Driving to a meeting this morning I went the back way, which took me past a pasture on campus that I haven't seen in many months. As I rounded a curve I saw what I thought were sheep! We've never had sheep on the college farm before, and I was more excited than you would expect someone to be who lives in a rural area. You have to remember that I grew up in New Orleans and never saw rural things until I went to Michigan one summer during college to work at a horse camp that was attached to a farm that had actual corn growing in fields. I watched the corn all summer, but I never saw ears of corn develop. One day I told another counselor that the corn crop looked like a failure because the things on top had never turned into corn ears. After that the other counselors would take me for field trips in the evenings to see rural things: asparagus patches, cows, sheep, chickens, cherry trees with cherries growing on them-- I felt like an alien on a new planet. I've never gotten past the deprivations of my urban upbringing, and I still get ridiculously excited about rural things.
So you can imagine my added excitement when I spotted, far back in the field, a black horse-like thing with big un-horsey ears. I decided to come back after the meeting and draw these animals. In the afternoon I had Maya with me, and we pulled up to a driveway across from the sheep and horse-thing field. Right away the not-horse came from deep in the field to visit with us. It had enormous teeth and made a honking sound.
We decided it must be a donkey! Maya called the donkey over to her so that it would keep its profile facing me and I could draw the drawing on the left. A woman pulled up and told us the donkey's name is Salula. I drew Salula twice head-on, and decided one of those girls from yesterday's drawing is going to have a donkey head dress.
The rest of the drawings are from my meeting notes from this morning's meeting. The cat is Michelle's big ginger Jesse--lookalike.
Below the cat are Sara's banana that never got eaten and my glasses, from which I am weaning myself.
On this page are Mike's book, Allison's Kleenex box, and a bunch of our cups, all pretty ceramic ones.
ha. i am so much a country girl, yet i grew up in a small town. we never quite shed that and it's probably a good thing.
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