Lots of tiny pretty things catch my eye.
A little flash of red caught my eye yesterday when I was working on repairs to the horses’ gate.
At the moment I was unable to move the grass aside to see what it was, but as soon as the wires were twisted, I dropped the pliers and took a closer look.
The bright color belonged to a cluster of tiny crimson mushrooms. Of course I didn’t have my camera with me. It was a fence-mending job, not a nature walk.
So back to the house I went for the camera.
Tiny Pretty Things
Creating Tiny Pretty Things
Lately I’ve been making polymer clay sculptures and mixed media “Fairy Gardens”.
Predator and Prey, or the hunter and the hunted is a common theme throughout my fiction writing. No Qualms, one of my short stories (free at most retailers) is about about a predator/prey relationship. Symbiosis, my first finished novel, not published yet, deals with predator/prey relationships and the balance of energy among life on earth, sometimes symbolic and often outright. Many of my flash fiction stories (I have twitterfiction and 100-word flash stories) are also dealing with this same dynamic. This is a strong theme that runs through most of my fiction and is strongly influenced by life in the wild Ozarks where we live. My first published novel, First Hunt, also has a predator and prey theme to it. I guess it's just part of my nature.
Nature Farming
Wild Ozark is 160 acres of beautiful wild Ozark mountains. I call what I do "nature farming" because the land produces, all by itself, the shagbark hickory trees, ferns, moss, ground-fall botanicals, and the perfect habitats for growing and stewarding American ginseng. I'm co-creating with Nature - all of the things I use to make the Fairy Gardens and Forest Folk, the bark we harvest for Burnt Kettle's shagbark hickory syrup, are produced by nature without my input. This land is my muse for inspiration when it comes to my writing, drawing, and photography. It's truly a Nature Farm.
About the voice behind this blog, Madison Woods
I'm a creative old soul living way off the beaten path with my husband in the wild Ozark Mountains. Besides homesteading, growing plants & making crafty things and newsletters, I write books and stories. My rural fantasy fiction, written under the pen name, Ima Erthwitch, usually takes place in a much altered Ozarks.
When I was in France walking the dogs in the forest, we were always on the lookout for edible mushrooms, but there were also lots of inedible, even poisonous beauties.
janet
Some of the most beautiful ones seem to be the most poisonous, too!
Definitely!