Happy Halloween

Capturing Nature Logo

I was recently asked to give a talk and create the logo for the "Capturing Nature through Art and Photography Festival" at the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge that takes place May 12-15.  The festival opens on International Migratory Bird Day and will offer photography workshops, field sketching classes, travel lectures, etc.  It sounds like it will be a great event.  If anyone is interested let me know and I can send you more info.

But back to the point of this post.  I worked on the logo this week and have narrowed it down to three concepts.  I struggled a lot with this logo because it had to incorporate three different ideas - nature, photography, and art.  No small feat I tell you!  You can see what I came up with below.  There are several options within each concept.  Right now I haven't worked on the font at all and they all need a little further tweaking, but I didn't want to go any further without deciding on the direction.  So let me know your favorite.  Any comments would be greatly appreciated!

Concept 1 - 3D Circles

Concept 2 - Shutter Palette

Concept 3 - Tripod Easel

Late Summer Tomatoes

I guess that pumpkin stack got into my brain and is now affecting me (reminds me of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and potato mounds...OK that's showing my age).  Anyway, we got these tomatoes a couple weeks ago and I thought their shape and color was so nice I had to take their picture.   Someone told me the orange tomatoes are less acidic than the red.  All I know it that they were quite tasty sliced up and salted with a little Tony Chachere's with hummus on George's homemade bread.  Mmmmm...delicious!

Clothesline

At the beginning of summer George surprised me by hanging a clothesline under out new screen porch.  At first I was less than thrilled and made a snarky comment about looking like the Beverly Hillbillies.  But I have to say I am now totally hooked!

We have now gone through a whole summer not using the dryer.  Well, we do use it, but just on air fluff to take away the stiffness (or as I like to call it the crustiness). 

But besides the energy savings there is something wonderfully magical about it.  The other day I was outside hanging these sheets.  The sun was out and there was a slight breeze and it just felt good on so many levels.  It's green, it gets me outside on a beautiful day, the laundry smells fresh and clean, and it forces me to slow down.  Normally I dread doing the laundry and I try and do as many loads as I can in one day.  But with this method you can only do one load a day.  I can't quite put my finger on it, but it made me crazy happy to be out there at that moment.  So if you have the space I highly recommend it.  Bring it on Granny Moses!

Pumpkin Stack

I just love October!  I couldn't wait for this month so I could post a photo of the pumpkins I bought this year at the Springfield Antique Show.  This is the second time I bought my pumpkins from the same vendor there.  They always have these wonderfully shaped pumpkins with such wonderful colors.  Last time I went with pale, dreamy pumpkins, but this year I was drawn to the intense orange ones.  They were selling them by the stack and so I bought the whole thing.  I don't believe I have ever bought this many at one time, but how could I resist? 

Today we also cleaned the shed, re-potted plants, swept the porch, and hung the skeleton lights.  All-in-all a perfect fall day.