Falling Leaves Tiki of the Month
The Tiki of the Month for November has lots of falling leaves to deal with, although all of those leaves are a problem of his own making.
Even with all of those leaves to rake up, this month’s Tiki still looks happy about it all. Maybe that is because he knows he has another Tiki to help him with this chore.
When thinking about what to do for the Tiki of the Month for November, I realized that last year’s November Tiki was all about Thanksgiving. And this year’s September Tiki had already dealt with raking some falling leaves. So instead of trying something else for Thanksgiving, I decided to explore the falling leaves idea further. What if all of those leaves came from the Tiki itself, because the Tiki had been carved into a living tree?
Leave the Leaves
Personally, I am not a big proponent of raking leaves in the fall. Fortunately, we live in an area that does not have any sort of regulation about that, so it is not a problem for us. We just let the leaves fall off the trees in the fall and then chop them up with the lawnmower in the spring. That makes less work for us, and it is good for the yard, too.
Of course, by not raking our leaves, we will never win Yard of the Month. No big deal, because no one in our area gives that award anyway. And what would it get us if we did win? Just some bragging rights, and bragging is not always a good thing.
Some people work really hard on their yards. They rake leaves. They get rid of weeds. They have abundant landscaping, water features, rock features, and little lights to light it all up at night. And that is perfectly fine if that is your thing, as long as it does not get in the way of more important things.
Hobbies are great as long as they do not get out of control. Once they start coming before your family, friends, job, responsibilities, and especially before God, things start to get dangerous.
Find a hobby, and do it well, being sure to keep everything in perspective.
“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” - Matthew 6:33
About the Artwork
I had fun coming up with the texture of the tree bark for this one. From far away, trees look to just be brown. But once you get up close to a tree, you can see that trees are very complex, with all sorts of colors, patterns, shadows, and textures to them. So I explored that just a bit with this Tiki tree here. Most of the past Tikis have had some sort of an attempt at wood grain, but this one took that just a bit farther than before.
