We'll Miss You Boomer

Lots 'o images today, and I even made an effort to not go too overboard. Art first:

That raccoon skull sketch helped propel me into doing several ball point pen and gouache studies, mostly from life.

Cat skull. 

Sun Bear, Thompson's Gazelle, Mandrill, Ethiopian Wolf, all referenced from random internet pix.

Some roses I cut that wilted way too fast.

Cactus and succulent obsession. I gotta draw more of these, they're pretty difficult but they have the most amazing growth patterns. I'm also trying to ID several mystery cacti, but it's insanely difficult due to somewhat poor classification systems. And I'm a noob. Now for pix:

Early March was my Grandpep's 90th birthday. He lives in Florida, so we had a little family reunion there. Got to see almost everyone, got mildly sick, walked on the beach nearly every day, ate tons of fish, as well as some Bowhead Whale blubber that my uncle's girlfriend brought down from Alaska. 

My housemate's cat got knocked up and had kittens. Super cute, but 6 cats is too many cats to have in a house. Luckily they all found homes. Get your cats fixed! 

Pretty old pic, taken on February 4, and we picked and ate it on February 18. Delicious fractals. 

Need more cacti. Watching that one in the middle bloom was amazing. Just a little one day event and then it was spent. I wish I could have time-lapse filmed it. 

Where the magic happens. Focusing on tomatoes and peppers this year. The massive bush in the back is catnip. Leftover winter lettuce patch and green onion gone to seed, three tomatoes (Early Girl, Green Zebra, Orange Russian), four peppers (Chocolate Bell, Mucho Nacho Jalapeno, Thai Dragon, Apache).

Cleared this space out and planted nasturtium, Sunsugar tomato, pimento, basil, and zinnia. Also more Thai Dragon and Apache peppers in pots. I kind of want to adopt them out, we don't really have any more room.

R.I.P Boomer the Black Legged Seriema. Had to put her down today.   :( She was one of my favorite birds at the bird show. We'll miss you.