This page started out to be about the clouds. So I inserted ships into the clouds in the sky that I added using a photo of mine with a blend mode of lighten. I like the effect it gave the trees in the bottom to look like a mountain behind the mist.

Then I got my Almanac newsletter that talked about Leif Eriksson, so it turned into a page about him discovering North America. I imagined all of the creatures looking on as the ship approached their land. And I ended up with the scene above.

Journaling reads:
There's a beautiful cloud-fleet passing by,
With white sails all unfurled;
Let's take a sail o'er the blue expanse,
And visit the mystery-world.
–Mary L. Wyatt, Australian poet (d. 1941)

Today is Leif Eriksson Day, Oct. 9th. Who was this Viking explorer, exactly? According to Encyclopedia Britannica, “Leif Erikson, Erikson also spelled Eriksson, Ericson, or Eiriksson, Old Norse Leifr Eiríksson, byname Leif the Lucky, (flourished 11th century), Norse explorer widely held to have been the first European to reach the shores of North America. The 13th- and 14th-century Icelandic accounts of his life show that he was a member of an early voyage to eastern North America, although he may not have been the first to sight its coast.”