Painting Cigar Boxes Again

I finally finished Cigar Box #2, which needed its ruched lining installed. Here's the outside again, so you'll know which one it is.


I also started painting Box #3 (shown in progress), with a Carolina wren perched on the front with prickly pear cactus blossoms, in honor of my recent preoccupations -- birds and the garden.


A wren is raising four babies under the double petunia on my front porch. It's tough to get a good photo through the leaves -- the autofocus gets fooled. But I see mama ducking in and out, and the nest is built on its side, the way wrens do. Maybe when they are a few days older I'll brave moving some branches further aside.

My back yard is full of 12 yards of new dirt, ten big boulders, a new fountain and reservoir, and many, many plants, including the purple prickly pear that I've been craving.