Virginia A. Spiegel

The Beginning of Pink

June’s Trip #13 to the Boundary Water Canoe Area Wilderness was pretty much a disaster, but it was compensated 1000 times over by this delightful journey.  We had an adventure-packed ten days of portaging, paddling, and appreciating nature.  Every other day we would “gear up” and paddle forth.  We portaged over 13.5 miles total, but were always done fairly early in the day.  The weather was phenomenal.  Our only disappointment was seeing only one moose (rut hadn’t started yet – very late), but he had only one antler!

Highlights included a concert from a pack of wolves camped out in our neighborhood and four beavers doing a ritual of some sort involving an all-nighter of tail slapping.  Of course, stunning as always were the eagles, the stars, the tall pines, and the strong teamwork of the Sister System required by the Boundary Waters.

That Sinking Feeling
Photo by Nancy J. Spiegel Rosma

One of our great adventures was beaver dams!  (I am not even going to start on impassable rapids with no portages and very little water – another whole story.) We would run the boat up as close as possible and I would jump out.  Sounds easy.  But you are climbing up/standing on a shifting mass of sticks – - some dried and easily broken, some loose, some firmly wedged in mud.  The water rushes between and over your feet and in the back of your mind in this little false alert going off, “I’m sinking, I’m sinking.”

Sister Nancy would jump out, we would take out one pack and lay it on the dam and then heave Beauty, our 17.5 foot Kevlar canoe, with the other two 50 lb. packs over the mass of sticks. Nancy would fling the pack back in and then take the fully-loaded boat out, swing it around and I would jump in.  Off to the next one.  Of course, coming back with the current was a different story (and actually easier).  The photo is the from the first and smallest dam (we did 3 out and 3 back) which compensated by being built on boot-sucking mud.

More later this week on things that inspired me on this journey, but here is one of the huge variety of mushrooms we photographed :

Pedestal

Mystery

I’m hoping one of you can help identify this moth.  It was perched on the edge of the garage door a couple of days ago.  Is this normal or is the big gap in its wings to due an injury or malformation?  I have noticed that although the milkweed is in full bloom that the number of butterflies is as depressingly low as last year.

I always appreciate your comments.  Do read the comments for last week’s inspiration photo if you are thinking about buying loosestrife.  There is a plant that is sometimes called loosestrife that is a very invasive species.  Readers were on the job and pointed this out.  I also should have mentioned in the main post that I love plants that are “thugs” since I garden on clay.

Nature notes:  Saw a baby bluejay in the grass when I took out the compost yesterday.  It couldn’t fly at all, but hopped into the long grass.  The most beautiful fledgling I have ever seen. Blooming in the garden now:  monarda, Asiatic lilies, alliums, hemerocallis, sea holly, catmint (should be cut back, but the bees are still working it), hydrangea, roses (of course!), hostas (just starting).

Allure

I am not a big fan of red or yellow in the garden, but I make an exception for these bronze-y red and gold iris from my sister.  And what an iris year it is; I have never seen so many blooms on one stem ever before.  In the rest of the garden, the baby robins fledged (or just fell out of the nest. I despair over their future as they seemed so unformed still) and the pink peonies burst into bloom.  What a nostalgic scent!

Used

I use Createx Multipurpose paint for “making” my fabric.  These plastic squeeze bottles are great.  The bottles start out pristine, but, by the end, they have become little works of art themselves.  The funny thing about my paint this time is that I was sure I would run out after about a week, so I had Joe send a Priority flat rate box stuffed full.  If you combined all the paint I had left in various bottles at the end, it was almost exactly that same amount.  But I know if I hadn’t had him ship me more, I would have run out.

If you have questions about the paints and how I use them, please click here to visit a previous Creative Process post.

Stitching

The birds leave these wonderful patterns in the snow on my sidewalk. The little black accents are thistle seed which has blown off the feeders.

I thought you might need a bit more color after that photo, so here is something that makes me happy every day:

Eye of the Beholder