Asakiyume mita

I love catbirds. They are so friendly! They come very near to people and just start chatting. When I hang up laundry, when I go out on my porch, when I'm looking at my plants, along comes a catbird.

The catbirds also like to eat my red currants. The season is pretty much over now, but I drew a chalk drawing in the 90+ degree heat to commemorate catbirds and red currants. I had it on good authority from the weather people that it wasn't going to rain until tomorrow at the earliest, which meant the chalk drawing would survive at least until morning for people to see.

NOPE! Flash storm! Big rain! Ah, evanescence.

Anyway, here is the drawing, which had a life span of approximately seven hours.



And here is a close-up.



Beneath the cut are a couple of process shots

( peek under here )

And here's a photo by Marie Lehmann from www.audubon.org of this friendly bird:

We're entering the home stretch now!

December 19 is a Christmas tree:



December 20 is stuck Santa--he just needs to wriggle a little to pop himself out.



December 21 is a raccoon receiving a present. What's in there? osprey_archer had the good idea of a box of corn, but I think for missroserose's sake it has to be a colander, which the raccoon can use to rinse his vegetables--including his corn--in.



And today's drawing is a shepherd, watching his flock by night.



Last night it rain/sleeted, so it was just luck that things dried up enough for that picture. Here's what the driveway looks like after the weather--only one bright square:

... I can see why/how people flag with their October art posts.

On December 14, I drew a trumpet. When I was a child, there was a horn Christmas ornament that went on our Christmas tree. Therefore, horns--and musical instruments more generally!--are good for an Advent calendar. So I hereby declare.



Yesterday, December 15, I drew oranges. Buying those boxes of mandarins seems very December-January, and we used to always put oranges in the bottom of our kids' stockings for Christmas--except for the ninja girl, who didn't like fruit. Also, for New Year's celebrations in Japan, people make a display with mandarins on top of mochi, so bonus bonus!



In the early afternoon yesterday, the Advent calendar looked like this:



Then it poured very hard with rain, washing away the outlines of the calendar quite completely. Rather than restore them today, I decided to just do single images from now on. Here is December 16's, a reindeer with a glowing nose! I'm disappointed that his wooly mane looks like some kind of a boa he's wearing rather than his actual coat (see reindeer image for comparison) but eh, it's a learning process.




(Source: "Fun Facts: Reindeer vs. Caribou," Edmonton & Area Land Trust, December 18, 2019.)

Just a quick note: yesterday it rained heavily all day, so I didn't add an image. Today it's brilliantly sunny, but I'm traveling, so probably I'll update tomorrow at some point, hopefully with three images.

Here is what the driveway looked like at noon, when I cleared it:



By 4 pm it had mainly melted, but dusk was approaching, so today's drawing is a very basic snowman:



It's kind of fun dealing with the weather--it makes it more of a game. I'm thinking maybe I won't try to refresh the numbers of the still-to-be-filled in boxes from now on--that way I can put a new picture in whatever box is still free.

So today, in addition to redrawing the frame, I revitalized the images, too. Here's what the whole calendar looks like as of today

So yesterday I created the driveway advent calendar and filled in days 1–5. Last night it rained, of course! So today I did what I'd resolved to do in that event: touch up the frame (all the squares), and then just continue going forward.

So here's what the frame looks like now--you can see how the images I drew yesterday have blurred:



And here's December 6's offering: a candy cane




... Even though I promised myself I wouldn't touch up the others, I just might, depending on how work and other obligations play out.

I did a chalk drawing of an angel offering an apple to a fox (... if foxes can crave grapes in Aesop, then they can be offered apples)--I had the angel leaning out of a sky window because I love that conceit. The fox came out VERY wonky in the body, but I like his face.

The feet belong to the next-door neighbor girls






I finished right before a good, drenching rain, so now the angel is a ghost:



In other remarkable news, a plant grew in the pot I had planted calendulas in. It looked vaguely familiar--some kind of nightshade-family plant, but what? Not a potato; you can't accidentally plant a potato. The leaves were wrong for tomato, and they didn't match up with common nightshade that I see around. They were fuzzy and lovely. Recently it got buds, and finally a flower, and with THAT I was able to take to the internet.





It seems to be Physalis peruviana, known in English as Cape gooseberry or golden berry, and first encountered by me in Colombia under the name of uchuva. It was available as a compote every morning for breakfast where we stayed, and I bought a bag of them at the market the day we left.

It's a kind of ground cherry. A more common-for-here ground cherry is Physalis pruinosa--in fact, the first place we lived in western Massachusetts had those growing wild. And the flowers look pretty much identical--it would make more sense for P. pruinosa to pop up unannounced in my flowerpot than a plant that's native to Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia.

But the local ground cherry ... grows along the ground. It doesn't stand up straight. This is standing up, proud and tall--which is what P. peruviana does. And although it's not ***native*** to this area, it's **cultivated** all over the place.

Either way, it's edible. But I'm going to think of it as P. peruviana, and look forward to some home-grown uchuvas at some point.

Never mind: I remembered that the plant we had at the other house was a "clammy ground cherry," and THAT plant's botanical name is P. heterophylla and guess what. THAT is what I have. It stands up tall, too. Ahh, well. This one is edible too! Will see if I get any clammy ground cherries ;-)

I have been waiting to draw this for **so long** There's been so much rain, I haven't had a chance. But today was clear, and tomorrow should be too, so!

Here is the relevant quote, describing a yaksa:

From her chest bloomed a great lotus, bursting through exposed ribs. From her eyes streamed marigold petals, flecked gold and carnelian, seeping from beneath the closed lids.

And here is my drawing, partially done...



Close-up on the face at that stage:



The whole thing, finished:



Close-up on the finished face:



And close-up on the lotus:



There are more amazing descriptions on the same page:

"The mouth opened and within it was a flower that unfurled in thorns, virulent blue and black, its heart a cosmos."

and

"Its eyes opened. Gold-petaled. Crimson as blood."

Anyway, I loved the image, and I loved that it let me channel all the South American muralists I follow on Instagram ;-)

I've been having a lot of fun with the girls next door. Last Saturday I read them Mousekin's Golden House, and unbeknownst to me, their mom took some pictures:





I said offhand to the older sister that she should write a story ... and the next day SHE CAME BACK TO ME WITH ONE. (I felt so influential!) And it's adorable. It's about the family's cats, Tulip and Cheeto:

( Tulip and Cheeto Life )

They've also joined in when I've done chalk drawings recently. Here's my cardinal with red-winged blackbird on a pumpkin...


And their accompanying pieces of art:



... I'll leave you with the chipmunk king. Recent rains have erased him, but he was a just and generous overlord while he reigned.