My Life as a Turkey

I watched a beautiful Nature episode last night entitled, "My Life as a Turkey". It documented wildlife artist, Joe Hutto's experience of raising a brood of wild turkeys. Moving, informative and absolutely breathtaking at times, the film was a recreation of Hutto's year-plus life of caring for sixteen chicks. I am equally taken with not only Hutto but the filmaker, David Allen and actor, Jeff Palmer who took it upon himself to allow sixteen turkey chicks to be imprinted on him so they could create this amazing film.

Happy Thanksgiving

Watch My Life as a Turkey - Preview on PBS. See more from NATURE.

 

Who's Shaking My House?

Well that was a crazy feeling. Working in my office, Ed was sitting on the floor next to me and my chair started shaking. My brain says, why is Ed shaking my chair? Then I hear creaking from upstairs and think, who the fuck is in my house?! Then I see that Ed's hand is not near my chair, which is still shaking and Ed is quietly saying, 'earthquake...earthquake...earthquake...'. (apparantly I was yelling, "Is this an earthquake?!" at that point)

Ran outside (ground still shaking) and our pond was swishing around but everything seems alright.

Not something we get everyday here in New Jersey.

And my mom just called and said that we are now in 'the cone' for hurricane Irene. Good. We could use some excitement around here.

Oh I almost forgot, my latest painting is going up for sale on Thursday at 3pm EDT in the shop.

Closeup from "Mutual Admiration"

Mutual Admiration

Ed found a tiger moth on our front steps a few weeks ago.

Further research uncovered how unbelievably ornate and fuzzy these moths can be.

(please forgive me, I couldn't find where the above image was from. If you know, I will gladly give credit.)

Ed suggested a moth staring at a light bulb and then it hit me...a lightning bug!

"Mutual Admiration" was born. 7" x 7" acryic on beveled pine plaque.

Mono No Aware

I finished my sakura painting and it's now up for auction on ebay. 100% of the proceeds from the auction will go to the American Red Cross to benefit Japan.

The title "Mono No Aware" is a Japanese term often associated with cherry blossoms and "used to describe the awareness of impermanance, or the transience of things, and a gentle sadness (or wistfulness) at their passing."

The auction ends Thursday, March 31st at 8pm PST. Enjoy, good luck and thank you for bidding :)

 

Spectacular Snow Monsters

Last year I posted about how I was sick of all the snow we'd gotten here in the northeastern US. Yet I would love to see the snow corridors of Japan. This year has been even worse and we are all equally snow-weary. But once again, I find another snow phenomenon in Japan that I would love to see!

"Snow monsters" or juhyou (frost-covered trees), covered in snow and hard rime, from the northern regions of Japan.

Mt. Zao, Yamagata prefecture

Mt. Moriyoshi (Moriyoshi shrine), Akita prefecture

Mt. Zao, Yamagata prefecture

Via pinktentacle.com where they have collected tons of spectacular photos about this.

I Love Heidi!

Well, I'm back from my little vacation and it seems to have securely straightened out my brain. Things feel absolutely normal again and I'm able to look to the future with genuine hope and confidence. Yay!

With that said, in the hotel they had foreign television stations and while flipping past the chinese one, we saw a clip for Heidi, Germany's latest animal sensation. I immediately wrote, 'cross eyed opossum' on a scrap of paper so I could share her with you when I got back home.

 

You have to watch the clip because she's even more adorable when you see her walking around!

More info is also available about her from the Leipzig Zoo website.

Enjoy!