MY Birding in Greece

My father, Reed, my uncle, David Garrison, & my brother, Michael Harwood, were all birders. They all kept lists. My most treasured entry in my father's log was: "Yellow Breasted Chat, seen from hall window [date], 51 years of patient waiting". My brother wrote a book called On the Road with John Jay Audubon & another called A View From Hawk Mountain. There were many others too.

My whole family had an easy acquaintanceship with birds. One of the first books given to me was on on my 8th birthday. It was Peterson's Field Guide to Eastern Birds which I often looked at during rest time at camp in Vermont for 5 summers. I knew many silhouettes. I knew birds even if I said their names wrong, as in 'pleated' for 'pileated'.

So when I decided I would join a trip in Greece that combined birding with antiquities, I was primed. I had been given the Greek name Daphne [I knew the myth of her being turned into a tree by heart]. I had met a lot of Greek ideas & words in mathematics [my major at college]. So I felt always that one day the trip to Greece for me had to happen. When one of our leaders, Joseph, talked a lot about Greek word roots I was over the moon with interest! I had been tracking Greek word roots for years.

George & I got to Athens a few days before we were to get on our boat to go around the Peleponese. I started noticing that I was just naturally gravitating to taking photos of birds!

So here's what I found.  I'll start with pottery. Secretly, as I was clicking my camera, I was asking myself what these birds were....

 This bird-woman below was absolutely & unquestionably influencing Saul Steinberg, the well-known New Yorker magazine artist.

                                       Next mosaics....
                          Peacocks? Coots? Rails? Look at those legs!

Then frescos & textiles & other flat images...

Oh hoopoes...?

                                                          Oh chukar!

...then sculpture....

         The righthand bird below was Byzantine from the Christian era.

And finally the label of the wine bottle we drank on our last night in Athens. Oh my!! 

What a marvelous special birding trip!! I rarely got out my binoculars, I occasionally identified birds, & what I saw was delightful. But I am no longer hungry to add to my list.  I do sort of have one.

But I love the idea of letting go of the list imperative. 

It's very freeing somehow.

I know, that's heresy to avid birders, but that's where I am at.

                         I wonder what Michael, Uncle David, & Reed would think?
                                                       That's it for now.

Faith's sewing/stitching & my sister Lynne's painting

Faith is my niece, my sister Lynne's daughter.
I recently visited the two of them in Anson, Maine & we hung out together for a few days at their house there.

Faith is an artist.  I have posted about her before.
Well, truthfully, she has been helped a lot by my sister Lynne who is a painter.

So let me start with some of Lynne's work.  Lynne is a farmer/gardener.
She grows much of her own food, keeps bees, & has been living close to the land since 1975 or so.  She paints about her life.
There are her paintings & Faith's work all over the house.

This one below I particularly like. She often modifies the shape of her images. I see this one as being very tender.

                                                  This is the bed where Lynne sleeps. 
She has hip problems & awaits hip surgery for relief, so for now she sleeps downstairs. 

                                            Faith painted the chair & lampshade.

 Lynne's bee-hives now have electric fences around them after too-many-bear-raids!!   

Faith often does stitchery imagery.

Right now she is working on a piece that she calls "The Kid Quilt".

She works with round image patches & then sews backgrounds around them.

This is her most challenging work so far.

                                           Swimmer with friendly fish.

                 Two biking rounds & two swimmers with fish & turtles.

                    I enjoy her rich playful imagery of the best of carefree childhood!

That's it for now.