Nature!

Battery Park

 For a number of reasons, primarily the arrival of spring and the opening of the farmers' market, I've been thinking a lot about nature.

 I was happy when Mary of Uncustomary picked this as her monthly theme.

My walks in Battery Park with my grand have also made me aware changes in the season - with the little yellow flowers in abundance. My grand loves to pick them. Are they buttercups? I don't know. 

Battery Park

I love walking down the path towards the children's play area and having my grand get so happy about the flowers and the sweet gum balls that are all over the ground.

The market at Byrd House opened yesterday and my CSA had the most beautiful produce.

I got some curley kale, some peppermint chard, some asparagus, radishes, and salad greens.  I'm going so happy to have produce fresh from the fields again. Oh and eggs from really free range out in the open hens. I know my farmers! It's all real and tastes so good.

Here are the French radishes that I like to eat as a snack, crunchy and slightly spicy.

Everything is organic,

except these strawberries. They family says that they're not certified but hold to many organic practices. Hmmm. They're very tasty, sweet and juicy. 

Being part of a CSA since 2001, I've been made aware of buying local and seasonal. This really puts one in touch with nature. Tomatoes only grow certain times of the year, wow, not like year round in the grocery stores. Ditto all our other produce. It's seasonal!! It's nature.

Also, since I've gotten on Instagram, I'm taking lots of photos of flowers. Nature at it's prettiest.

After a long, cold winter, oh spring, I like you so much!!

Mail Art, of course & more

#32

 Back to dots for me. I decided to do a random piece again. I had one larger piece of cardboard and worked on top of that, knowing approximately what size I'd eventually cut out.

I grabbed pieces of paper out of my envelope of colored paper. And as they came out is how I placed them down.

#32a

I had cut a bunch of circles out of a catalog before I recycled it. I tossed a few down on each area of colored paper.  I moved a few of the dots around but for the most part, they are glued down where they landed.

 Here's the board before I cut out the 2 postcard sized pieces. I really like the way these turned out. I'm going to do this again.

 We had lots of apples from last weeks fruit share so I decided to make a cobbler. It was really good.

 While I was preparing the apples, Other Mim stopped by to visit and bring me a large bag of postcards from her Mom's shop. Wow! My Mail Art workshop students will have lots to choose from. Thanks, Sylvia.

Mim took home the peelings and cores for her compost pile. I stuffed them into a long bag and they looked very nice that way. I was glad they didn't go to waste - organic!

This insect was on my front steps. It was dead. I don't know what it is. Do you?

Art walk

 This isn't part of the art walk but it's art. I purchased this beautiful piece from a former student to give to a friend of mine. Here's my friend holding it. She'd been ill with a life-threatening illness, and she's well now, and I'm so happy about that.

 My honey and I went down to Broad St. tonight to check out a few of the galleries that we missed last night. We went to the new pop-up craft shop that is next to 1708 Gallery. There are tee shirts by Pop Idiot (always fun) and jewelry and more. They'll be open every weekend through December. Buy local,  in Richmond, or wherever you live.

 The window display at Quirk Gallery and shop. Fun stuff and a really nice Sparkle Plenty jewelry exhibit.

 There's a new gallery on Broad street called Candela Books and Gallery. Their first show is an exhibit of beautiful photos by Shelby Lee Adams.

 This is the glass necklace that I got at the pop-up craft shop, by Sibelle.

I met up with a few of the Happiness Coalition people who were handing out cards. I got two and passed one along to someone else. What fun. Happiness is always good. We enjoyed being out on a really nice night for a walk. Meanwhile, in another part of downtown, the illumination ceremony was taking place.