the backyard. I brought out a bag of pumpkin seeds and some raisins. As soon as he saw the bags, the squirrel seemed to know what was happening and came running over to me. I sat on a chair and threw him some treats. He was a little skittish but was certainly willing to get pretty close. I tried to feed him from my hand but he just touched my finger with his nose and scooted off. I think he'll come around soon enough if we keep working on him.

Hang Your Hat

Here's my submission to the community print exchange Johnathan Stewart and I are coordinating in order to raise the funds needed to keep the print maker's network Inkteraction up and running. I ran a sheet of fairly translucent mulberry paper through an inkject printer multiple times on each side to create a transparent effect that is pretty tough to see in this scan. We're hoping to get the entire portfolio of 100 prints exhibited somewhere so hopefully someone will have the chance to see it in real life.

Three Tomatoes, Two Lights

Our first tomato finally ripened and was picked a couple of days ago. I think Jessica sliced it yesterday for a sandwich. I hope she enjoyed it. There are only two more so they had better be delicious. The cucumber plants have a bunch of tiny, little cucumbers growing still and a couple that could probably be picked even though they are really strangely shaped. The squash plant only had two fruits and they were both eaten by the squirrel. Or it could have been a possum, some seagulls or slugs. I think it was the squirrel though. I suppose you heard a lot about the hurricane traveling the east coast. By the time it got here it was pretty mild. A little rain in the morning and then some wind in the afternoon. If you were worried about us, we're fine.

Jason and Rachel were here all week with Celeste so we all survived the storm and then took the opportunity to see some things around town. We rode the narrow gauge railroad along the bay and finally made it down to the proper Atlantic Ocean where the park ranger uses his old age to get away with overcharging people entering Two Lights State Park. We had a lot of fun climbing on the rocks, looking into tide pools and searching the woods for mushrooms.