Bokeh Bird

This female ruby-throated hummingbird is sitting on one of the little
shish kebab skewers that I provide for my clients. My clients being the
gazillion birds who frequent my yard, who I'm trying constantly to
please in creative ways. I've stuck the bamboo skewers, which are
exactly the right gauge for tiny hummingbird feet, into the links of the
chain holding up one of my hanging

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A Day in the Life

I'll be honest: I'm coming down off the I have the whole house to myself! cloud and tiptoeing along the ditch of Is that all there is? I knew the shine would wear off it pretty quickly.

Make no mistake: there's plenty to keep me busy here, with a book deadline looming and me working at capacity. It feels really good to have my watercolor painting chops honed and oiled. But when you've

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On My Own Two Feet

I'm home from Wisconsin and happily painting blue jays and eating leftovers in the
quietest of quiet houses, deliriously glad not to be huddled in a corner
of some gray airport. Written while on the road:


I like travel. Even though I'm writing this as I'm finishing a 7-hour airline stranding in Detroit, and it's pushing 10 pm, and I have another four hours to go before I collapse in my

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Art and Love in Wisconsin

Displaying two perfect, squeaky squidgy Wisconsin cheese curds. From left, Master Artists Robert Bateman, Cindy House, and Not-Master Artist me.





The center of art in Wisconsin: Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, with a fabulous crane installation called "The Dance" by Donna Dodson and Andy Moerlein.




What a sculpture garden this museum has!



It's not at all like me to blog

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Hummingbird Decoy Works!

Along about Christmastime 2017, a package arrived from my new friend Susan Rankin-Pollard, a wonderful artist who specializes in picture book illustration. See her amazing work on her Instagram account here. We'd met at a Highlights retreat where I was teaching, then been to Ecuador together for Sue's first real bird expedition. She was bitten hard by the birding bug, and what a

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In Case You Missed It

photo by Anne Babcock



In Case You Missed It: Which, of course, all but about 60 people did...but let's consider what it's like to have 60 people arrive in your yard on a sprinkly, trying-to-be-fine Saturday noon. It's a trip, that's what it is! I'll confess that I spent several weeks in preparation for the Indigo Hill Garden Tour and Plant Sale, thinking of all the things that need

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August Garden Tour--Sneak Preview

Like all avid gardeners, I work hard at beautifying this place.
2018's wonderful growing season, with gentle, frequent rains, has
brought the gardens to a peak of perfection. But we're so far out in the
sticks, nobody but my kids and I ever see them! The meadow is alight
with prairie sunflowers, ironweed and goldenrod. The zinnias are losing
their minds. I want to share!





Come to Indigo

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