"Oak Folks"

Janet and Paul live in the house closest to ours next door. It burnned down in the Glass Fire and we admired the speed and practicality with which they rebuilt it. They are both retired from the US Air Force, own a little plane which they keep at the Sonoma County Airport  and volunteer at the pacific Coast Air Museum which is housed next to the airport. They were here last night for drinks and what turned out to be dinner and Janet, who is also a painter and a very 'crafty person' told me about her latest obsession , or as she put it, "Something I can do in the evening to keep myself busy so I don''t have to think too much...' We agreed that everybody needs something like that right now. 

I went over to see her Oak Folks, little people made from acorns, lichen covered oak twigs and other found objects. They are all doing ordinary things  which she says are inspired by the shape of the things she finds. She gave me the owl in extras who has joined the penguins on the hall table. She probably has fifty of them all different and all quite charming. She's going to have a table at the Farmers' Market to see if she can sell them and wanted my advice on how to display them and how much to charge for them. I told her I was hardly the person to ask but we agreed that somewhere between $10 and $20, including the little glass cloches to protect them seemed reasonable. 

After I got hime with my little owl, it occurred to me that they would make great Christmas ornaments and could be displayed hanging from one of the  lichen covered branches which litter our property. 

After that I came home and started working on my own obsession, cutting and taping 39 pieces of regular letter sized paper into a pattern for a quilted coat.