It was a dark and stormy day today in upstate NY. The sky never did turn blue and from time to time it got so black and threatening that I thought we were going to have another big thunder and lightening thing like we had last night. My dog has never been much of a marine, but last night she was super-scared - cowering in the corner farthest from the window. Today, she spent the day curled, quaking, in the armchair in my studio where there was little light, but a lot of nice roses picked from the wild and gnarly bush by the barn. The roses are very delicate, even a little malnourished - not your chubby English types at all. And they open from bud to fully formed bloom very very quickly. The weather made me just as jumpy as the dog and so I sort of flitted around my studio throwing paint on various surfaces hoping to make something that resembled the roses I had brought in from the cold. Don't know if I managed or not, but I learned a little something. And I was rewarded for my efforts when, listening to the glorious "Softly awakes my heart" aria from the Saint-Saens opera "Samson and Delilah", I looked out my studio window and saw not only a rabbit in the grass, but also a beautiful deer leaping across the pasture AND a blue heron flying overhead on its way to the pond!
