Taking a short break with a frog....

Little froglet in the water,
don’tcha think you really otter
save that croaking for tonight
when you’re safely outta sight?

Though I love your creaky chorus
pulsing through the springtime forest,
how I hope a hovering hawk
will not end your earnest grok!

Soon, I hope, a loving mate will
come to join you. I can’t wait till
all your fertile eggs are spread,
safely in their waterbed.

Okay, I just had to get that out of my system. I've just finished the 8th proof/edit of Nature & Travel Sketch Journaling and I just had to take a break and do something else for awhile.

The weather has been cold and wet except for a few bright days, just enough to get our hopes up here in southern Oregon, then dash them back down again. We've had 4½" of rain in the last couple of weeks, so that sort of shows you where the gloom gauge is set.

However, it is GREAT for frogs. Just outside my studio door is a pretty little pond I built many years ago, and about 40 feet away is a tub I sank into the forest floor and filled with water. The rain has kept them to the overflowing mark lately.

Each of them has a resident boyfrog, who has spent the last two weeks producing operatic extravaganzas, hoping to attract girlfrogs to their little ponds. Using binoculars, I can see them floating, chins pumped up like balloons, creating concentric, radiating rings on the still water with each croak (except when it's raining, then you can't see the vibes).

In the Nature & Travel Sketch Journaling workbook I've been crafting and endlessly (it seems) proofing and editing, there's a page on creating simple poetry in your journal, and I'd just finished polishing the rules for the umpteenth time (I can't chance ANY misunderstanding of the material in these workbooks because I'm not there to explain if the text isn't clear). So I thought I'd just try out the instructions. The froggy poem was the result.

There's a BUNCH of great stuff in this workbook. It's my best one yet, and longer than the others by a couple of pages. I've put some examples from my Costa Rica, Oregon beach, and Hawaii sketch journals, to clarify stuff I talk about. It has given me a major yen to travel.

I'll include one of my most unlikely sketches here. It's an Indian water buffalo, pulling a wooden oxcart filled with picnickers down the beach. As they passed in front of my amazed eyes, I had the minimal presence of mind to snap some photos, but there was no time to draw them, of course. That evening I sketched the picture into my sketchbook off the screen of my digital camera.

Hope you like it. And my froggy poem. You can copy the poem and use it for anything you like. I don't care. Have fun!

I'll be uploading the Nature & Travel Sketch Journaling workbook this week, so keep an eye out for it. You'll get a notice if you've signed up for one in the right-hand panel.

Oops! I accidentally uploaded this to the Sketching in Nature blog! Well, I'm sorry if you see it in two different places! Many apologies!

Cheers!