Nature-Led Collages: Kerfe’s contribution

March 2, 2026 ~ melaniereynolds ~ Leave a comment

Hello Nature-Led Friends!

Am I a day late? Yes, probably. I want to thank Kerfe for participating and sharing her nature-led collage with us! She has been posting her art and thoughts for quite a long time now and I encourage you to visit her site at: https://kblog.blog/

Kerfe’s Collages

Abstractions of a beach scene, where the land and sea meet.

Extrapolations into I-ching Hexagrams

Kerfe says that she likes to visit the beach every year and enjoys placing things into I-Ching Hexagrams.

Hexagram #37 – Family

I Ching Hexagram – Family By Kerfe https://kblog.blog/

Hexagram #55 – Abundances

I Ching Hexagram – Abundances By Kerfe https://kblog.blog/

I love these! Kerfe’s contribution has inspired new lines of thinking in my own current musings and reaffirmed my belief that people share an innate connection to other people. I’ve currently been obsessing with the shape of hexagons as a framework to find solutions for systemic social issues. Hexagrams are different, but they’re still an ancient way of conveying social information in a symbolic form beyond the omnipresence of circles and squares in our modern lives.

Art is the oldest form of communication. When we drew with sticks in the dirt to convey messages beyond pointing and making whatever noises constituted as early language at the time. We learned to tell stories through pictures with pigments of mud, charcoal, and blood in places where it couldn’t be easily washed away. Sharing art, is a way of sharing a part of ourselves. It’s also a way in which we explore and process ideas within ourselves.

Why make art?

While this Challenge deadline has passed, that doesn’t mean you can’t still do it for the sake of doing it. Maybe you don’t think of yourself as an “artist”, that’s okay. If you feel like you need permission than you have my permission to go outside and play with sticks, dirt, shells or whatever. It won’t solve all your problems, but it can give you an ad-free break from social media. 🙂

What’s Next?

Posts on: Nature-led thoughts on AI, Florida Pictures 2026, A Book list: thoughts on current books I’ve just finished…I’ve seriously been tearing through a lot of books and making notes. My office is in a constant state of its “mad scientist” era.

New! Nature-Led Art Challenge: Collage

January 26, 2026 ~ melaniereynolds ~ 8 Comments

_{Annas Hummingbird Female, a quick snapshot 2026, By Melanie Reynolds}

Hello Nature-Led Friends!

It’s been a while since we’ve done something interactive! A few weeks ago, I learned about a “Learn Blender 100-hour Challenge.” (Blender is a free open-source 3D creation tool for making digital art.) As much as I would love to do the 100-hour Blender challenge, I need to focus on learning or refreshing other skills right now. We only have so many hours in the day, right?

If you have the time and inclination, I encourage you to make your own “challenges” to learn something new that you’ve been thinking about. I think a 100-hour commitment challenge sounds reasonable but write your own rules in a way that helps you break down a task into however many units of measure it takes for you to reach your goals.

Here’s my Nature-led Challenge to you/us:

Make a nature inspired art collage preferably using found bits found outside, but if you want to do a “classic collage” of cutting pictures out of a magazine or painting or whatnot that works too. If you would like to share your collage here, (I hope you will!) please email it to me no later than Friday, February 27.

No AI, the purpose is in the physical art of doing.

Below are two collages I’ve made as examples. I collected bits of twigs, moss, and other plant bits from around my yard. Collecting the bits took about fifteen minutes, the physical composition (playing with ideas and photographing took about a half hour.) Final processing included editing in Microsoft picture by playing with adjustments like Brightness, Exposure, Contrast and Sharpness. You’re welcome to play with picture settings too, of course. It’s part of the process. Since I didn’t use any glue, I was able to compost all my little bits when I was done which felt like an added bonus.

Collage 1: Fences

Collage 2: Islands

Are these the most beautiful collages ever? No, no they’re not. I could have worked on the formatting more and done better with the lighting to get rid of the shadows, but I’m working on not overthinking things so much. I decided I didn’t want to focus on perfecting the technicalities, I wanted to focus on the doing and the sharing. Sometimes you make “bad” art for the sake of making any art at all. Getting stuck in the weeds in the pursuit of perfection has not been a good return on my investment in time. The internal argument of “why make bad art” pulled lose an old memory about “Ralph Waldo Emerson and hobgoblins” and that was all I could remember. Once I stopped laughing at the visualization the thought brought to mind, I found the quote on ye olde internet:

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today. — ‘Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’ — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Essays: First Series (1841) – Self-Reliance

What do you think? I’m always open to suggestions!

Another idea is to create a Nature-led version of Mad Libs. Mad Libs is a story game where people offer nouns, adjectives, verbs etc to be plugged into a pre-scripted story. I would pre-script the story, then ask for key nouns, descriptors and actions. If you volunteer a word, you may even find yourself in the story! I used to do this often when I did ESL tutoring to make money in college and for friends and family just for fun. You can even make it fancy and offer it as a low cost, personalized gift!

Have a wonderful week!

~Final note: If you click on the hypertext link of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s name above it will take you to more of his great quotes.~

Dandelion Wine Experiment Result

January 11, 2026 ~ melaniereynolds ~ 10 Comments

Hello Nature-led Friends!

As promised, I uncorked the Dandelion wine last night that my son had helped me harvest for three years ago!

Smell

Upon uncorking the bottle, the smell was strong. Not a bad smell, just very strong and we worried we might be taking sips of vinegar instead of wine.

Color

A beautiful color. I had expected pale yellow or maybe a pale-yellow green color similar to the color of a faded dandelion flower, but in liquid form. This amber brown was really a nice surprise!

Taste

Strong! It has a unique taste and the best way I can describe it is somewhere between whisky and amaretto. It was very much like the kind of liqueur one might add to baked goods or cakes by the teaspoon. After a few sips I had a headache. I suspect the alcohol content might be on the high side. There was no way to test it that I know of without buying a special alcoholmeter. I’m convinced it could clean the sticker residue off a window though.

Final Thoughts:

I’ve affectionately nicknamed it “Pacific Northwest Hooch” or “PNW Moonshine.” It’s my first time trying to make something fermented. I’m still flirting with the idea of try to make Kombucha, but I would be the only one in the house interested in drinking it. We don’t have the fridge or storage space for me to go making any large selfish experiments. I’ll have to find an equally interested co-conspirator who could provide the storage space to work with!

As for Dandelion Wine, it was a lot of work to pull all of those tiny flowers off the heads and then to wait a minimum of a year before trying it after filtering it through two bottles over a matter of months. I’m curious how it would have tasted at the one-year mark, but not enough to go through the whole process again. I’m not much of a drinker to begin, so I’ll still to buying a bottle of wine or spirits from the professionals, as needed. This does answer my question of why Dandelion Wine is not a common wine option.

May you have a wonderful and pleasantly interesting week! Remember to get outside and remain curious about the world around you!

What’s a crazy or interesting thing that you’ve tried? How did it turn out?

Stay Tuned!

I’m planning a proposal on a new, low stakes, interactive Nature-led project together and a post about AI’s impact on Society and Nature. Hold my coat, I’ve got thoughts!