local to local

Daily observations at or near Two Dot Spot, written by hand on the backs of postcards that record with ink and coffee a few minutes of the earth's orbit around the sun. The cards are physically mailed from Two Dot, Montana to those who have requested them...local to local. Ruth Marie Tomlinson

6.15.2014...


Great horned owl chicks grow quickly, though they remain dependent not being particularly adept at flying until they’re nearly 3 months old. A pair of fledglings at the Vestal Place stood about 14 inches tall, but their feathers were still all fluff. In all the hours we were there they did not leave the barn rafter. Linda, the current resident artist, has been bowled over by this pair; more than the curlews with their long arched beaks, or the giant hare leaping above the grass, or the cottontail that shades itself everyday in the slim shadow of a power pole. The owls moved her more than the young white tailed buck in velvet antlers, or mares with their foals romping at the fence, or the cowboys on horseback herding cows like a California movie. She has responded to all of these, but it is the owls she brings up again and again. The pair that for all we know is still on the log beam waiting for their parents to bring them rodents plucked from the fields with fierce talons and dropped into baby beaks.