Tuesday, January 31, 2006

BUNNY FEET!

FINALLY! I have been out with Casey (my German shepherd) for months now, taking the occasional walk in the woods instead of up the road, and I finally saw bunny tracks today! We just had a light snowfall, and it was perfect for leaving tracks. I knew we had bunnies in the woods because we'd see them in the neighbourhood occasionally, but I was never able to find any when I was out for a walk in the woods. I was hoping to find a warren, but unfortunately these tracks today led from near someone's house, through the woods, to near someone else's house. Not wanting to intrude in a stranger's yard, I just gave up the search, but it was very fun, after months of just seeing little piles of rabbit poo and nothing else, to see these great big tracks, and even the little tail indentation. It was SO cute!!! Couldn't get pics, didn't have my camera (and besides which, Casey was obliterating the tracks as we went, saying "Oh, someone went ahead of us, I'll just follow in their footsteps for easier walking". Silly puppy, she doesn't know anything about searching for bunnies).

I am so tickled pink. :D

If you want to see a pic of the types of bunnies we have here, I found this picture here. This little guy is from farther up the coast, but they're probably very similar 'round here. (BTW, the links don't work on that page for some reason, but the picture's there).

EDIT: Just so you know, that's a summer coat the bunny has on. Around these parts, our rabbits change to white in the winter to blend in with the snow. :)

Saturday, January 28, 2006

Saturday Afternoons, Jane Austen, and upcoming newsletter

Ah, I love Saturday afternoons...I'm a big fan of food, :) and Saturday afternoons on PBS are all cooking shows. Right now it's Lidia's Italian Table, and she's got her little granddaughter helping her out, rolling some filling into balls, it's really cute. It's great to get kids involved in cooking when they're young. It makes them feel like they've helped feed the family, and it gets them interested in something that can be useful to them their whole lives.
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Do you love Jane Austen, even a little? (C'mon, admit it...Pride and Prejudice is one of the best romance stories ever written - it's true!) We read Pride & Prejudice in a literature course at university - I had never read Austen before, and was so blown away, I devoured just about everything else she wrote. (While I really enjoyed reading the others, P & P was definitely the height of her literary powers, IMHO).

Anywho...if you enjoy Austen's work, you definitely need to check out The Republic of Pemberley. It's a very fun place for people to gather and discuss all aspects of her work, works like it, share their own Austen-inspired works and more. There's also links to the full texts of her works online. And for goodness' sake, you have to check out their online gift shop hosted at Cafepress. It is really one of the best theme shops I've seen out there, it's so fun. I mean, who wouldn't want a "My other car is a Barouche" license plate frame - it's adorable!

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I've been working a lot on my upcoming newsletter, there'll be lots of interesting info, including the introduction of two new pieces, and a sneak peek at a third. If you want to get my newsletter when it comes out on Monday (AST), you can sign up on my main website.

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Cast of Characters in the Blog

These are some of the people and animals you'll meet as you read through my blog.


Ann - me! artist & photographer, living on the Eastern Shore of beautiful Nova Scotia, Canada.


• Dave - my honey since '93



Molly - our cranky-old-lady cat; she can still be sweet though! Named for Paul Molitor's nickname.



Baby Boy - our cuddly, but thuggish, cat. Born feral, we caught him in our backyard, tamed him, & have loved him ever since.



Peepers - our latest furry addition, came to live with us after staring in our back window for endless hours. We fed him, and he never left again (except to hunt a few hours at night). Moved indoors with us in July 2007. Still very kittenish, even though he had been living on his own in the wild for a while.



Casey - the sweetest, gentlest dog we've ever known; our best girl, our huge German Shepherd Dog.

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

The sweet smell of ... whale barf?

Odd but very cool news from Yahoo! today:

An Australian couple found a 32 lb lump of ...something...floating in the water. It was so strange, they took it home, tried to find out what it was, and eventually took it to a marine biologist who identified it as the rare and wonderful gift from a whale's gut, Ambergris. Used by the ancient Egyptians and Chinese for perfumes, and still highly prized today, it should net the Austrailian couple about $295,000 USD. WOW! Luck can be found in the strangest of places sometimes...

Read the full story here.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

post-election blues, a great Canadian artist, and dogs at work

Looks like all the stress I was feeling yesterday about the election was well founded...NOT a fan of Stephen Harper. 'Nuff said.

Results from the CBC: http://www.cbc.ca/canadavotes/electionnight/

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I thought today I'd talk about a fellow Canadian artist, Kristeen Verge. Her work is just so striking - I'm a huge fan of bold, bright colour, and her work has it in spades!! I'm also a big fan of tulips, poppies, and cats, and she's done a lot of works featuring all three! She has a great sort of folk style for her non-floral works, which are a lot of fun, but I think my favorites are her florals. Check out this piece ("Poppy Dance") as an example - look at her use of colour and bold lines - the lines are almost hypnotizing. You really can FEEL the colour, it's almost like the image vibrates with life. This piece reminds me so much of summertime; the dichotomy of temperatures between the hot sun and the cool shade.

It states on her website: “As a professional artist, my intention is to impart the viewer with the joy I experience when creating my artwork.” At least as far as I'm concerned, she's definitely succeeded!

Check out her website and an extensive gallery of her works: http://www.kristeenverge.com/

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Interesting news: new online survey shows that most people would take a pay cut and work longer hours if they could take their dog to work. I'd believe it! At one of my old jobs, we talked a lot about getting an "office puppy" (didn't happen, but it was a popular idea) - there's something about having a dog at work that makes the place seem more relaxed, and if your workforce is not all stressed out, they're bound to get more done in a day. :) Of course, it wouldn't work for everyone, a high energy dog might cause some chaos, but generally speaking, I'm all for it. It would make the owner of the dog more comfortable knowing that their dog was okay, and if they had to stay late, they needn't worry about any accidents on the carpet waiting for them at home!

Of course, keep in mind that the survey was done in part by a dog-friendly forum - that might skew the numbers a bit! :) Good bit of advice, always check and see who's sponsored the survey when you look at the results!

Read the full story here: http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/24/news/funny/dog_work/index.htm?cnn=yes

Monday, January 23, 2006

The Beginning...

Hey all! Starting a new blog today, on Election Day in Canada, 2006. If you're Canadian and haven't voted already, get out there and do it! Whenever I feel like I don't know who to choose, or I don't feel like going, etc., I remember that there are people who have to risk their lives to vote in some countries! And that the first women in Canada to get the vote (in Manitoba) only got it in 1916!! That's less than a hundred years ago! So there's NO WAY I'm not going to get out there and do my "Democratic Duty" as the CBC described it today.

Why is my blog called "Sinister"? Well, that's a term that used to be used for Left-Handers, which I am. :) This blog will be a place for interesting stories (interesting to me, and hopefully to you as well), & any major news regarding my websites: www.annmorash.com (a website devoted to my artwork) , shop.annmorash.com (my Cafepress-powered gift shop) and www.learnpysanky.com (a website devoted to the ancient Ukrainian folk art of Easter egg decorating). If you want to learn more about me and my websites, check out my artist bio. I also have a monthly newsletter that I send out on the last Monday of the month, which gives sneak peeks of my upcoming artwork, some of my favorite recipes (I LOVE FOOD!), the latest news on sales at my Gift shop, and more! You can sign up on my main artist website.

I'm off to be stressed about the election...the CBC has a great site to keep track of the results if you're interested: http://www.cbc.ca/canadavotes/ I'm sure I'll have more to say on that tomorrow morning, when the results are known.