Mail Art #188 + and more

 A nice big daisy to take my mind off of my toe! I stubbed my toe really badly. I was walking around barefoot and my kitchen chair got in the way! I slipped on a shoe and now don't want to look at my toe in case it's, ya know, really messed up. OUCH!!

 Glad I made my Mail Art early this morning after going to the pool. This one is entitle: "Polly, eyes straight ahead, rushed past Dobbin, who glanced at her apprehensively."

 This one is entitled: " As Dobbin was led to the barn, Blanca waited with flowers for him."  Dobbin seems like an old-timey horse's name. This card presented a bit of a challenge for altering. I think I have one more of them to play around with. Any ideas for me?

The water was very chilly at the pool this morning. Brrrrr! But we slooowly got into it and did our exercises. I wish I had some cold water to put my foot into now. Think I'll pop an ice pack on it. Oh, that means I'll have to peek at it.

Mother's Day, Mail art sent and received and more

 Beautiful Sunday, perfect for a drive to our friend's pottery open house. This is the annual Mother's day trek that N and I make.

 Our friends have a beautiful garden and we love taking photos of their flowers as soon as we arrive.

 The scent of their roses is wonderful.

 They've got tons of these Irises.

 This dove is #159 and I used some of the paper tape, my first try out. Liked it, more to come with tape! This little fellow is flying off in today's mail though he was created yesterday.

 Today's mail art is going to "Make a Spectacle of Yourself" the mail art call I did for Carytown Optical. There's still time to send in your entry.

 This is a piece of mail art that I received on Saturday, from Dean in France. It's part of a cardboard box, with a painting on the reverse. It's amazing to me that this made it all the way to me in the USA from France, as it's sort of a flappy, loose item. Amazing. Meanwhile, my little package sent to the U.K. never made it. It's so interesting to see what gets around.

This is a lovely sight in my neighborhood. The mounted police. I heard them before I saw them. We had a brief chat as they passed by and then I thought, oh I have my camera with me, and by the time I got it out, we get the back end. So it goes. I love the sound, clip clop clip clop, so old timey.

A walk to galleries in Saint Germaine and horses!

Yesterday, as we crossed over to Ile de la Cite, on our way to the Saint Germaine galleries, three mounted officers of the guard went by us, struggling to get my camera out, I ended up catching only their back ends. The horses were the tallest I'd ever seen in real life. I wish I could tell you how many hands! So big! Even Gita who rides horses in Norway said that they were very tall. We went into a number of galleries with the main destination being the one with the Kurt Schwitters collages on display. They were all for sale but prices started at about 105,500 euros. We bought the catalog for 25 euros. Chuck was so happy to see these originals. They were quite small in size. Some of our students might remember the short film we used to show about him. Here's a photo of the Galerie and one of the collages in the book, which of course doesn't show the true colors or size, but wow it was great to see it in person.

We stopped into a gallery with pieces made of fabric. Gita is a fibre artist. Here we are in the mirror.

Here's the image of the backside of the horses. The really neat thing this morning, is as I was in the post office getting stamps, we heard the clomping of horses hooves outside in the little street, and about 50 mounted officers in full dress of the Guard Republicaine went by. Neither Chuck nor I had a camera with us. Waaa! I asked the postal clerk what was going on, he said "oh nothing, it's normal," with a wink. Hardly normal! There are lots of videos on YouTube that show this group in action.

Jardin des Plantes & Menagerie

On Sunday, we went to the Jardin des Plantes & Menagerie. Chuck took these terrific photos of animals for me, as well as the glass winter garden and the little wooden "house." The horses are Mongolian and from stock that came to the menagerie in 1902. They're rare and are supposedly like the ones seen in cave paintings.

St. Andrews' community fair

Last Saturday, our friends Susan and John told us about a community fair and invited us to join them on Sunday to see it. "They're going to have homemade pickles," they said. Wow! Who could resist homemade pickles! Sunday noon found us at the fair. There was a tiny pen with livestock, a burro, a llama (or alpaca, ) a few little goats, a pony. There was an even tinier pen with two bunnies and a piglet. A small fire truck was great fun for kids.


There was a grill, a plant and bulb sale, and lots of great books for only 50¢ each. There were police officers on horses. And pickles, homemade bread and butter pickles. We came home with pickles and books.