Category: wild inklings

Categories
fauna homestead QoTD thinking big wild inklings

“Busy as a Beaver”

Beaver sketch, painted with acorns, wild grape, avocado pits and oak galls. Based on a b&w photograph by Hope Ryden.
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For 2024, I’ve resolved to be busy as a beaver.

But not busy as the beavers in my cartoon-simple conception of them, but busy as wild beavers are. And it seems I need to practice a very different way of being busy, if I would like busy beavers to recognize me as kin.

Thanks to these beautiful observations by Hope Ryden (from her book “Lily Pond: Four Years with a Family of Beavers”), I have some idea where to start:

“…Despite the descriptive epithet often applied to the species, beavers are not ‘busy’ animals. On the contrary, they normally proceed at a leisurely pace, unburdened by outside pressures. One stick at a time they drag up on their house, one load of mud at a time they push onto their dam. After doing a certain amount of work, they take a break to feed or groom or play or just float about in the water.
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Few species, in fact, appear so oblivious to stress as does Castor canadensis. House wrens, for example, build their nests in a kind of frenzy, as if tyrannized by their seasonal timetable. Not beavers. … One handful of mud at a time, they scooped from the bottom of the pond. And, pressing this against their chests, they paddled slowly to the dam, and shoved it up into the crest. As unhassled as they appeared, however, they were in fact accomplishing two tasks at once–deepening a channel and raising the height of a dam.

Beavers work like that. Interrupting one operation to transport its byproduct to a site where that debris is wanted…

All waste products are recycled: dredged mud becomes house insulation or dam sealant; debarked food sticks become house or dam lumber; wood chips (fallout from a tree-felling operation) are brought to the lodge and spread on the floor for bedding. In this admirably relaxed manner, the efficient beaver accomplishes an enormous amount of work. Watching [beavers] is like attending a morality play, and I often thought I ought to take a lesson from it.”

~Hope Ryden, “Lily Pond”
Categories
birbs D-I-Why Not wild inklings

A place for owls

Great Horned Owl. Painted with oak galls, acorns, and saffron (locally-grown).
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When I was a kid, my favourite book was “Granny’s Gang” by Katherine McKeever. It’s the story of Kay and Larry’s life with various injured/orphaned/recovering owls. (The titular “Granny” is a spectacled owl.)

I grew up in the ‘burbs of North York. First in a townhouse, then a house for awhile, then a townhouse again. There were a few wild pockets scattered around the cul-de-sacs and train tracks. And I was lucky to have them. But if there were owls around, I never encountered them.

Owls lived in dreams and imagination, not my neighborhood.

Forty years later, I live in a different habitat. Here, owl song signals the start of winter. I’ll dash outside some night in December. Taking out an overripe compost bucket, or doing a final chicken check. And though I’m probably not wearing a coat, I’ll take a moment to look up at… 🎶hoo-h’HOO-hoo-hoo🎶 …the stars.

The call interrupting my thoughts announces the magic is happening again — the owls are picking their partners and territories. Baby owls are just around the corner… Literally.

For some, winter is a time of rest. For others, deep struggle and hard won survival. For the great horned owl, it’s baby-making time. They are very early nesters, and in Ontario, by January-February, proceedings are well underway.

For now, the owls can call this place home. Humans too. Though both our perches here are fragile.

Whatever else we do here, our life’s work is the protection and encouragement of the little forest where we live. To try and pass a healthy woods forward for the humans and critters we hope come after us. Full of big trees and baby owls, and all the critters we see and hear — and all the ones we don’t.
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🦉📖: In my 30s, I learnt Kay’s centre is in Vineland Station, Ontario. It still operates today, as The Owl Foundation. It was a dizzying discovery, like learning The Jungle Book was real and you could get to it by TTC. I was incredibly fortunate to meet and thank Kay before she passed. Secondhand copies of Granny’s Gang can still be found, renamed “A Place For Owls”.

~Kate

Categories
homeMADE wild inklings

Painting With Plants Workshop

I do a lot of prep for workshops, so that the day isn’t compromised by something I could have planned for and didn’t. But every single workshop I am taken completely by surprise…

💚✨: Not by running out of paper or not having enough X, Y, Z — that’s the stuff I can see coming and prepare for. But I’m blindsided every time by the absolute joy of sharing raw materials and my experience-so-far with other people, and then watching their own diverse lives and creativity explode all over it!

🌱✨: I love handing a medievalist(?!) a pen I whittled from sumac and watch him illuminate his ‘scrap’ paper. I want to know more about Marigold the cat, and I love seeing someone take buckthorn green and wild grape purple and paint aliens 😂 I can’t hold in my delight at seeing a dozen owls and turtles painted a dozen different ways. From psychedelic to realistic and everything in between. I am chuffed to be told by an actual entomologist that I’m not butchering my aphid story. I’m stoked to be the site of a mother-daughter outing. I want to learn more about the healing powers of plants, and the food forests-in-progress, and what the talented block printers and natural dyers are up to. I’m jealous of that badass vest printed with squirrels and owls, and I’m honoured by the former summer students who wanted to volunteer their Saturday just because they thought this sounded cool.

🏞️✨: Thank you to @lowertrentconservation for hosting this ‘Painting With Plants’ workshop (with a special thank you to Nicholas and Ewa!), and to every single participant for making it as lovely as it was — and supporting beautiful places like Seymour in the process!

See you next time! 💚✒️🌱

Categories
foraging homeMADE wild inklings

Wild Inks

✒️🌱: Testing and bottling wild inks to bring to Saturday’s workshop. This is the scrap paper I put down to protect the counter and do quick checks. Isn’t it pretty??

Every splotch and blotch on this paper came from a plant, and can be made at home. From wild grapes and acorn caps and chokecherry berries and…

Some of these colours last longer and truer on the page than others. But what makes them beautiful isn’t limited to how they look on paper.

🐾🌱: Using wild inks reminds me of tracking animals in the winter. When I come across the tracks of a coyote or a bunny, it’s like hearing their echo. Like they’re there. And when I open a bottle of ink I made from a plant, I see sumac’s red panicle in winter and the sphinx moth I met on the grapevine.

🐞⏳: In searching for colour, I learn about the galls of aphids who have been living between sumac and moss for over *48 million* years. How to whittle invasive honeysuckle into a pen. How to find the pinks hidden in avocado stones and buckthorn bark. It’s adventures inside of adventures.

Wild inks are a little more… wild than what you’ll find in the store. A little less vanilla. They’re wilful and ephemeral and full of surprises. And that’s okay. I’m here for the ride. Besides, nothing gold can stay — though that wild grape purple lasts a good long time. 😉

Have a great week folks! 💜

~Kate

Categories
D-I-Why Not flora foraging homeMADE news + announcements wild inklings

Painting with Plants Workshop

Join us Saturday September 30th to Paint with Plants at the Seymour Conservation Area!

🌱🎨: Discover the world of wild inks. Learn about foraging for colour, unlocking the secret pigments of plants and, best of all, make your own “Wild Inkling” art to take home! Together we’ll explore the world of pinks, yellows, greens, browns, blacks, and purples hiding in plain sight.

🌳👍: This workshop is hosted by and in collaboration with Lower Trent Conservation, so in addition to making cool art with plants, your registration supports our local conservation areas. Double win!

(Also I saw turtles basking in the quarry right beside the workshop site, sooo…. triple win!)

🔗: Link to register through Lower Trent Conservation is here. Hope to see you there!
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Covid Notes: The workshop will be held entirely outdoors, based in the picnic shelter. Registration is limited.
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🌈🎥: Interested in making ink but can’t attend? The Colour of Ink featuring Jason S. Logan (Toronto Ink Company) — author of the incomparable ‘Make Ink’ — is now available to watch free online here.

~Kate

Categories
foraging homeMADE homestead wild inklings

Checking the Jelly Snares

I made wild grape jelly for the first time a few years ago. Y’know how when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail? Well once you’ve enjoyed homemade wild grape jelly, everywhere looks like a place to grow wild grapes… Old display stand? You could grape that. Extra bit of fencing? You could grape that.

🍇🌳: We haven’t planted any grapes here. They were here before us and they’ll probably be here after. Wild grapes are all over Ontario. Once you start looking for them you see them everywhere.

🧗‍♀️🍇: But we’ve set up a few places here to encourage wild grape to bear fruit in spots we can actually get to. Grape likes to climb, so sometimes it runs right up to the top of a tree. Where it dangles my jelly dreams out of reach. Look up, way up, and I’ll call Rusty… and tell him we’re out of jelly.

🍇🚧: But grape also likes to move side-to-side along a nice fenceline. So a couple of years ago when we installed a new fence, we also coaxed the grape growing nearby onto its wires. I checked it today to find it is very happy in its new home! Grapes on grapes on grapes. Enough for both us and the wild critters to snack on. Jelly is back on the menu boys!

🍇=🥒✒️🧵: In honesty the jelly is mostly for Neil, but I use wild grape to make a couple of other things here too. The leaves are perfect to pop in fermenting pickles, and I use the berries to make ink, and the vine to make drawing charcoal. In a pinch, I’ve used the vine as twine.

🍇☠️: A word of caution — wild grape is all over Ontario roadsides, but so are pesticides and poisons. Many cities (including ours) spray their roadsides, so be very very picky about where you forage wild foods. Toxic lookalikes like Canadian moonseed also exist. There’s no shame in enjoying a nice homemade strawberry jam on toast if you don’t feel you can forage safely. Strawberry jam is delicious.

Hope you’re having a grape week folks! 💜

~Kate

Categories
D-I-Why Not foraging fungi mushrooms wild inklings

Magic Mushrooms


🍄💙: Found these blue-tiful mushrooms in a friend’s forest on Sunday. I ID it as a Lactarius indigo. Lactarius are known as “milk mushrooms”, because when cut they “bleed” a milky fluid. And that liquid can be some fantastic colours! Just look at that blue!!

🍄✒️: I brought home a sample mushroom for some ink-speriments. I used the very technical approach of squooshing the mushroom cap and bottling what came out (bottom right). It’s a lovely colour in the vial, though natural inks sometimes don’t dry as vibrant as the source. But I had a feeling this ink might dry the exact colour of a nuthatch. And it did! Soooo…Lactarius nuthatchii? I’ll keep checking back on this little birb to see how the colour holds up over time.

👩‍🔧🎨: If you’re curious about wild inks, I’ll be facilitating a Painting With Plants workshop at the end of September. (Workshop will be held outdoors.) More details to come, but feel free to DM us if you’d like the full info when available!

🎨🌿: Nuthatch is painted with Lactarius indigo, acorns, oak galls, and goldenrod. Detailed with soot ink and a quill pen.

🍄☠️: Friendly reminder not to squoosh mushrooms you don’t know. Ontario also has deadly toxic mushrooms and some are fruiting right now. Squoosh responsibly friends.

~Kate

Categories
insects and arachnids wild inklings

Wolf Spider Spring

“Wolfie the Spider” here is painted with homemade inks from the woods and the kitchen: wild grapevine charcoal, saffron bits, oak galls, soot, buckthorn bark, beet skins. Fine lines are detailed with a quill pen made from a wild turkey feather. Find more wild ink art here.

The first signs of spring here flash by like ghosts. A chipmunk dashing from the deck to the feeder. A couple of crows snacking on sumac. An eastern comma butterfly perched on a post to warm its wings.

And then the drips of spring come quicker and closer together. The first turkey vulture, the first sap in the bucket. Buds on the poplars. The first crocus. And then one day the sap is yellow and full of bugs and the driveway is more mud than ice and the sun is stronger and the green has returned.

And in that mix is one of my favourite sounds of early spring: the purring of the wolf spiders.

Sitting on a rock, I hear the dry leaves pulsing around me. Purr purr, purr purr. It’s a love song played by vibration. To woo potential mates, male wolf spiders drum on the dry leaves with their pedipalps. Singing with their feet, hoping a lady wolf spider digs their vibe and decides to make little wolf spider pups with them.

🏃‍♀️💨🕷️: I recognize spiders are not everyone’s cup of tea. They weren’t always mine. When I was little, I was terrified of them. I remember when it began. My parents were sweeping out the garage, and I was holding the dustpan. I can see it — the large spider running for its life ahead of the broom. Ahead of the broom, over the edge of the dustpan, up the handle, up my arm, into my shirt.

I shook for an hour after it was gone.

🕷️❤️🏃‍♀️: But that was then and this is now. If I was about to be swept up, I’d run for my life and into the nearest sleevehole too. We fear what we don’t know, and I have gotten to know spiders. We are now good friends, and a spring afternoon spent with wolf spiders is spent in excellent company.

Happy Spring!

~Kate

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For more on purring wolf spiders, I recommend Listen to the Dulcet Purr of the Wolf Spider (Smithsonian Magazine)

A short video from our woods:

Categories
D-I-Why Not foraging homeMADE wild inklings

Wild Inklings: 5 years later

This ink sample sheet is now ~5 years old. I made it to test if putting glossy or matte top coats over homemade inks would help preserve their colour (spoiler: nope).

🌳✒️: I made this sampler before I made some of my favourite inks — sumac, oak gall, soot… But it’s proven useful as a tool to see how some inks will age. Some natural inks start out incredibly vibrant, and shift over time to different tones. Buckthorn berries with lye are one — settling from a vibrant green to a mustard yellow. Environment and circumstance play a role too. The wild grape here has settled to more of a rust, while in other paintings I’ve made it’s stayed a bright purple. And that’s fair — I weather a lot faster when left in direct sunlight too.

🎨⌚: It’s a curious reflection and exercise in resilience. The inks will still be there, years later, still present on the page, just not the way they were. Knowing that, though I really enjoy the moments when the colours are vibrant and exciting, I try not to paint around particular hues. (Contrary to Robert Frost, gold is happy to stick around, while nothing green can stay.) So, instead, what’s the crux of a critter? What’s the deeper part that persists, when the superficial stuff goes… squirrelly?

🌱🎉🔄: Making homemade inks also doles out joy over and over. Much more than the intemperate high of a shopping spree. The joy of foraging for the plants, the joy of cooking up their colours, and of exploring their interactions as they run together on the page. Three joys for the price of none. And then the fascination of watching as the created image grows and changes alongside me. It’s not such a bad thing, this evolution and impermanence. Less like a moment lost, more an unfolding adventure.

See the inks in action over on our Wild Inklings page.

Happy March folks!

~Kate

Categories
D-I-Why Not foraging homeMADE wild inklings

Junk Art

Junk art! What do a box of cat food, a bit of sumac, offcuts of wood, and a smashed photo have in common? This hummdinger of an art piece!

📏🐈: First upcycled + DIY picture frame… complete! I made the picture frame from scraps I recut on the table saw/by hand, a piece of broken glass I recut, and cardboard from the boxes from Oliver’s cat food + Neil’s office chair…that I recut. Recut, remix, reward! 💚 (See previous post for parts prep.)

🎨🌱: I painted the hummingbird with inks I made from plants: buckthorn, wild grape, avocado pits, goldenrod, sumac, grapevine charcoal.

♻️💪: So satisfying to bring it all together in something more than the sum of its parts. Upcycle for the win!! Have a great weekend makers!

📺: “Junk art” is a reference to Beau Miles’ “Junk” series on YouTube. Highly recommend, two thumbs way up 👍👍

~Kate