Catch -Up Post No. 2: Enfield

 Sitting on the train heading to Penn Station, I noticed how very large many of the burdens were that passengers were hauling.  In some cases the luggage and bags were bigger than the bearers.  One man was carrying the enormous canvas bag in drawing 2890.  The black thing sticking out of it was as big as an electric keyboard and had  its own leatherette case.  The man and his seatmate began talking, and by the end of the 25 minute trip were exchanging cards and contact information.  The man had done most of the talking, some of which I wrote down because  it was so interesting-- the coins in the attic exchanged for pennies!

We rode the Vermonter from Penn Station up to White River Junction, VT, a longish 7 hours. Here's Maya, looking a lot like her Dad when he was ten.

Here's B, one of the three New Hampshire boys, so irresisibly cute I had to draw him first thing the morning after we arrived. 

We took a field trip to the Montshire Museum.  Fish profiles! 

This page is pretty lame, especially the left hand side of it, but it IS a record of more things at the Montshire, including a strange baby snapping turtle whose body was too big for its shell.  I drew the right hand side of the page from up on the fourth floor balcony/deck overlooking some outdoor exhibits where M and P and B were standing talking.

This is one of my favorite drawings of the whole trip.  T, L, and I traditionally go out and draw the haunted house down the road from their house.  We've been doing this since the kids were so little they could barely hold pencils.  Now they draw really really well.  The house changes slowly over time, and we always notice what's different.  This time we noticed the front door was completely covered by a small tree, and plastic sheeting had been torn down from the barn windows.  No trip to Enfield is complete without the hike down the road to Draw the Haunted House!

Another ritual that I love is drawing M's chickens.  This year he has a baby chick that one of his hens has hatched.  Its name is Jeff. 

More of the beautiful, funny, pecky, scratchy, clucky chickens.  The one running with a blade of grass in her mouth is Jeff's mother.

I got very interested in the chickens' feet.  When the lift their feet to walk, the foot closes sort of like an umbrella folding in.  Some of the chickens have tufted feet.  There's Jeff again, this time picking around in the garden after slipping under the fence.  These chickens have a nice yard and large house, but they're sort of semi-free-range.  On the right is a view of the lovely field across the road, which we all hope will never get built upon.  The guy at the bottom came bursting through the woods into the field with a friend, both looking uncomfortable and not quite dressed for crashing through the woods.  They turned out to be the owners of an adjacent plot of land, but they don't live on it.  In the middle of the page is Soot, one of the little cats, sleeping in the front garden. 

Stay tuned for Catch-Up 3 tomorrow, and that should do it!