Imagi(ni)ng Faith

I just finished a journal quilt that is all about questions instead of answers. Since I got sick, I've been struggling with issues of faith. In my past, "healthy" life, I thought I had a good grasp on my spirituality, my beliefs, my understanding of the universe. Since then, though, I've been struggling with questions about how my illness (how I?) fit into the bigger scheme of things.

For some reason, thinking about all these issues brought to mind one of our "wildlife" adventures, blogged about in this post. I kept thinking about those birds, swooping through the garage with their sticks and bits of fluff to build a nest, then with food for those little cheeping babies. I wondered if their diligence required a good bit of faith; living in the wild as they do, do they approach the nest every time with fear that either their eggs or screeching little hatchlings will be gone? Or do they fly confidently back with faith that everything is just as they left it? Maybe both: maybe there's no extracting fear from faith, and vice-versa. Or maybe neither: maybe those birds are just living life day-to-day, doing what it is their instincts tell them to do without thought. Either way, they go on, pushing through every day, and I have no doubt that they'll be back this spring, seeking out the relative safety of our garage.

This quilt started as a mixed-media collage on watercolor paper, using scrapbooking papers, stickers, stamps (rubber and postage), and paints. I then printed the collage onto fabric, cut it up into three pieces, and fused it to the background fabric. I left the edges of these pieces raw and pulled some threads to fray them. I machine-quilted the whole piece, then added the ribbon and, on top of it, the beads (which are pretty hard to see in the pic).

I don't think this quilt brought me any closer to resolving my struggles around issues of faith, but I do find something comforting in thinking about those birds and how they press on year after year in the face of their own struggles. Maybe in some small way, that's what faith is about.

The New Crop is In!

Some of you may remember the wildlife sagas from last year, and especially the baby birds that were born and raised in our bbq smoker. This year, a bird couple started building a nest on a top shelf in our garage, and I kept trying to wave them out. I even tried scaring them off by leaving the radio on in the garage, but apparently they LIKE country music.

We knew the babies had hatched when we started seeing Mom & Dad flying in and out with bits of worms and bugs rather than twigs and grass, and sure enough we could hear the little guys cheeping like mad whenever a parent approached. We knew from last year's experience that it doesn't take long until the babies are big enough to leave the nest (a couple of weeks at most), so I thought something was up this morning when I saw Daddy bird (he's much more aggressive and less afraid than Mama) acting strangely. He would fly into the garage, land on something, look around quickly, and chirp. Then he would move a few feet, look around again, and chirp some more. I turned off the ceiling fan so the little ones wouldn't whack themselves on the way down.

A little while ago, I went outside and heard baby-cheeping close to the garage door. Sure enough, there's a little one sitting just outside the garage, looking around. I went to grab the camera, but when I got close he flew away to the neighbor's yard. It must have tired him out because I slowly approached him, and he let me get pretty close and just sat blinking at me.

This is the only baby I've seen so far, although I'm sure there were at least two and probably three of them. I'll miss their cheeping, but I'll be happy to get rid of the bird's nest--the garage is smelling a little too much like wildlife for me :-)

Whirlwind Tours Continued

I'm still flitting from one project to another. I think it's because my job is consuming most of my time but all of my mental energy. Even when I find myself with a few spare minutes to play, I'm thinking about work and so can't really settle into or commit to a project. At any rate, here are some of the things I've been working on over the last week:

ATC backgrounds. I haven't made any cards in forever, but this was dyed paper-towel paper (from Traci Bautista's book, Collage Unleashed) so it was simply a matter of cutting and gluing. I'm not sure where to take them from here, of course.

Polymer clay: AAARRGGGHH. I've said for years that even though polymer clay intrigued me, I did NOT want to get into it, because the last thing I needed was another medium to work with (or to spend money on). Alas, my DP, who occasionally ventures brilliantly--if briefly--into the art world, decided she needed to play with polymer clay. Fortunately, it was on sale at Jo Ann's. Unfortunately, "on sale" is crafter's code for "have to buy tons of it while it's 1/2 price." DP made her lovely project, returned to her favorite past-time (watching movies) and hasn't touched the clay since, so of course, it's up to me to use it up. I have no idea what I'm doing, but that can be a good thing, I think, since there are no "rules." This is a small piece that was striated, and looked like a little ghostly landscape. I used some oil pastels to "paint it." I don't even know if there's any way to seal it now; I would add a polymer frame, but I don't know that I can bake it without ruining the oils.

Another poly clay WIP; I saw a woman on That's Clever (or was it Crafter's C-to-C?) make a large polymer angel over a copper mesh. I have copper mesh, I have polymer clay. Lots of it. So I made a little angel, then decided she needed a box to live in. I'm not happy with the box yet, but I'm not sure where to take it, so I'm setting it aside for the moment. I need to add arms to my angel, and I think I'll make a miniature art quilt for her to hold.

And finally . . . my first ever fabric postcard! I made the background using a technique posted by Wendy in the Cloth Paper Studio group; it's a great technique because I can use up all those little fabric scraps I can't bring myself to throw away. I'm mailing it today to my sweet Mom.

Wildlife update: the bunnies are on their own. We built a make-shift pen around them to keep the dogs away, then opened it up every night so that the mom could get to them and feed them. One morning, we happened to notice one sitting out in the yard; fortunately, we found them before the dogs did. We hunted and finally found a second one. After a lot of debate, we decided that they either needed to go back into the pen, or that it was time to leave. When I reached down to touch one, it zipped across the yard and under the fence to the greenbelt behind us. The second one didn't move, but when I picked it up it jumped and ran out of the same hole. We couldn't find the third one, so we were hoping it had already ventured out into the world. At first we covered the hole under the fence with rocks, but then decided that if they came back through another opening, they would need that hole as an emergency escape route if the dogs found them, so we uncovered it again. At any rate, the dogs are finally back outside, we've swept and vacuumed and dusted most of the hair out of the house, and life seems a little calmer now. The thing in the picture is my grandson's transformer action figure, which is bigger than the baby.

Detours: More on the Wildlife

A quick pic of the baby bunnies. We actually think there may be 3, but we don't want to move them around or leave them uncovered too long to really investigate. We saw the mama perched on the nest last night, so we're relieved that she's taking good care of them, and that she's safe. We see a lot of dead rabbits on the small highway that runs behind our house, and lately we worry every time that it's our mama.

Whirlwind Tours

I'm in a manic phase, spinning from one project to another but unable to finish anything. I love the energy of these phases; I hate the inability to focus or concentrate, and the feeling that I have to hurry, hurry, hurry to get everything done before I crash. It doesn't help that I've taken on too much at my job (as usual, I'm interested in the cutting edge projects, but managers have yet to catch up and see exploration & research as a valuable activity; instead, they want to see results--a new product!--yesterday).

I took Friday off so that I could step back, take a deep breath, and not think about my job, but instead focus on what I consider my work--those activities that challenge me and make me feel fulfilled, like drawing, journaling, quilting. I enjoyed the day off, but never did get my job off my mind. I did manage to create a padfolio for my daughter (unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of it before I gave it to her). These are quick and fun, and I would have made more this weekend except that I ran out of peltex.

Out of the scraps, I made this fabric "hidden treasure" box. It, too, was fun and easy, but now I have to figure out the treasure to hide inside. I want to add more embellishments to the outside, too.

Update on the wildlife situation: yesterday, we let the dogs out for their bathroom break (they're so bored in the house they've taken to chasing each other through it; I feel like my kids are little again: "stop running in the house! get away from that plant!"). DP noticed them sniffing at something and when she started yelling at them to get into the house, I ran to see what was up NOW. Turns out Ma & Pa were teaching the babies to fly. There are three little ones, and flight training is fascinating to watch. Ma & Pa sit on the fence and cheer the babies on; these little guys spend a lot of time hopping around the yard and occasionally beating their wings like crazy, lifting a few inches off the ground, before crashing into it again. The whole family finally managed to traverse the length of the backyard in this fashion, alternately cheering on, flapping, crashing, and hopping. When they reached the back fence, the little ones were relieved to realize they could perch on the fence railing that's 2 feet or so off the ground. One sat there and refused to move any further. This one managed to make it all the way to the top of the fence (though it took a while with all the fits and starts). I'm guessing the process is made more difficult by Ma & Pa having done such a great job feeding these little guys; they're quite chubby, as you can see.

Detours: Wildlife

We've had an incredibly wet summer here in Central Texas--over 40 days of rain so far, and it doesn't look as though it will stop anytime soon. This is good news for the drought; our lakes are finally filling back up, the aquifer is replenishing, and the best news is that we haven't had to deal with the miserably hot days that usually stretch endlessly before us in June, July, August, and September.

All this rain is not such good news for my DP, who is a homebuilder and is now behind schedule on all her homes. Nor is it good news for some of us who live close to nature. We're in a suburb, and the only thing that separates our backyard from a greenbelt and a creek is a wooden fence. Normally this isn't too troublesome; occasionally we hear a small animal screaming at night and know that a more powerful animal has attacked. An armadillo once wandered into the garage where I was sitting; I politely but firmly told it to go away, and surprisingly, it did. Another time, we were spectators to the sight of a hawk swooping down on a squirrel in one of our trees and carrying it off. I'm not sure I'll soon forget the sound of that small animal screaming. Then there was an episode with a possum that I still can't bring myself to talk about.

Over the last couple of weeks, though, we've had entirely too many encounters with wildlife. We're usually notified of the presence of something non-domestic by the dogs. They get excited, they run through the yard with their noses against the ground, they lead us to the intruder and, depending on the threat level, either attack it or notify us of the need to attack by barking verociously. That was the case recently, when our little Lhasa Apso, who once tracked and cornered an armadillo as big as she is (with 6" razor-sharp claws), let us know that something wasn't right at the corner of the house. I peered into a small hole and realized I was staring at a huge, coiled-up black snake. I screamed and ran, and I'm pretty sure the neighbors thought another small animal was being abducted. When I went back to peek a few minutes later, the snake was gone. It took me hours to get over the willies.

Unfortunately, I was running late the next morning and went flying out the door and almost stepped on the snake. This time he looked much bigger. I hoped that was because I was much closer, and not because he was growing at some astonishing rate. He slithered off into the bushes and hasn't been seen since, but I'm still paranoid--I peek out the door before opening it, then run to my car.

At least the snake incident was short-lived. We've recently discovered that we get to be surrogate moms to lots of babies in our backyard. Somehow, the air vent on the bbq smoker got left open, and a pair of finches built a nest inside. The vent is low to the ground, and our 3 dogs are fascinated by the sound of baby birds screaming their little heads off. I have no idea how long it takes finches to grow up, but I hope they do it quickly.

The other morning the dogs ran out into the yard and immediately had their noses to the ground. I knew something had been there during the night, and I prayed it wasn't the snake. They sniffed and trailed and wandered in circles, and then they found something and were frantically pawing at the ground. DP and I yelled at them and ran to see what it was; 2 tiny gray rabbits were lying in the grass. One was injured and one was dead (no doubt both the victims of the dogs), but there was something still moving in the hole they had dug them from. We glanced in and there was another little head waving around, it's tiny baby ears still plastered back on its head. We covered the nest back up, put the dogs in the house, and spent the rest of the day fretting about baby bunnies. What if the mom didn't come back? I checked the Web and found out that it's almost impossible to keep baby bunnies alive without their mother's milk, since there's no good substitute. I noted the signs of starvation and hoped we wouldn't see in our babies. I also calculated they were between 7 and 10 days old, since they get fur at 7 days (check) and open their eyes at 10 days (not yet!).

The next day, the furry little critters (we now saw that there were two) were packed tightly in their nests, and they didn't show any signs of starvation. We were fairly certain Mom had stopped by to feed them. It seems that the mother rabbits don't stay with the babies, since this might draw predators. Instead, they typically hide out of sight, but where they can keep an eye on--or at least get to--their young. Sure enough, the dogs were nosing around the storeroom, which is about 30 feet away from the nest. I think she's staying under there for now.

So, two sets of babies, a missing snake, and three dogs that have to be watched carefully every minute they're outside ("get away from those babies!") and watched carefully every minute they're inside ("get away from that plant!").

I'm exhausted.