fullness of life

early Saturday morning an owl's nesting box ready for inspection from the BirdWatch Folks; it faces south east away from prevailing winds and incoming rain! We can see it from one of the kitchen windows and hopefully we'll see owls flying in and out this coming year; it's placed on the right where the two big trunks separate just above the ivy-line, as it's painted dark green it is a difficult thing to see in this particular photograph 

Margaritifera auricularia

or as we say in Dutch: rivier mossel, roughly translates as river clam

why have I never properly noticed them before? certainly not enough to want to bring them back home; perhaps because there were so many lying about as I wandered into the fields this morning, where my presence chased away a flock of Canada geese, and as they flew up I saw all these empty shells along the canal's edge.
The insides are so pretty with their rainbow-shine: pearlescent



Maybe the colours reminded me of the latest dye-result, this T-shirt I dyed as a present for N. it's his birthday today, we'll be popping over later.

 there's avocado peel, red and yellow onion skins, coins and washers clamped, plus tea bags and a very much diluted walnut residu all in the magic mix here, fixed with a drop of vinegar and washed with coconut hand soap, to make it smell nice!

 as the days are really falling in on themselves, day becomes night all too soon, as can be seen in the photo below, where the window pane appears to be black and it's barely past 5 p.m.

this small journey I call MoonDog is also a present, this one's a going-away gift for our external coach who will be leaving us next week; images taken against a dark and a light background, so you get a better idea of the actual colours, or so I hope....

MoonDog 2015
appr. 9x23cm

the 'black' block is actually dark grey linen

meanwhile, a christmas tree of sorts has arrived in the OBK's kitchen; went for lunch at a friend's  yesterday and came back home with this bonsai glass bead tree; added a few baubles of our own, hey ho the happy season is upon us! at last, they sigh..............