Of Birds and Brambles...

Well, April in Minnesota is looking pretty much like the last six months in Minnesota.  For those of you who don't live here, no, this is not normal.  Not that it never happens, but it hasn't in the 15 or so years I've lived here.  Not this much snow. 

It's just like a Currier and Ives Christmas card, except it's April.

Nothing to be done about it.  Bird watching was really good, since all the spring returning songsters show up against snow covered branches.  My cardinals and robins are all accounted for, and the house finches had to share the front porch with a lot of them, as they swooped in to dry their feet on the throws I leave on the swing and rocker.  I put out seed for everyone, and enjoyed the parade.

Robin wants in.  They weren't battering themselves against the glass (I'm "kind enough" to not wash my windows too often and thus endanger them), but there were several robins checking out the greenery in my front parlour from their perches in this bush, and on the front porch today.

There are always lots of things to do on a snow day.  I'd have gone out and built a snow fort, but then I would have had to endure the guilt of not shovelling the sidewalk.  My apologies to the three people who walked through downtown today, but I just could not force myself to shovel wet heavy stuff that will be water tomorrow.    Instead, I stayed in and did my work, which is just as much fun as building snow forts.

A tidy little stack of tissue, paint and markers...

before

 ...has turned into a landslide of snips and scraps...


during (you should see the floor!)

  ...to create things like this:


after
I probably could have just flattened a real onion and snapped a picture, but what fun would that have been?

Sorry, just the sneakiest of peeks, because this is an illustrating job for Cathy Isles' newest kids' book, Fruit and Veggies Aplenty, and I'm sure she'll want to unveil it properly in due time.  I had to show it though, because I've been really thin on blog material lately, since I usually show my work of the week, and for several weeks, this has been pretty much it.  Who knew it would take as long to illustrate a picture book as it does to paint a sixty foot mural? 

No, of course it didn't have to take this long.  True to my motto,
  "Two roads diverged in a wood
    and I, I went hiking off
       through the brambles",
I managed to find a way to make adding a bit of "loose and simple color and collage", to Cat's text and Lisa Fahey's photos, about as detailed as loose and simple can possibly be. 

There is nothing to be done for me.  I will happily tell you a dozen easy ways to do just about anything, but I will never personally take the easy way if it isn't the juiciest option I can dream up.  Why not?  Because the berries make the bramble hike worthwhile.  (Hang on Cat, I'm almost there, berries and all!)