Birds, Headstones and Cake

Eclectic sketches from the Scavenger Hunt #10. We were in Magdalena and on dial-up at 10 cents a minute, cost not as important as just taking too long. Ha.

The first is the birds out Mom Frances' kitchen window. She is 89 and just loves to watch and feed her birds. But, drat, they won't be still to sketch. Hummers, sparrows and house finches.



The second is headstones. Luckily we were in Magdalena so I sketched the headstones in the Knoblock family plot. There is such deep grass and wildflowers (weeds there) that I couldn't really see the headstones.





I had never noticed how pretty the fence is with the crosses on top. Always too busy looking for ghosts when I was a kid, I guess. Some of the weeds and prickly stickers are waist high. (Forgot to take a pic of the stickers I sketched so will post it next) It was pretty there, but hard to get around .. watching for rattlesnakes and such! Hard to concentrate as well. Not my favorite place to go, but I got the sketch .. very quickly I might add. Mom Frances was telling us that a few years ago, she and Velma, the oldest daughter, were cleaning their plots and decided to burn the weeds. The wind came up (very normal in Magdalena) and the fire got out of control. They were arguing about going for help. "You go", says Mom. "No, you go!", says Velma, etc. Finally Velma went. She got to Ambers, the volunteer fire chief and he said, "Let it burn, they are all dead so no one will get hurt!" "But my Mom is there!", says Velma. So he got the fire-truck and went to the cemetery and by the time they got there, Mom Frances working so hard had it almost out.

The third is coffee cake at Mom Frances' as well. Gene likes that before breakfast with coffee and she likes to eat it for dessert.



The sketches are in my generic sketchbook with one of the Micron 05 pens. As usual no erasing or correcting about 15 minutes each.

This is my exhibit at Peppers Gallery in Magdalena.