Beautiful Blogger Award

River Jewelwing (damselfly)

Several days ago Elizabeth Smith over at www.natureartjournal.blogspot.com sent me a “Beautiful Blogger Award.” I’m new to blogging and learned a little later that proper blog etiquette says I’m to pass it on to four other blogs I enjoy and post ten things about myself. I immediately bushed both off. I don’t know how to do the first; and thought I was going to ignore the second. But I find I’m enjoying the ten things other bloggers write about themselves, so maybe I should take a deep breath respond at least to the second part.

Ten Things about me:

1. Nature journaling has long been a passion of mine. I am just finishing my 36th volume of sketches and notes.
2. My parents, Frederick and Frances Hamerstrom, were both professional ornithologists, so I was exposed to nature early on. At the tender age of 11 days I was in a prairie chicken blind.
3. I am extremely fortunate in that my husband, Dale, shares my passion for nature. We still surprise each other with tidbits of knowledge … where an otter piles its poop, or being tickled by a hippoboscidae fly .
4. We currently spend a lot of time with camera in hand, watching, photographing and I sketch. I’m often torn as to whether I should grab the camera or the sketchbook.
5. I need way more hours in my day.
6. I spent many years hanging my paintings in galleries, and am now enjoying creating – not trying to sell.
7. One of my accomplishments I’m proudest of is illustrating “Birds of Oregon: A General Reference” put out by Oregon State University.
8. I once kept a bat in my bra. I found the tiny infant Myotis keeni on the floor of a barn and successfully raised it to maturity … but in the interim I needed to keep it warm while I commuted back and forth to my summer job at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago.
9. We have the most overgrown yard on the street – but the birds love it.
10. Yesterday morning I found an acorn woodpecker nest and watched for a good hour. Yesterday afternoon we photographed one of the most beautiful damselflies imaginable, the river jewelwing. Last night I fell asleep when I sat down to watch a Netflix movie.

P.S. If anyone reading this is not a member of google and tried to leave me a comment in the past, I didn't receive it. I think I have it set up now so that those comments will come to me. .... which proves what a computer klutz I am!