"Country Village"

Teaching day today. We are having a brief sunny spell, so I thought I'd take a few photos of the lovely place where I get to teach. [My day classes are at this studio. My night classes are at a local community college. A nice place, but doesn't have the quaint charm of hand-tamed fowl, meandering streams and pools and lots of growing things.]


This is the (nearly unreadable) store sign for "Arts Umbrella". We are tucked into a little back corner, nestled between a used bookstore, a really cool gift shop and an unlikely combo latte/watch repair place (called appropriately, "Coffee-Time").


There is a stairway outside of our window, but just past that is a charming little courtyard, complete with fountain.


This is the winter-version of our courtyard arches, shrubberies and pathway. In the spring and summer, this is one of the prettiest places in the whole complex with fountains of blooming vines and a profusion of flowers and herbs.


George is the village 'mascot'. He belongs to the coffee place a couple of doors down, but makes himself welcome everywhere. This is his food dish in the art gallery down the way. I tried to get a picture of him amongst the Chihuly glass knock-offs, but my camera batteries died at that moment and by the time I replaced them he'd gone on to the munchies. The gallery owner said she'd leave the door open for him all the time, but the ducks come in in droves, and they are less careful with the glassware...


A very small sampling of the critters the waddle about outside our storefront. There are any number of roosters and chickens and ducks and even a fairly tame rabbit or two that hang out under our parked cars or beg for crumbs as you walk down the brick paths or over the arched bridges past the dwarf contorted filberts and blooming heather...