I painted these two Sequoias one day, then set them outside in the sun and breeze to dry. They dried quickly enough to be scanned and delivered to the store two days later.
Sequoia Gigantea XXI, 6×18”, oil on wrapped canvas, $195
Sequoia Gigantea XXII, 4×12”, oil on wrapped canvas, $175
The smaller of the two is a new size to me. I found these canvases while in Oregon. They are probably available somewhere in my county here in Central California, but since I only go to The Big Town of Visalia to either see my mechanic or grocery shop, who knows?
The proprietor decided to accept both paintings. The smaller of the two sold off the counter before she could even hang it on the wall, before I even made it back home!
Three Rivers will be getting a pharmacy again! Maybe, if governmental regulations and insurance companies don’t block progress. We are supposedly getting the golf course back, along with 2 restaurants in town, but between the Keyboard Warriors and the county regulators, the delays are legion. The French bakery and a high-end hotel gave up because of these hateful people who block progress, who don’t accept the precept that “a rising tide lifts all boats”. STOP IT!!
2. In just one Canadian province (Nova Scotia—Hi Elisabeth!), there are 2 time zones, one of them only 30 minutes later. That would be highly annoying! From Elisabeth: “. . . there is actually only one time in Nova Scotia (AST) which is 1 hour ahead of E.T. But in Newfoundland (a nearby province) it is AST + 0.5 hours. So if it’s 12:00 pm in New York City, it’s 1:00 pm in Nova Scotia, but it’s 1:30 pm in Newfoundland.” You probably already know that there are 4 times zones in the contiguous 48 states, and Hawaii and Alaska add 2 more.
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3. Intermittent Fasting is an eating fad that is supposed to slow aging and keep blood glucose lower. I’ve been trying this, nay, doing this for a month. The idea is that you only eat within an 8 hour window, and fast in the remaining 16 hours. It is sort of hard, but I am learning how to manage, hoping that “closies count”. I won’t know if it is worth it for another 2 months. Oy vey.
4. The week before I acquired a new-to-me car, a friend (Hi again, Elisabeth!) posted a link to a post on this website about life lessons from driving a manual transmission car. I learned that driving a manual transmission is more automatic to me than driving an automatic. I am in mourning, while at the same time feeling very grateful for a newer car.
5. Did you know that the second ingredient in seasoned salt is SUGAR??! Boy am I mad.
6. A site called BookCrossing is a worldwide community of readers who share books and then track where they are. If I had nothing else to do, this might be fun. However, I have more than enough just keeping up with the people I know in real life, along with a handful of not-yet-met friends, so keeping up with my books after I read them isn’t going to make The List.
Why was there a pickleball on my morning walk in a neighborhood without a court?
Have you noticed that I am really enjoying the use of the non-word “tryna”?
While in Oregon, I loved seeing those rural scenes with barns, but only took photos through the car window because we were always on a schedule without time to meander along back roads. Freeways don’t often have scenic turnouts, and many country roads don’t either.
I lamented that I had no reason to paint Oregon subjects; then, my artist friend Krista told me to paint them and then look for an outlet to sell them in Oregon. (She is full of bigger ideas than I ever think of.) My sister said, “I don’t know why a barn picture wouldn’t sell. It is a thing to have a barn picture.”
Then I remembered that my upcoming solo show in Tulare is title “Around Here, and Sometimes a Little Farther”.
So, I went for it, using 11×14 canvas boards instead of my usual wrapped canvases. Why??
That was so satisfying that I did another one. (The photography part was an interruption so I skipped all the steps on the second barn.)
I wonder if that hay stack is a little too weird. too centered, perhaps.
Whenever I finish something in fairly short order, I almost break my arm patting myself on the back. Inevitably, when it is dry, I scan it, view it on my laptop screen, and groan: “WHY DID I THINK THAT WAS FINISHED??”
At least I know what to expect after these are scanned.
I also figured out that in the upcoming show, all my paintings of local scenes are on wrapped canvas, and all the “sometimes a little farther” paintings are on boards. These will require easels or frames. Aha! The visitors to the show might be able to differentiate just by the format (and possibly by all the ocean scenes. . . duh.)
Ka-Ching! That’s just part of the business of art.
Sunday morning’s temperature at our cabin was 33°. This was on the second day of SUMMER! My 7 year old neighbor and I discussed the fact that the seasons don’t always follow the calendar.
Because it was unseasonably cool, we opted to walk up the usually hot and dusty trail toward Timber Gap, Monarch Lake, Crystal Lake, and Sawtooth. Nope, those were not our destinations; we chose to go to Groundhog Meadow. It was just a walk, not a hike. (Hikes have backpacks with food and water; walks are just walks.)
The parking lot was full of cars protected from marmots by blue tarps. Usually the marmots have ceased their automotive destruction by this date, but most people don’t know this and aren’t willing to take chances.
The trail is steep with giant steps for the first 1/4 mile or so. After passing the turn to Timber, you eventually come across this funny little spring, just shooting directly out of the side of the mountain.
I remembered the trail wrong: I thought there was a long straight section, with more steep steps to the so-called meadow. Instead, it was more steep steps to a long straight section that led to Groundhog Meadow. Our little friend viewed it as a hike and carried a pack in spite of my explanations. This girl makes up her own mind.
Groundhog Meadow is a weird name to me. What meadow? And aren’t they marmots, not groundhogs? Who named this place? This is Groundhog Meadow, which to me is simply a stream crossing.
Being close to the beginning of July, which I view as the peak wildflower season, there were good wildflowers.
If you take the old Sawtooth trail, it leads to a nearby meadow; maybe this is Groundhog. Sure has a good view of Sawtooth!
There is one dicey part of the trail pretty close to the stream crossing on the way up. Here it is on the way back down.
Boring unknown white flower. . . if I do a second edition of Mineral King Wildflowers, will this make it into the book?
Hiking Buddy and I walked up to Crystal Creek. It has all gotten so lush and green in just the 3 weeks since I was last in Mineral King. Some of the ferns might croak due to the low temperatures, and a few of the lupine looked droopy.
Crystal Creek looks low, but it is because after the wet winter of 2023, its course changed to three spread-out sections across the trail instead of one charging stream.
Ugh. So many dead trees. Drought? Some sort of beetle that takes advantage of a weakened state? We’ve had some decent winters, but the preceeding dry winters have taken their toll.
Indian Paintbrush was the dominant flower on this walk. That’s Timber Gap in the distance, in case you need help getting oriented.
This is looking up the trail toward Farewell Gap, Vandever in the distance.
Thus we conclude another Mineral King report—walks, not hikes, grateful to be able to walk, wearing my latest hiking Crocs, called All Terrain Atlas Clogs. These have thick soles and I think they’ll last awhile.
(Take that, stupid Peripheral Neuropathy! You can’t stop me from walking on trails, so there.)
We passed this air museum multiple times on this day of geographical challenges. It is enormous, and finally, I shot a photo through the windshield (as a passenger, fret not).
This beach is known for a giant sand dune. I climbed it two other times and wanted to test myself, SIXTEEN YEARS LATER. (I’ve never been this old before.) It’s the mostly bare one with a little group of trees on the top left.
I followed these people (whom I didn’t know), and when it got too slip-and-slide, I resorted to using my hands too, after watching one of those folks get up that way. It was not dignified, but I only knew my sister, and she’s seen me in many undignified situations through our years.
Looking back down from the top.
This is looking over onto the other side. I don’t know those people.
It is pretty doggone fun to step-and-sink-and-slide back down. My sister is a tiny speck down there somewhere.
There was a less steep way to ascend, a bit of a trail, so I went back up that about 1/2 way to the top for a second thrill of step-and-sink-and-slide back down. It was on the pretense of accompanying my sister that way up, but I really just wanted to descend another time.
After we left the beach, our old friend called. She said she was so very sorry to have missed us, but that she was in town picking up flyers for the service.
“WHAT SERVICE?”
Oh, wow, oh no, her husband died. My wiser older sister put on her pastor’s wife hat, flipped a U, and we drove on those now familiar roads straight back to see her.
It was a very good decision.
It was a very good day.
P.S. I let my sister drive the whole day because she will miss that car and because she supposedly knew where we were going and because I wanted to sight-see.
On my beach day in Oregon, we visited two beaches and one lighthouse.
We didn’t have a paper map, the cell service was spotty, I’m not very good at that electronic navigation stuff (who wants to operate a cell phone when the scenery looks like this?), and we were rather geographically challenged. Eventually we found the lighthouse.
On the trail down to the lighthouse.
The beach AND wildflowers—could life possibly get any better?!?
I don’t know those people.
We had to wait another 1/2 hour for a tour of the lighthouse, but there was another beach calling us. So, we headed back up to the car. It was hard to leave, but it is always hard for me to leave any beach or lighthouse.
I love the beach. Any beach. All beaches. While in Oregon, my sister and I had a day to go to the beach, so we went to 2 beaches and one lighthouse.
Beach #1
We had the address of some old friends from Visalia and decided to surprise them. This is the road that led to their place, but alas, they weren’t home. We poked a business card in the door and headed to the beach.
As you probably have surmised, I live in the sticks and don’t get out much. City things are not a regular part of my life. So, when I get to a city, I get busy. This trip to Oregon was full of purpose: a haircut, a new battery in my laptop, a box of clothing to a consignment store. This was all peripheral to visiting family (Hi Mom!) However, I had another purpose.
Fernando has received a terminal diagnosis. He’ll probably keep going for another several years, but the needed parts are no longer available except as “after market” which, rather than fitting, will need to be welded. This isn’t ideal. After 24 years in my life, it is time to let go for a better vehicle. (sob)
Fernando, Trail Guy, and I have had some fun together.
Is this a better vehicle?
Maybe after a new battery and a big wash job.
I think car washes are scary! But good results. . .
Never had an automatic. Never had a four-door. Never had a 6-cylinder. Never had a car that wasn’t green or blue. Never had a car manufactured in this century (talking about cars of my choice for my use, not the old family wagon or our good ’03 Toyota Tacoma).
Can’t say that anymore. But I’ve only owned Honda Accords, so that part is familiar.
Now I just have to stop slamming my left foot into the brake (because it is NOT a clutch) before starting the car and remember to put it in Park before trying to remove the key.
Who wants to hear about Oregon?? Not as many of my tens of readers as want to hear about Mineral King.
While I was on the road, Trail Guy was in Mineral King. (Are you surprised? Then you might be new here. . . welcome!) You may recognize these photos as coming from his camera, because it usually has a dark spot in the sky.
First, he saw a Western Tanager, a yearly sighting. Blurry, so I’ve made this photo small.
Then he went to White Chief.
This is Crystal Creek from across the valley.
This juniper is everybody’s favorite tree.
Here is White Chief, sometimes described as a canyon, sometimes as a valley, sometimes as a dry lake.
The flat top peak is White Chief Peak.
Trail Guy calls this “Walden Pond”. It is NOT White Chief Lake. That’s up a steep steep steep slope below White Chief Peak.
Back in the valley (the Mineral King Valley), this rock outcropping continues to impersonate a mountain ridge which we call Empire. From this angle, it appears to be the top, but it isn’t.
Trail Guy also went to Timber Gap. This is the classic view from the trail. White Chief Peak is visible, identifiable by its squared off top.
Five-spot on the left, phlox on the right.
Shooting star. Jeffrey Shooting Star. Don’t forget about Jeffrey, whoever he was.
When he got home to Three Rivers, he found this brand new, recently born set of twins, right in our yard.
Great. Now we’ll never get rid of these voracious landscape-destroying creatures.
Walking in the mornings in Oregon was just ideal. So many interesting houses, so much to see, so many great looking yards and growies! It felt like March or April at home.
a favorite househazelnut shells as mulchpeculiar landscaping for OregonWeeds or wildflowers?
Yea, kitties!
A favorite yard.
Another favorite house.
The lavender! With yellow roses!
This color combination always grabs my attention.
Yeah, yeah, I will tell you the reason (besides visiting family) for this trip. Stay tuned.
