Earlier this week, I painted all the small mushrooms I could see in our yard, directly in gouache. Then got lazy and didn’t even add the grass around them. Yesterday, I added someone I saw while waiting at the eye doctor’s for a routine exam. She was very intent on her book, pausing now and then to jot down notes.
I planned to do lots of sketching during our week at Bastrop State Park. But there was plenty of time so first I finished these first pages of my new sketchbook, an A5 100% cotton watercolor book from Hahnemuhle. The mushrooms were from our back yard; the two front ones are a different variety of inkcap than the one previously sketched — these are smooth rather than shaggy. I also did a lot of reading under the beautiful trees and a bit of knitting.
Then our week was changed drastically. We tow a small car behind the RV on longer trips. Tuesday we drove into Bastrop for lunch at Maxine’s (I had a great fried green tomato BLT!). Then headed to H-E-B for a few items. But we had an accident instead. Both of us are fine, though pretty beaten up by airbags and extremely sore. As I told the ER nurse, I guess that hike we were planning to take is cancelled. The car was totaled. After making arrangements and dealing with accident reports, we decided to head home early.
We had managed to get several walks in, enjoying the campsite’s peaceful beauty. There was a CCC shelter with three separate areas, each with its own fireplace; like all the CCC structures in the park, it was designed to fit its specific location using river rock and planking harvested from the park itself as the park was built.
These two small mushrooms were seen while Butters and I walked the front pasture — the smaller one seemed to lean into the larger one as if seeking its protection.
(watercolor and colored pencil)
Just a few random sketches of interesting things seen in the past 3 weeks . . .
The American Beautyberry plant was growing in the Sam Houston National Forest we camped in — great for keeping mosquitoes away! I saw the rooster perched in a wheelbarrow at Bill’s sister’s home in Kansas. And Bill brought me the small rose-colored mushroom because he knew I’d like to draw it.
This past week has been extremely challenging for me as I continue my post-cancer healing. On Monday I had the final surgery to reverse the ostomy. The cancer is completely gone, the ostomy bag is history — I naively thought this would be the end of it! But after 14 months of being “off line”, my colon and sphincter muscles have to relearn how to work. This has proven to be a frustrating and often painful process. (How very often I wish that I could go back in time and have that timely colonoscopy that would’ve detected cancer early enough to have avoided all this!)
Each day at times feels week-long as I struggle through this process. But then a comment on a previous blog post or on my Instagram account captures my attention and reminds me of just how far I have come. As a very dear friend just reminded me, “God brought you through we know He works according to His time. I can imagine Him saying. "I'm not done with you yet my child. A few more months is necessary for me to accomplish my will for you."
Bill found these lovely mushrooms growing at the base of an old oak tree stump near our barn. I like how the upper one gracefully lays atop the other.
Yesterday in a video conference, Dr. Konishi confirmed that no cancer was found in the bits the tumor had touched. 97% of the original tumor was dead after chemo and radiation; he removed the rest with “a wide margin” as he phrased it — I am officially cancer-free!
Yesterday Bill found this very unusual black mushroom growing tall between the feed shed and goat pen. I looked in a field guide and did searches online, but I never found anything quite like it. It stood about 10-12” tall on a sturdy black trunk, had a flattened center with a small nub, and delicate “petals”.
Today I went back out to look again — only to find it completely gone. Apparently eaten by one of our silly goats.
