The Dreariest Time of Year

The snow is almost completely gone; the dreariest time of year is soon to begin.

Spring?
I couldn't possibly be talking about spring!

But alas, I am speaking of spring!
Why is it so dreary?  It's rather simple, really:
The ground, the trees, the bushes, absolutely everything, save for the people, is bare.  At least winter has snow and incredible light; the sunlight is always yellower in winter.  Even in fall, the light is great, and after the leaves turn brown and fall, everything becomes a bright, gold/orange color.

But in spring?  All of those fallen leaves have turned black from the mud made by the melted snow, the green buds are few and far between, and the natural lighting is usually poor.  It's getting warmer, but the only major highlight of the season is the thunderstorms.

Additionally, it's usually the heaviest time of the school year in terms of homework.  I'm supposed to be doing a research project on Melville's Moby-Dick, but I'm only 100 pages into the book when I'm supposed to be halfway through.

On the plus side, it's a very good book.  If you're into nineteenth century novels, this one's quite shiny.  It even has a bit of humor every so often.  I think.  Neither my neighbor, who read the book last year for school, nor the student in my class who is reading it now will agree with me on that.
Either I'm terribly wrong or I've read too many works from the nineteenth century. (mostly in the form of The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe; I love that book!)

Right.  Spring.
So it looks like I won't be able to go out and photograph much; I nearly went through November and January without picking up my camera.  The elk photograph above is from yesterday's visit to the elk enclosure.  It was nice to be using the camera again :)


Ah, forget it.
At least the warmer weather means I can go volunteering again!
And volunteering means photo time!  And warmer weather means migrating critters!
And a trip to Houston.  Heheh.  Farewell, dull, Illinois spring!  Helloooo, semi-exotic Texas!

On another note, I'm rather tempted to draw-paint a whale.  I like whales.
Supposedly, they taste pretty good, too.

House Drudal

House drudals are considered domesticated animals and can be interesting pets. However, they are also considered to be dangerous due to their aggressive behavior, particularly toward other pets, and should only be kept by experienced owners.


These animals have two sets of eyes; one that perceives visible light, and another that can sense infrared light. The drudal’s second pair of eyes increases the ability of its wild counterparts to hunt in caves and at night. They also make the house drudal an excellent mouser.

Height: 14-20”
Weight: 50-80 lbs

Wolf Calendar

It's an absolutely terrible time of year to make a calendar, but I believe this one is justified.

Nearly every other wolf calendar available is filled with photos from the free domain.  Many of those containing original photos contain wolfdogs and/or dogs.  A few actually have good, original photographs of actual wolves, but they're usually all of the same set of individuals, namely, the Wolf Park wolves, or the same weather, which gets rather dull after a while.

And I'm not just talking about Zazzle.  Professionally published calendars are the same.  I just got a daily wolf calendar in which every photo was shot at the same facility, so the calendar only has 6 or so different wolves.

This calendar is different, though; 12 full-color original photos from five different facilities, with 4 varieties of wolf (including the red wolf) and perhaps 10 different individuals.

And a bison calf.

It's currently available on Zazzle.

Random Sketchdump

Click to enlarge

Various sketches from my Charlie the Unicorn sketchbook, drawn between the summer of last year (2010) and today (February 2, 2011).

The first three in the top left are GM rodents (the third being a no-nonsense scientist character) and the top-right is meant to be a T-shirt design (it's a bit of a pun, really).  The humans on the bottom are a few of my human characters, Micheal "The Ferret" Feriett and General Halsev, (and his adventurous white cat, Albert) playing video games.  I'm guessing it's Super Mario Brothers on Playstation 2 :D