Northern Flicker Courtship
It was so beautiful yesterday that I spent my morning working on the porch. I made it through a Zoom meeting and another couple of hours of work before the sun slipped behind the clouds, chilling things down. It was absolutely lovely. No bugs. The...
Beach Hopping
I tagged along with Hannah today. She was on a mission to take pictures for her school photography assignment. The subject was beach trash. It was a beautiful day in Beals with lots of whitecaps in the harbor. Hannah scoured the landscape...
COVID Quarantine Month One – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
We've just finished our first month of "Stay Safer at Home" here in Maine and are now into month two. Yet for the Bennett family, it's been over eight weeks of hunkering down. When Hannah arrived home from Denmark on March 14th, we self-isolated...
Woodpecker on Tree Square
This collage card started with a felt square design. Yet when it came time to make it, I was more interested in creating it from paper than I was from felt. The tree is created from magazine text torn from the magazine to mimic a birch tree. As I...
The Bright Red-bellied Woodpecker
I have a "to-do" list for my backyard bird books, but lately, my inspiration wants to go other directions (see last weekend's puffin square). Today, I buckled down to create the Red-bellied Woodpecker and check it off my list before I venture into...
Spring Fever
These days I feel as if I live at work. The commute from the home office is a ridiculously short one during the quarantine. So when the Saturday forecast was sunny and 50, Hannah and I packed a lunch and headed out for a photo adventure. Obligatory...
Torn Paper Puffins on Rocks Collage
This weekend I designed a felt square called Puffins on Rocks. I liked the Puffins so much that I started thinking about other ways I could use this design. I decided to try a collage greeting card with the Puffin scene. Somewhere in my stash, I...
Puffins on Rocks Square
Earlier in the year, I designed the Felt Loon at Cadillac square. At the time, it was a one-off type of thing. A few days ago, I woke up in the middle of the night with designs for two more felt squares clearly outlined in my mind. I grabbed my...
Saturday Morning Visitors
Saturday morning visitors enjoying a peaceful nibble by the pond - until Gidget saw them and scared them off. I wonder if they could be the same mama and teen pair from last fall?
The Beguiling Bumble Bee
Yesterday, after I'd finagled my morning coffee from a camp stove on the porch due to the power outage, I sat down and designed this little Bumble Bee. Since starting on butterflies a couple of years ago, this has been a much-requested design - a...
How to Make a Rose-breasted Grosbeak – The Video
With a little extra time last weekend, I decided to make a video about how to make one of my felt bird designs. How hard could it be? I've been making the birds for years. Despite having a daughter who is a cinema major, I wanted to do this myself....
Camera Woes
I tend to carry my camera with me most of the time - a 9-year-old Canon Rebel T3i. I get nervous when I forget and leave home without it because I know that's the day I'll see something wonderfully camera-worthy - and miss it. While Hannah was in...
Robins
This morning, I spent a good fifteen minutes sitting on the floor by the French door watching a flock of Robins in the yard. I don't recall ever seeing more than one or two visiting. This one was quite concerned about threats in the sky. They sure...
The Covid-19 Giveaway (Winner Announced)
This was so much fun! Thank you to everyone who took a few minutes to share how you're spending your COVID-19 Safer at Home self-isolation. Your comments reminded me that not all of us have time off - some of you are working harder than ever. Some...
The Cute Carolina Wren
Another project for these COVID Quarantine days as I work my way through the list of birds I want to create for a backyard bird pattern book. Enjoy! And please stay as safe as possible in these crazy times. [sdm_download id="35175" fancy="1"...
Downeast Thunder Farm Coronavirus Quarantine Giveaway!
I don't know about you, but I'm feeling a bit of cabin fever. It's been two weeks since Hannah arrived home from Denmark, and we've been sticking close to home. I love working from home - it's my favorite place in the world to be. But, I do miss...
Hannah in Denmark: Final Days
This was it - my final week in Copenhagen - though I didn't know it yet. On Monday, March 9th, it was announced that all future study tours were canceled - which meant that I would not be able to go to Normandy, the Czech Republic, and Austria with...
One-of-a-kind Bedside Table
Since last summer, I've had a lot of fun with decoupage and nautical charts. It started with the Navigating Maine table for the WHRL's auction, Hannah's pencil holder makeover, and my Christmas Tree Festival ornaments. Somewhere in there I...
The Lively Yellow-rumped Warbler
How quickly the world changes. Two weeks ago, I was planning a trip to my folks in Pennsylvania. I'd be there today if it weren't for Covid-19 or the Coronavirus. Instead, I'm hunkered down with my family, working from home as are many of you. So...
Hannah in Denmark: Week 7
Little did I know, this was my last full week in Denmark. Yet, I had a feeling. Reports were coming in about the spread of the Coronavirus across Europe and the rest of the world. In the meantime, I went on with my regular life and tried to make...
Hannah in Denmark: Week 6 – Sweden
After my trip to Poland, I still had some free time and was looking for a fun day trip. Helsingborg, Sweden, was a 40-minute train ride and 20-minute ferry ride from Hillerød where I lived with my host family. My first impression was, "Oh, it looks...
Hannah in Denmark: Week 6 – Poland
Hi. This is Hannah writing about my final weeks in Denmark. Seven weeks into my stay in Denmark, I had a free week. From my first week in Europe, I started planning this trip to Poland. Fellow students were traveling to famous sightseeing spots,...
Afternoon Tea on Pigeon Hill
Hannah's first day home from Denmark yesterday felt oddly anti-climactic. After such a flurry of angst and anxiety to get her out of Europe, we suddenly found our selves at loose ends. Not knowing what to expect in the coming days, we decided to...
Adventure Interrupted
Today will be Hannah's last day in Denmark. Covid-19 has slowly eroded her study abroad program. Last week, her program canceled all travel outside Denmark (Normandy, Vienna, and Prague). Earlier today, we learned Denmark is shutting down schools,...
New to the Shop: Tufted Titmouse & Song Sparrow
A spare moment between other work has given me a chance to be creative again. My new Song Sparrow pattern and a redesigned Tufted Titmouse have been added to the SHOP. These two make 60 patterns in the Downeast Thunder Farm Shop!
