Author Archives: Melissa Fischer

I answered the door to see Emilio, one of the young neighbor boys, with his parents and two brothers close behind. Joe, the father, was carrying something wrapped in a jacket. Emilio excitedly blurted out that they had a baby goose that their cat had separated from his family.

Did I know what to do with it? I didn’t really know, but I offered to take the gosling and see if I could find his family wandering around.

Unfortunately the family had disappeared, so I took the gosling to a pond where I thought there might be geese. Sure enough, there was a family of Canada Geese at Rockingham Pond with goslings the same size as our lost gosling.

I carried the gosling in a box toward the goose family, stopping when they started to walk away. Then I let the baby out. He took one look at the goose family in the distance and started toward them.

The family stopped walking away and turned to wait for the gosling to come to them.

The young goslings weren’t so sure about the newcomer, but the parents seemed content to have him join their family.

The young’uns quickly accepted the newcomer, and he joined their ranks.

The family turned and left together.

The lost gosling had a new family.

Watercolour painting everyday

Training a shaggy Beardie

Daily walks in the gorgeous countryside

An adorable thatched cottage

Pub meals

Huge breakfasts

Delicious cheeses

Wonderful dinners

Stonehenge

Visiting with old friends and meeting new friends

Seeing the Mall Gallery’s Royal Society of Portrait Painters Exhibition

Double-decker buses

Talking to all hours

Laughing at all hours

A magical, wonder-filled, inspiring visit

I can’t even begin to describe the wonder of this time in England. I had high hopes for this week, and it far exceeded my hopes and dreams.

Some of my greatest passions are dog training, art, teaching, and learning, and this week was built around and permeated with all of those. It was a new situation for me to be sharing talents as Jean and I did, with her teaching me her magical way of using watercolour and me training her and Bailey, who are both apt and quick students. Teaching and learning woven together throughout every day, as even our tea breaks were filled with discussion and discovery of the similarities in how we each approach our teaching, even using almost identical metaphors to explain and encourage the learning process.

Here is a sampling of my washes, experiments, and paintings as we progressed through the week, generally following a plan Jean had for helping me learn and grow and loosen up as an artist. Her plan worked, and I am thrilled every time I pick up a paintbrush and look at a white piece of paper.

Quail eggs—the first thing we painted together. I tried to splatter the eggs with a toothbrush and ended up splattering everything BUT the eggs.

Cowslip Washes—not attempting to paint the cowslips but rather just get the feel and color –painting flowers CAN be exciting!

Snowdrops—how to get the whiteness of the snowdrop along with the cold feeling of early spring

Resting Beardie

Happy Wash—a flow of colour to capture movement and light

Sheep

Duck (reference photos– Duck, Sheep, & Beardie by Jean Haines)

“Can I watch?”

“I have paints too! You can use mine if you want.”

Two young neighbors, Emilio and Lukas, joined me at the picnic table as I painted trees this afternoon. I declined their generous offer to use their psychedelic-colored paints, but we chatted about tree shapes and nature journaling while we painted.

Bare branches swayed gracefully in the light breeze, while the sun highlighted twigs and cast shadows on the trunk of the Horse Chestnut. The Black Locust was black and still, branches silhouetted darkly against the blue sky. It always has an eerie, gnarly look, unlike the inviting, life-filled branches of the Horse Chestnut.

I know there’s something living in the Locust tree– the dogs sniff around the base with great interest, but I suspect it’s nocturnal, since I rarely even see a squirrel in it. Jonathan once discovered a flying squirrel nest in it, but that was years ago.

The Horse Chestnut is a highway and home to many bird species and squirrels. Right outside my studio window, it brings nature to my side with abundance and constant variety. Right now its buds are swelling larger by the day, preparing to burst into bloom in a couple of weeks.

Here’s the squirrel who comes via the Horse Chestnut to my feeder. I did this quick sketch of him with my paper on the windowsill and the squirrel right on the other side of the glass, stopping often to watch me paint him.

As I rinsed my brushes, third-grade Emilio showed me the yellow pollen-laden stamens he had carefully painted on a flower and explained that he hadn’t painted the ovary and ovules this time. First-grader Lukas smiled shyly but proudly as he showed me his brilliant tree with orange trunk and green crown. Then they headed home, calling over their shoulders that they would come back to paint with me again after school tomorrow. It was a good plein air painting session.

My friend Sarah suggested we write March Haiku. I’ve always felt that writing poetry was beyond my grasp, something that only specially gifted people could do, but this seemed doable, and I’ve had fun trying to put my impressions into brief lines of syllables. Each haiku captures a moment in time during this past month. I smile inside as I reread my poems and am taken back to the look and feel and sound of when I wrote them.

What I really like is that this is one more example of how I’m feeling freed to try new things, not worrying that it’s no good or that people will disapprove. I’m realizing that the process of learning to write is valid, just as I’ve found that the process of learning to paint is valid. And I suppose that’s just like the fact that the process of growing up is also valid; not only valid, but necessary. One doesn’t start life as an adult, and childhood is not inferior. Being a child is a important prerequisite to becoming an adult. And THAT gives me much to ponder…

March Haiku

moths flutter to light
swamps resound with frog love songs
life stirs and springs forth

chased by raucous jays
the red-tailed hawk builds a nest
preparing for young

squirrels flit and jump
from branch to branch overhead
chasing and playing

cat stalks mourning dove
crouching still, whiskers twitching
birds erupt skyward

leaf by leaf it dies
the pretty Christmas orchid
while native plants thrive

first red-wing of spring
alights on tall grass and sings
declaring it his

late flurries frolic
briefly airborne, reveling,
destined to melt soon

morning dew shimmers
bird chorus proclaims spring joy
March leaves like a lamb

PJ’s warm head rests on my lap, as I idly scritch her scruffy chest. Petra lies at my feet, always alert, but quiet for now. Milo is curled into a compact ball on a soft bed, and Rowan sprawls on the smooth floor. Wyatt sleeps in a corner.

The only sounds are the rhythmic ticking of the kitchen clock and PJ’s soft breathing.

Even the noise in my head has quieted after a day by myself. This morning I was like a Jack-in-the-box, hopping up every minute or two to attend to a dog, make tea, get a snack, look for something in my room, clean the counter. The more I tried to sit still, the more I thought of things that “needed” doing.

Now, though, I am content to sit with my hand on PJ, simply savoring this moment with the dogs and myself for company. My mind feels awake and yet calm, able to follow a train of thought from beginning to end without getting waylaid by static. Surrounded by quiet, with no demands on my time, I’ve been able to quiet my frenetic inner activity. The animals’ gentle presence draws me toward connection rather than production, softening my heart and tuning my ears to my own soul and to God.
Rowan
PJ

Milo

Yesterday morning was drab and drippy. And chilly, as I found out when I stepped outside without my jacket. Hugging my chamois shirt closer, I looked around the yard and across the stream. Sounds and colors alike were muted by dampness, and everything was grey… everything except for a cluster of small, pink-tinted white dots on the edge of the woods.

Pussywillows!!!! Their fuzzy shapes were just emerging from the rusty buds, and they stood out bright and fresh against the colorless backdrop.

The funny thing is, today, with the sun shining, I can barely distinguish the pussywillows from the sunlit woods behind them. Perhaps they are a special gift to brighten dull days.
Today, warmed by sunshine, the snowdrops have finally lengthened their white blossoms to greet the new year of growth. They’re not wide open yet and there are no bright colors– we have to wait for the crocuses for color– but the small, white and green flowers are the first bulbs to herald the arrival of warmer weather. Snowdrops look delicate, but given that they push their way through barely thawed earth and brave bitter nights, they must be made of sterner stuff than the larger bulbs that bloom later, when the weather is more reliable. Simple beauty, quiet strength, harbingers of hope– I like snowdrops.

Petra crouches, bunched muscles showing through her breeze-rippled fur. Milo bounces impatiently, unable to contain his excitement for even a moment, though he does land in a sitting position each time he hits the ground. Rowan leans forward, front feet dancing in place, glances at me, then fixes his gaze forward, through the gate. Each is awaiting the magic moment when he or she is released to rocket forward.

Petra first, with Milo baying behind her, shoots out the gate and up the hill. Rowan tears after them, short staccato barks bursting from his throat.

But then… silence….

Petra stops, looks back at the house, then jogs back to lie outside the gate, Jolly Ball in her mouth, staring at the door. Milo trots back and forth looking at the door, then wanders off to clean up deer leavings from the grass. Rowan stops mid-flight with one front paw up, staring at the door for a long minute, then sits by the gate and stares at the door. Neither Petra nor Rowan moves or even glances away.

Then, I open the door. Their heads ratchet up and their stares increase in intensity.

I step out, and suddenly they burst into motion, Petra streaking up the hill, Milo instantly abandoning deer droppings to fall in behind her, blazing her trail with happy baying, Rowan again taking up the rear, punctuating the air with his sharp barks.
This time I walk in the yard, and the dogs swoop up and down, around shrubs and trees, circling the house, always keeping me in sight, playing tirelessly for much of my walk.


I don’t understand why, but somehow I am an essential ingredient for their play, their joy, though only a spectator. As I walk I ponder, and I wonder if there are other areas of life in which I might be essential for someone’s joy, even if not directly involved.