Thunder Hail and Canada Geese

 Dear Tito,
Yesterday, after I got back from the studio, the sky got really black and wind whipped up. Then came the thunder! And then came the hail!  Pretty unusual for winter in New Jersey!

I spent most of the afternoon working on the new painting, "McCarter Pond"  I laid down the background and penciled in most of. the figures. I'm using acrylics to lay in the first layer and finishing it in oils. It's gunna be a great painting!  And the memories it's bringing back are so f friendly. I hope it's ready for the Red Bank Street Fair on April 16!

I wasn't able to keep the sliding door open today like I did yesterday but I didn't need to turn the heater on either. This has been the strangest winter! 

On the way back from the studio I encountered a pair of Canada geese. in the field next to the house.  They were not happy to see me. I"m sure they were looking for a nesting site. They were looking at place really quite far from the creek that runs behind our house.  But I'm pretty sure it's the same pair that roosted in the woods at the. front of the house last year. They'll either have to get used to me walking by every day or find someplace to lay their eggs.

So many people wish the geese would just go away.  There are so many of them just about everywhere you look! Not enough predators I guess and they don't fly south for the winter anymore.  But Tom and I just love them! They set up their territories during February and have their babies by the end of March. Then, from then until sometime in the summer our backyard is sprinkled with downy, fluffy yellow puff balls that turn into gangly teenager geese and finally, so grown up that we can't  tell them from their parents.  

Last year we had a lone goose. Sometime during the spring he/she lost her mate and spent weeks swimming up and down the creek and calling a mournful way, over and over again.  So sad!  Here's hoping that there are no lone geese this year.

Here's an image of the babies from the book I published last year.