| Maybe the last really warm day of summer. I had to go to Winchendon and I hadn’t ridden my bike in a while, so I took it up to the Birch Hill Wildlife Management Area and went exploring. Just off the west side of the area I found this beautiful old barn, so I parked my bike on the side of the road and started a watercolor sketch. I was out of sight from the house, but I could hear people talking over there and I was a bit nervous that they might object to me being there. When the owner eventually came out on the road and saw me he gave me a nice greeting, though, and asked to see the picture. He liked it so much he asked me to send him a copy and then we had a nice chat. If he hadn’t come out I might have worked more on the piece, but after he left I decided it was fine as it was (other than where my pinky smudged the window) and left it at that. | 
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| On the way back I stopped at the bridge over the Priest Brook and did a quick sketch of a pine snag on the side of the river. I sometimes screw up sketches by starting them in the wrong spot on the page, causing me to run out of room. On this one I started the top of the tree too low on the page and had to truncate the stem so I could squeeze in the roots and a little bit of the water right at the very bottom of the page. While I was drawing a beautiful kingfisher came by squawking loudly and sat for a moment on the top of the tree, but he was gone before I could get a picture of him. | 
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