Sunset

The sunset the other evening was gorgeous--again. We've had several really pretty ones in a row. Not sure if it's the warmer weather rolling in (today is in the 50s), but the clouds and the sunlight have been spectacular lately.

Icy iris

In this cold weather we like to make sure the birds in the yard have a water source. When I went to add water to the bird bath, I noticed that an ice ring had formed around the flat rock in the middle of the water. The pattern of the white lines shooting out from the stone in the center reminds me of the iris of an eye.

Fleeting light

I glanced up from what I was doing early this evening and saw THIS dramatic sky filling the window. Immediately I grabbed my camera and went outside to take pictures. I'm not sure whether you're familiar with how fleeting sunlight is, but it changes very quickly and you can easily lose "the shot of the century" (as my dad used to say). Even after only 5 minutes, the sky began to look more like this:

Equally as dramatic, but in a different way. Clearly the sun was much farther below the horizon at this point. Not to be outdone, one of the nearby cows started mooing very loudly and repeatedly. I guess she wanted to make sure I noticed her, too.

Thank-you notes

Don't you love receiving letters in the mail? I recently sent my calendar to several family friends, and was thrilled to find my mailbox full of thank-you notes. This is the time of year I try to catch up with everyone I don't see often. I love getting to read how everyone is doing and what they've been up to the past year, especially in a note hand-written by a friend.

Monet on ice

I took this picture out my car window the other day in the driveway. There was a sheet of ice still on the window, but it had begun to melt so that it had an uneven surface. To me it looks like brush strokes of paint, of a landscape with a lone white cloud rolling slowly across a perfectly clear blue sky.

Popular feeder

As cold as it's been and with snow and sleet coming down, the birds have been almost frantic at the feeder. They sit in nearby branches and then come swooping down, sometimes looking like fighter jets with their speed and agility. With so many of them doing this simultaneously, I don't know how they don't collide mid-air! But they don't, and we are thrilled to have them flocking to the feeder just outside our morning-coffee window.

Purple asparagus

Grocery shopping the other day I came across purple asparagus, right there next to the ordinary green. I don't recall seeing that before and found it intriguing. Green and purple are pretty together (something the artichoke has figured out), so this simple produce display became my photo canvas for the day.

Show bound

It's official! JAKE & META will be exhibiting at this year's National Stationery Show in NYC in May. Now the booth prep begins, not to mention additions to our product lines for 2011. It feels like a huge step, but an exciting (and requisite!) move. I'll be sure to post progress notes interspersed with all the photos of nature I find so inspiring.

Woodpile

Have you ever looked at a woodpile and wondered about the lives of the trees before they were cut? For instance, what got in the way of this trunk that appears to have curved around something as it grew?

 And what about the trees that are a different color in the very middle? 

 Or with an off-set center? 

And why is some wood inky black in color?  

It's fascinating to see into the core of something--there's always more going on than what simply appears on the surface.