The last two birdhouses



My Clematis with azalea in the background



Here are the last two birdhouses I finished lately, one is of tree sparrows and the other is a house finch.  They were both given as Mother's day gifts. Now I hope to spend all of my art time on a couple of entries for the Campbell Pottery Lily Festival. It is a busy time here now, since planting time is upon us. My flowers are starting to bloom and my seedlings in the green  houses are ready to plant. Mowing, weeding, mulching, and planting will require alot of time now. Hopefully I will have some time to ride my horses, as they have been neglected alot the last year. The beauty and promise of Spring still leaves me a little sad and worried, due to the threat of environmental destruction by fracking and the tire burning plant planned for this area. I wonder how long it will take for the beauty of this rural area to be gone and the views I so love to be a distant memory! Will we have clean air, water,safe food, lakes , streams, forests,wildlife,to enjoy in the future?



Geese on the nearby lake



A visit with Sandra Steingraber

Here I am getting copies of Sandra Steingrabers' books signed at a presentation she gave at Washington and Jefferson College last night. She is such an eloquent and beautiful speaker, covering topics that are dirty and frightening and in need of immediate action. She even managed to keep my husband awake for the whole presentation which is really saying something!! :) IF you CAN, read her books and go see her speak!!

It would be time well spent, for all of us!  

Here is a picture of some lovely pink dogwoods in bloom at the college! Aren't they gorgeous!!?

Springs Arrival!

It seems that spring has arrived in western PA! The trees are blooming and the birds are singing! I love this time of year for all the beauty and promise of things to come it affords! I have finished 3 more birdhouses that were ordered and have a couple more to go! I would like to get orders done so I can start work on an entry for the Cambell Pottery Lily festival. I have been busy of late with my Dad who is 89 and was in the hospital for 2 weeks and has since gone to a nursing home. It is so hard watching the Dad that took care of you and was strong for you , waste away before your eyes! I love him dearly and hope he can stay around a while longer!! Life is so precious and so short, makes you want to not waste a second of it!! I still am keeping up on the fracking fight but have not had time to do much lately, thankfully others are keeping the fight on track!! Sometimes it is hard to stay optimistic about stopping this awful practice , but I look at the beauty around here and know that we must fight to save our clean air, water, and country lifestyle!! Here are some photos I took recently. Enjoy!

Vacation, Birdhouses, and Fracking Fight

We are back from a weeks vacation in beautiful Punta Cana. The sun and rest was wonderful for recharging the spirit and the body. It was good to take a break from the fracking nightmare and now I am ready to fight anew!! I also started to do some artwork again since returning. I finished two birdhouse orders I had. Now I have four more of them ordered. They are popular this time of year and are great for so many of our feathered friends that need some where to nest. We have a planning meeting this week for our fracking group so we can plan our next event!! The gas companies are really active now in acquiring leases here.  Makes me so sad!! What destruction of our area is ahead???

Fracking Meeting

Here is a picture of a meeting our neighborhood group put on last night about the risks of hydrofracking and the environmental costs it poses. Our speakers did a great job and we had a full house! I hope we were successful in starting a conversation other than how much money you can make. One of our speakers is surrounded by wells in Butler county and as a result has contaminated water. She and her family have to go to their daughters house to get a shower. Have to boil bottled water to cook and wash dishes etc.. Is it really ok for this to happen??? And as the Industry claims it is not their fault, and people are lying about this problem all over the country, do you believe a corporation that stands to make billions or the people that just want clean water and air????  

        on another note, my artwork has been taking a back seat to my work on this issue but I have some orders to fill so I hope to get back to art real soon. Here is a picture of a state park near here that is due to have a well drilled starting in March--300 feet from the border. A Shame!!!

Playtime with Pappy

Here is a watercolor painting of my Dad and my son taken from one of my old favorite photos of them. This is still a work in progress but I haven't had much time to work on it during the holidays and with end of year tax work. I am also continuing to work on educating people on the practice of hydrofracking. My neighbor and I went to a township meeting to see how educated they were on the subject as the wear and tear on roads from the thousands of truck trips per well will definetly affect them. Sorry to say they didn't seem to be to aware of what will come, if this happens as the gas drillers hope . There did seem to be interest in finding out more about it and lots of concerns from all the people there. Encouraging!

   On a different note, I  have gotten some good photos of the birds at the feeders recently!! They are great for cheering up my day!! Here is one to cheer up yours!

Happy Holidays!!

Here are two gourd birdhouses that were ordered for Christmas presents. I finished them just in time! I am not in a very good holiday mood this year,due to the threat of hydrofracking to our part of PA. I feel like I am living in a nightmare since the beautiful abundant lakes , rivers, creeks, and groundwater here could be polluted with gas and a concoction of mostly unknown chemicals, of which the known ones cause cancer and endocrine disruptions. Since the oil and gas companies and their big money run everything in this country, this insane method of gas extraction goes on, unchecked!! Even though the EPA finally decided that hydrofracking polluted wells in wyoming. I have never been an activist in any other fight , but I feel I need to TRY to stop this before my place of birth and my home for most of my life is trashed and polluted by these methods. But how do you fight such big money??  We went to lovely Christmas cookie decorating party last night at a friends house  and some of us there will be trying to organize a public showing of gasland soon among other things. Everyone that lives here and drinks water should be worried about this coming danger.