Janice E. Kirk

Artist & Author

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The Quilt & the Creation Pt. 8 Plant Communities: Self-healing and 30×30

September 11, 2021 By Janice Kirk Leave a Comment

  Plant Communities: Self-healing & Restoration Watching for fall colors in the Rockies was part of Don’s Sabbatical study of Plant Communities. “Watching” became more like “chasing,” as we roamed the high country in search of a perfect stand of golden trees. We arrived either too early when trees were still green, or too late—leaves […]

Filed Under: Blog, Nature Notes, Quilt and Creation, The Gospel Lifestyle Tagged With: 30X30 Climate Action, chain stitch, climax plant community., Colorado Blue Columbine, conifers, epiphany, Fall color, fireweed, Gospel lifestyle, healing, how then shall we live, Indigenous people, nature notes, pioneer plants, plant communities, primary succesion, progressive succession, Quaking Aspen, retrogressive succession, Sabbatical, secondary succession, Sego Lily, self-healing, self-restoration, Seventh Generation Principle, Silverton CO, stitchery, story quilt, succession, wildflowers

The Quilt & the Creation. Pt. 7. Outdoor Mutual Aid Plant Communities

August 7, 2021 By Janice Kirk Leave a Comment

They were all in the boat, each one eager to catch the biggest fish, or to be honest, any fish at all. I stayed on shore to sketch while Dad, son, and daughter rowed out onto the lake. They were briefly distracted by a beaver who emerged from under a floating log to thwack his […]

Filed Under: Blog, Nature Notes, Quilt and Creation Tagged With: antelope bitterbrush, beaver, California, catch and release, comfort, companion planting, competition, Cretan stitch, crewel, decompose, decomposers, dense forest, discovery, Douglas fir, Ecology, ecosystem, fishing, fishing limit, French knots, good reading, habitat, habitats, harmony, interdependence, landscape quilt, laws of nature, mutual benefit, nuclear waste, Oregon grape, Pasque flowers, plant communities, ponderosa parkland, quilt patch, recycle, Rocky Mountains, row boat, satin stitch, shelter, Southwest, spiritual peace, stability, story quilt, undergrowth, web of life, wildflowers

The Quilt & the Creation. Pt. 6. Plant Cover: Going, Going, Gone?

July 3, 2021 By Janice Kirk Leave a Comment

  Douglas Fir Embroidery Decorates My Sabbatical Story Quilt That sound, an other-worldly whushhh filtering from the tops of the pines—it stopped me in my tracks. A flood of memories took me back in time to other winds, other trees, mountain trails. I was once again on the trail around a distant Blue Lake hearing […]

Filed Under: Blog, Nature Notes, Quilt and Creation Tagged With: Blue Lake, boreal forest, canopy, closed-canopy, Colorado blue spruce, Douglas fir, ecotone, ferns, field ecologists, forest architecture, fungi, ground cover, herbaceous perennials, herbs, landscape quilt, microbes, mosses, Northwest rainforest, old-growth forest, Pacific rhododendron, pines, plant cover, Ponderosa Pine, rainforest, Rocky Mountains, Sabbatical, salal, shrubs, small trees, Soughing, spiritual values, story quilt, tropical forest, U.S. forests, understory, vegetation, vine maple, white fir

The Quilt & the Creation. Pt. 5. Plant Communities: Let Me Introduce You

June 5, 2021 By Janice Kirk Leave a Comment

Embroidered Desert Sun My Sabbatical quilt story continues. We spent the spring months in the Southwest deserts, both high and low. Lots of sunshine, lots of burning sun prompted me to embroider three different versions of the sun on my quilt top. For this one I used overlapping wave stitches that radiate from the center […]

Filed Under: Blog, Nature Notes, plants, Quilt and Creation, The Gospel Lifestyle Tagged With: alpine, basin and range, biome, Cascade/Sierra, Cold Desert Scrub, desert, ecosystem, Fallon, flatlander, forest, French knots, grassland, habitat, Highway 50, juniper, loneliest road in America, Mediterranean Scrub, mixed conifer forest, Nevada, Northwest rainforest, photosynthesis, pinyon pine, plant communities, plant cover, Ponderosa Pine, Quilt, Reno/Sparks, Rocky Mountain National Park, Sabbatical, sagebrush, Sky Island, Southwest, story quilt, subalpine, sunshine, Trail Ridge Road, vegetation, vegetation zone, wave stitches

The Quilt & the Creation. Pt. 4. Death Valley Plant Communities

May 1, 2021 By Janice Kirk Leave a Comment

Continuing from previous blogs, here’s another story to go with my Story Quilt that I stitched together and embroidered during Sabbatical year in 1976-77. One major goal of the Sabbatical was to see the low desert during the cool season. In early spring of that year, we headed south. Death Valley was our first stop, […]

Filed Under: Blog, Nature Notes, Out Sketching, patterns, plants, Quilt and Creation Tagged With: chain stitch, creosote, Death Valley National Park, Desert Gold, Desert Marigold, Desert Star, Dessert Trumpet, diversity of life, dust storm, flat stitch, flow patterns, French knots, geology, low desert, Mariposa Lily, mesquite, pickleweed, quilting, salt crystals, shadscale, smoke trees, super bloom, Titus Canyon, vegetation zones, wildflowers

The Quilt & the Creation. Pt. 3. Travel Bug

April 3, 2021 By Janice Kirk Leave a Comment

The travel bug? We certainly had it. Stepping away from our jobs, schools, and daily routines for a whole year, we reveled in the freedom of the open road during our Sabbatical campout in 1976-77. It was only natural that one of my first quilt blocks should become haven for an embroidered travel bug. Mostly […]

Filed Under: Blog, Cherish the Earth, Nature Notes, Quilt and Creation, The Gospel Lifestyle Tagged With: abundant life, agates, aspen, beetles, breath of life, camouflage, camping, chain stitch, cherish the earth, community, compound eyes, desert scrub, entomology, French knots, Gospel lifestyle, gratitude, it takes a village, marmots, nature notes, outline stitch, Quilt, quilt blocks, quilting, redwood giants, restoration, Roosevelt Elk, Sabbatical, satin stitch, shelf fungi, Thank God, travel bug, Virgin River, vision, white alders, wild roses, Zion Canyon

The Quilt & the Creation. Pt. 2. The Plan

March 6, 2021 By Janice Kirk Leave a Comment

  The best year of our lives we roamed a huge area—the six Southwest states—but we traveled it in pieces, a rather haphazard approach if we are talking about patches of the natural quilt I mentioned in my last Blog. I compared the western landscape to my homemade story quilt with embroidered quilt pieces, reminders […]

Filed Under: Blog, Cherish the Earth, Nature Notes, Quilt and Creation Tagged With: abundant life, animal behavior, bark beetle, be generous, bird tracks, Book of Nature, Christian faith, climate change, climate crisis, creeks, deserts, drought, ecosystems, forest, Gospel lifestyle, gypsy moth, holy moments, how then shall we live, it takes a village, meadows, native fish, naturalist, nature's ways, otherness, overdevelopment, overgrazing, Plant community, prairie, pure water, Quilt, quilting, share, something more, Southwest, spiritual benefits, wilderness, wildlife

The Quilt and the Creation: 1. Great Idea

January 30, 2021 By Janice Kirk Leave a Comment

                                                                                                              […]

Filed Under: Blog, Cherish the Earth, Nature Notes, Quilt and Creation Tagged With: bedspread, biomes, ecosystems, embroidery, God's wonders, habitats, Hawaiian print, Pilgrimage, Quilt, quilting, rabbit trails, Sabbatical, sojourn, vegetation zone

Nature Notes. Hovenweep NM 1959

July 11, 2020 By Janice Kirk

                                                                                Ancient Masonry Walls Still Standing**                        […]

Filed Under: Cherish the Earth, Nature Notes Tagged With: Cajon Mesa, collared lizard, desert camping, Hovenweep NM, I Pray for the Earth, Mesa Verde NP, night sky, nomads, Paleoindians, Square Tower Group, Twin Towers, VW bus

Nature Notes. Marmot Springs. Part 2. The Gift of Pure Water

May 12, 2018 By Janice Kirk

    In my previous Blog, I tell how my family and I found the perfect place to camp in the Warner Mountains of California. It was an old-time site ready and waiting for us. We settled in and felt right at home for ten days. We hiked up each side of the canyon, looked […]

Filed Under: Blog, Cherish the Earth, Nature Notes Tagged With: beaver, cherish the earth, harmony of life, Oregon juncos, pure water, Warner Mountains CA, wilderness

Nature Notes. Marmot Springs. Part 1. Camping in Eden

May 5, 2018 By Janice Kirk

  One springtime we wandered into the Warner Mountains of NE California. Looking for a campsite we parked the truck near a marshy pond just off the main road. We walked the dirt track that followed a small branch of East Creek. Beaver-chewed aspen marked the waterway; early wildflowers nodded; aspen whispered as we passed. […]

Filed Under: Blog, Nature Notes Tagged With: aspen, beaver, chipmunks, coyotes, deer, East Creek, Eden, Great Basin, great grey owl, Indian Paintbrush, juniper, marmots, Ponderosa Pine, sticky geranium, Swainson's thrush, wall tent, Warner Mountains CA, water leaf, white fir, wildflowers, woodpeckers, wrens, yarrow

Nature Notes. The Mouse that Howled. Part 2. Waiting for a Spooky Howl.

March 10, 2018 By Janice Kirk

View from Lava Beds CA Juniper Sagebrush Country From the files of Donald R. Kirk: Part 2. In my previous Blog I introduced the grasshopper mouse who climbed on my shoe while I was seated at a campfire in a Warner Mountains juniper–sagebrush life community. The grasshopper mouse is very different from an ordinary mouse. […]

Filed Under: Blog, Nature Notes Tagged With: bathroom burrow, grasshopper mouse, lizards, nest burrow, retreat burrow, scorpion, signpost burrow, stink beetle, Warner Mountains CA, wolf-like howl

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Recent from the Blog

The Quilt & the Creation Pt. 8 Plant Communities: Self-healing and 30×30

  Plant Communities: Self-healing & Restoration Watching for fall colors in the … Read More...

The Quilt & the Creation. Pt. 7. Outdoor Mutual Aid Plant Communities

They were all in the boat, each one eager to catch the biggest fish, or to be honest, any fish at … Read More...

The Quilt & the Creation. Pt. 6. Plant Cover: Going, Going, Gone?

  Douglas Fir Embroidery Decorates My Sabbatical Story Quilt That sound, an other-worldly … Read More...

The Quilt & the Creation. Pt. 5. Plant Communities: Let Me Introduce You

Embroidered Desert Sun My Sabbatical quilt story continues. We spent the spring months in the … Read More...

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