You may remember that I used leftover paint on my palette last week to create some painted background pages. I used one of them to preserve this fabulous photograph by my father's first cousin, Cort Clifford, of Maryland.
Cort is a serious amateur photographer. He took this photo in a cemetery on Kent Island on Maryland's Eastern Shore. He sent me the photo and a poem about a mockingbird, which I transcribed on the facing page.
The morning the Mockingbird
halfway up the pale dune, and only
a pitchpine for a pulpit, offered
with infrangible exactitude
Phoebe, Robin, Blue Jay, flicker, towhee,
goldfinch, ovenbird, titmouse, linnets,
grackle, bobwhite, cardinal, Carolina wren,
Chickadee, Nuthatch, English Sparrow, Crested
Flycatcher...Then he flung his body into the air!
-Author Unknown
This was a wonderful surprise to get in the mail. I have known Cort since I was a little girl. He was about the same age as my father and my Uncle Bob. But unlike his cousins who married right after World War II and created their own Baby Boom with 16 children between them, he was the Playboy Bachelor type. He always had a Porsche and a fast motorboat and a pretty girlfriend. One of my fondest childhood memories is going with Cort in his boat to watch the fireworks in Annapolis near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge on the Fourth of July. He later finally succumbed to the charms of a beautiful lady and got married. She just happened to be the heiress to a Fortune 500 company. They had one child. I saw them about ten years ago at a beautiful horse farm that Lani was building near Asheville, North Carolina. They are now divorced, and Cort lives in a condo on the water where he has a wonderful world of nature to photograph.
I also decided to journal my thoughts about my recent bad luck, healthwise. The collaged papers are scraps from a watercolor test page and some Gee's Bend quilt pictures from Keepsake Catalog. Note the very fat lower leg!
Tonight I am going to the Capital Quilters Guild meeting. My friend Janice offered to drive me so I don't have to hoof it all across the parking lot, which is hilly and sometimes involves walking across a mulched area. Sure don't want to fall again!
The Viewer's Choice voting for the Heritage Days auction quilt will be held during the meeting. I am hoping that the Heritage Star quilt made by my Whacky Ladies bee will make a good showing.
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