You are a product of your environment. So choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective. Analyze your life in terms of its environment. Are the things around you helping you toward success - or are they holding you back?
- W. Clement Stone
I live in a beautiful place. I have my cultivated garden with lawn, 100 feet from the house is the Sacramento River, and to the north of my cultivated space is an open area, with oaks and maples and cottonwoods. I have my vegetable garden back there as well. The property is a magnet for birds. I used to hear a pair of horned owls, but the people to the north of me are clearing the property for development and they could very well have cut down their home. I haven't heard them in a while. Butterflies, mantis, lady bugs, every now and then I see something I have never seen before. Yesterday I saw a small flat beetle that was red with a black edge that I need to look up. There are the usual wild mammals like raccoons (four legged bandits with hands), possum, skunk (smelled, but never seen except dead on the road) and an occasional coyote. The Canadian Geese sometimes fly over the house just above the tree tops, honking. One of these days I will get a decent picture. This past week or so it has been the Crow Convention because the figs are ripe. They fly from tree to tree in the neighborhood. They are loud and boisterous. A couple of hundred at a time, it is impressive. Hummingbirds, chickadees, blue jays and magpies. Bats at dusk. They are sooooo cool. When it is very hot and not very breezy, the dragonflies appear -- a few hundred at a time, swooping and darting from about three feet off the ground to a hundred feet above the house. I have tried to get pictures, it doesn't do the numbers or the dance they do any justice. To stand in the middle of my lawn with these 4 inch creatures flying around me is magical.
This is Swainson Hawk territory. The Hawk saved the banks of the levee system from being denuded. The Army Corp wanted to strip the trees and foliage so that the levee would be easier to inspect. The tree roots, and bushes help stabilize the levee, but it took the Friends of the Swainson Hawk to convinced them that the habitat loss would be too great if they did. Not just for the hawk, but for all the small creatures that form the ecosystem and are part of the food chain, and bio diversity of the river.
My house is an older home built in the late 40's. I live on the second floor above a "garage space." You cannot store anything important down there, because occasionally the river overflows the banks and comes into the yard. My first flood was in the spring of 2011. Three feet of water in the yard for a couple of weeks. It was not fun. The dog hated every minute. WE survived and so now every winter I start pulling stuff up, some of it comes upstairs. But I am honestly getting too old to schlep stuff up and down the stairs and rearrange my house for 4 months.
I believe that the events that happen are reflective of energy you want to pull into your life. I love it here. I have a studio space that I use mostly in the winter. My true passion and love is gardening, my artwork has always been reflective of that. So I put in a vegetable garden, and I usually have something out there all year. Summertime, I am outside. And that vegetable garden feeds me. Serious business. I take pictures of my flowers and plants. The other morning I woke up to the image of a tall drawing of grass, with the emphasis at the base. It was an inspirational dream image. So I am photographing the bases of plants right now, putting together some reference material for this winter when the cold and rain will keep me inside. I have not lived in a place that felt more like home since I left Walnut Creek.
So my objectives as I go forward are to do the two things I do very well: First to create a beautiful outdoor space, and do things with plants. Second, to do artwork and crafts inspired by nature. This environment supports my goals and objectives.
I live in a beautiful place. I have my cultivated garden with lawn, 100 feet from the house is the Sacramento River, and to the north of my cultivated space is an open area, with oaks and maples and cottonwoods. I have my vegetable garden back there as well. The property is a magnet for birds. I used to hear a pair of horned owls, but the people to the north of me are clearing the property for development and they could very well have cut down their home. I haven't heard them in a while. Butterflies, mantis, lady bugs, every now and then I see something I have never seen before. Yesterday I saw a small flat beetle that was red with a black edge that I need to look up. There are the usual wild mammals like raccoons (four legged bandits with hands), possum, skunk (smelled, but never seen except dead on the road) and an occasional coyote. The Canadian Geese sometimes fly over the house just above the tree tops, honking. One of these days I will get a decent picture. This past week or so it has been the Crow Convention because the figs are ripe. They fly from tree to tree in the neighborhood. They are loud and boisterous. A couple of hundred at a time, it is impressive. Hummingbirds, chickadees, blue jays and magpies. Bats at dusk. They are sooooo cool. When it is very hot and not very breezy, the dragonflies appear -- a few hundred at a time, swooping and darting from about three feet off the ground to a hundred feet above the house. I have tried to get pictures, it doesn't do the numbers or the dance they do any justice. To stand in the middle of my lawn with these 4 inch creatures flying around me is magical.
This is Swainson Hawk territory. The Hawk saved the banks of the levee system from being denuded. The Army Corp wanted to strip the trees and foliage so that the levee would be easier to inspect. The tree roots, and bushes help stabilize the levee, but it took the Friends of the Swainson Hawk to convinced them that the habitat loss would be too great if they did. Not just for the hawk, but for all the small creatures that form the ecosystem and are part of the food chain, and bio diversity of the river.
My house is an older home built in the late 40's. I live on the second floor above a "garage space." You cannot store anything important down there, because occasionally the river overflows the banks and comes into the yard. My first flood was in the spring of 2011. Three feet of water in the yard for a couple of weeks. It was not fun. The dog hated every minute. WE survived and so now every winter I start pulling stuff up, some of it comes upstairs. But I am honestly getting too old to schlep stuff up and down the stairs and rearrange my house for 4 months.
I believe that the events that happen are reflective of energy you want to pull into your life. I love it here. I have a studio space that I use mostly in the winter. My true passion and love is gardening, my artwork has always been reflective of that. So I put in a vegetable garden, and I usually have something out there all year. Summertime, I am outside. And that vegetable garden feeds me. Serious business. I take pictures of my flowers and plants. The other morning I woke up to the image of a tall drawing of grass, with the emphasis at the base. It was an inspirational dream image. So I am photographing the bases of plants right now, putting together some reference material for this winter when the cold and rain will keep me inside. I have not lived in a place that felt more like home since I left Walnut Creek.
So my objectives as I go forward are to do the two things I do very well: First to create a beautiful outdoor space, and do things with plants. Second, to do artwork and crafts inspired by nature. This environment supports my goals and objectives.
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| The base of the Naked Ladies |
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