Maybe today we will conclude our Mineral King hike among the wildflowers. I will cease referring to Trail Guy as Off-Trail Guy now, because we rejoined a trail.
This is the Franklin/Farewell junction, where we normally go to swoon over the wildflowers. After Everything Spring, it was rather meh.
I was very happy to be on a trail again.
Aster? Dunno. Prolly. Tired.
Farewell, Farewell Gap.
I can count on seeing Blazing Stars along this trail. These are actually Giant Blazing Stars, and I don’t normally see them just before they have opened.
Maybe these are asters. They are smaller than the one I just showed you, and I’ve included some foliage in case you want to be Nancy Drew.
These Lupine were very intense. Never mind that I take photos of Lupine over and over. . .
This is Franklin Creek, 2 miles from the cabin. I just waded through, and it felt mighty fine. Then I slipped and sat in it by accident. No one saw, but I dripped all the way home. It wasn’t pretty.
I wonder why this hike felt farther and more difficult than in my memory. The flowers were the best I’ve ever seen, so it was worth the trouble. But oh my goodness, I need to work harder at fitness, or stay on a trail, or something. Is this part of being at the tail end of the F’s?
Just a few more photos, because we earned them, and so did you by sticking out this long saga of a long hike in Mineral King. Thank you!
Are you all rested after the lunch break and ready to make like a cow-pie and hit the trail again? (Never mind. We weren’t on a trail yet.)
These Paintbrush (formerly known as Indian Paintbrush) were almost flourescent.
Maybe one day I will look for these little whites and actually find a name.
After our lunch break among the yellow unknowns, we crossed a little spring or drainage, a wet place that I named Everything Spring. Every possible wildflower was there and in bloom. EVERYTHING.
Look at these Elephant Heads! This was my first oh-my-goodness moment at Everything Spring.
Paintbrush, Angelica, Jeffrey Shooting Star, Tiger Lilies, Larkspur, Rein Orchis (weird word, I know), Elephant Heads, Crimson Columbine, Knotweed (not in any particular order in this list – just wanted you to see all the names)
Red, white and blue (with some pinky-purple for an accent)
One last look at Everything Spring, because there were still 4.5 miles to go.
After Everything Spring, we crossed a snowfield. There is still a ton of snow around Farewell Gap. It has a bit of a pinkish cast. Off-Trail Guy tested it to be sure it wasn’t some sort of collapsing snow bridge. It was slippery in my worn-out Teva sandals. (Sandals on snow are funny, but didn’t qualify for a photo.)
Tomorrow we shall conclude this long walk (AKA hike).
Today we continue our long walk, now above White Chief, heading through some of the finest flowers in memory.
Is this an elderberry? Maybe. It looks a little different than the ones growing lower down.
Off-Trail Guy took this tree photo for you, Jess! (And why was this hike easier when you were with us?)
This is the view from the top of the ridge between White Chief and Farewell Canyon. Now you don’t have to struggle ever upward because we did it for you.
The Pennyroyal was thick. Too bad this isn’t a scratch-n-sniff.
I’m not going to sugar-coat this hike. It was harder to get to the top of the ridge than I remember, not as hard to come down the other side, but then pretty hard to pick footing through all the growth. It’s hard to step wisely when the ground isn’t visible, but there were no injuries. (Thank you for your concern.)
We call this Louise’s Spring because it is on one of her favorite slopes. The flowers were intensely abundant.
There were Larkspur, Lupine, and Sierra Stickseed, all blue. This photo doesn’t begin to tell the story (but at least your feet don’t hurt while reading about it.)
Who are you? Who-oo? Who-oo? (Those yellow look-alikes again.)
This is the foliage on this particular yellow look-alike, in case a blog reader is inclined to find its name.
This is part of my view while seated on my tookus during a short lunch break. Those yellow unknowns with a pop of purple in the center – a classic example of complementary colors. (Just had to throw that in in case you were wondering if I had abandoned my art career for a wildflower one.)
It is pretty unusual to have Languid Ladies (AKA Sierra Bluebells) in abundance in August.
Long hike, long post. To be continued. . . and here is an ad break.
100 page paperback, flowers in photos, common names only, lots of chatty commentary, $20 including tax. Available here Also available at the Three Rivers Historical Museum, Silver City Store, from me if I put them in my car, or Amazon.
Actually, it was a hike. We went to White Chief, over the ridge to the Farewell Gap drainage, down to the snow survey site, crossed the stream on a snowfield, found our way to the Farewell/Franklin Trail, and then 4 miles back to the cabin.
This is how things looked around 9 a.m.
This footbridge across Spring Creek is immensely helpful.
Is this a dandelion? It looks different. You know how I feel about all those look-alike yellows!
This is for Jess; I miss my tree-hugger friend. We stopped here to put on mosquito repellent, just before getting into the lower White Chief canyon.
Looks easy here, but there are three steep sections to get to this place.
Lower White Chief Canyon
Mountain Jewelflower is sort of nondescript but was everywhere. The leaves show up more than the blossom.
Mountain Pride or Pride of the Mountains – either name is just as pretty.
Off-Trail Guy and his beloved Tiger Lilies
This post is getting too long, kind of like the hike was. To be continued. . .
I have a friend with a Mineral King cabin. Although we have this in common, and that is how we met, our friendship has mostly grown through email. Recently our cabin times overlapped, and together we walked up to Crystal Creek, about a one mile walk on a fairly flat trail (that used to be a road).
This is Fireweed. Spring Creek is the tiny falls in the background.
More yellow look-alikes, but different leaves than those I found on the Nature Trail.
Sulphur Flower is a different shade of yellow than all those look-alikes. That is Crystal Creek in the background.
Collomia is the only orange flower I know of in Mineral King. “Peach” is probably a more accurate name for the color.
One of the many types of Lupine with Timber Gap in the background.
The Snowberry was prolific, abundant and uh-may-zing.
Thank you, SD!! It was a real treat to be together in person.
100 page paperback, flowers in photos, common names only, lots of chatty commentary, $20 including tax. Available here Also available at the Three Rivers Historical Museum, Silver City Store, from me if I put them in my car, or Amazon.
There is a trail in Mineral King called “The Nature Trail”, a one mile route that connects Cold Springs Campground (near the Ranger Station) to the Mineral King valley itself.
There was a meeting in the area near Cold Springs Campground, and I took the Zapato Express*, choosing to go down the trail instead of the road. We normally walk down the road and back up the trail, but I thought I’d probably be catching a ride back up and I didn’t want to miss the progression of summer along the trail.
The river is flowing steadily, a lot of water for August.
Many yellows look alike, in spite of the name of the yellow chapter in my book. I might be able to identify this, eventually.
Aster? Glacial Daisy? Something else? It was pale lavender, not the white it appears in this photo.
These are a bit different. Smaller, and a clump instead of a long stem, and growing in a dry area instead of a wet one, also lavender.
It wasn’t a requirement to wear a straw hat to the meeting, but you wouldn’t know by this photo.
Someone in her upper years of life requested a ride home in the 2-seater Botmobile, so I got to walk back up the trail, not a hardship by any stretch of the imagination.
Yarrow in the foreground; Black Wolf falls (Monarch Creek) in the fuzzy background.
I never tire of the aspens.
Almost back to the cabin. The flowers are just endlessly fabulous this year. (Nope, not my cabin in the photo. This is the World Wide Web, and I try to maintain a teensy bit of privacy.)
100 page paperback, flowers in photos, common names only, lots of chatty commentary, $20 including tax. Available here Also available at the Three Rivers Historical Museum, Silver City Store, from me if I put them in my car, or Amazon.
*This means I walked; “zapato” means shoe in Español.
In 2012 I made my first calendar. It was an experiment, because a calendar has a short time to sell, and when it is over, a business is stuck with unsellable inventory. The calendar sold well enough, 100 turned out to be the right number, and I have continued making calendars ever since.
When reviewing the calendars, it looks as if they are random. In fact, each calendar represents the previous year’s focus (or obsession). There are photos, paintings, and drawings.
2013 – I didn’t save a picture of either the front or the back, so I don’t know what it was about or what I named it. I ordered about 10 or 20 at a time because I didn’t know how well it would sell. (Obviously I didn’t know much that year.)
2014 – Back when I only had about 15,000 photos, I was able to go through and select 12 for this calendar without too much trouble. But what did the front look like?
2015’s calendar was my best oil paintings that were horizontal and of Tulare County subjects. I called it “Beautiful Tulare County”. Again I ask, “What did the front look like?”
2016’s calendar was pencil drawings of Tulare County (of course) cabins–Wilsonia, Mineral King, Camp Nelson. Why didn’t I save a picture of the backside??
2017 front – the calendar was a blend of drawings and paintings.
2017 calendar back “The Bridges of Tulare County”
2018 was Flowing Water, because in 2017 we had a most welcome wet winter and the flowing water was to be celebrated.
2019 – was very fun because I got to draw 11 new pictures and figure out ways to incorporate color.
2019 still has many of the original drawings available. Want any? None are framed. All are 11×14″ or 9×12″. You can make an offer. If it is too low, I will not take offense but might counter-offer. (Normally those sizes sell for $200-275 before tax).
What will the calendar for 2020 be?
Mineral King Wildflowers!
Of course it is about Mineral King wildflowers, my current obsession. It is in progress, so you will have to restrain yourselves until it is for sale.
This year it will be $15 if ordered by October 1, and $20 if ordered afterward.
An acquaintance asked a friend to ask me if I would repair a torn painting for him. The customer doesn’t want his painter friend to know that the painting was damaged (and dirty too – where did he have this thing??) So, I will only show you the section that I worked on.
I’ve done this once or twice before, but it has been awhile, so I consulted with The Duck (DuckDuckGo is my search engine of choice because it doesn’t track me or feed me ads it chooses.)
Yikes.
The painting might be oil, but it also might be acrylic. The surface of the canvas is very smooth, and the repair is making that spot a bit lumpy.
That is one ragged tear. If this was Big Deal Art, it would get done under a magnifying glass, arranging every little thread. But I don’t know what they’d do about the missing threads. . . did this get eaten??
It’s pretty inconvenient to have it so close to the stretcher bar.
piece of canvas on the back, attached with Gesso
This is the front side where I used Gesso again to fill in the gaping hole in several layers.
I put waxed paper against the Gessoed canvas and weighted it down overnight with an odd assortment of items at hand.
I sanded it, applied more Gesso, let it dry again, and sanded it some more. Finally I accepted the fact that it wasn’t going to look as good as new. (But it looked better than here, because I didn’t photograph every step. Boring process to watch, but challenging to do.)
Not quite right. Is it the color or the new surface of Gesso beneath?
I think the different surface is collecting light differently on the repair than on the original canvas.
If I could show you the entire painting, you would see that it blends.
If I could show you the painting, you might say, “Why bother?”
My dad taught me de gustibus non es dibutandem which means it is useless to argue over matters of taste.
He also taught me, “You kiss their fanny and take their money”.
To quote an anonymous source (not my dad), “This ain’t no pianie yer building!” But, I did my best to make it sturdy, smooth, and matched.
Borrowing a friend’s river view. The river is still high and loud, particularly unusual for early August.
In the months of July and August, I don’t give weekly drawing lessons. This gives me an out-of-proportion sense of being on vacation. My schedule is freer, so I putter at multiple things, some work, some personal.
A former drawing student (from about 2000-2004) will be having a baby in September, so I am knitting like a crazed machine.
It is time to begin designing the 2020 calendar.
An odd job appeared: someone has a torn painting and asked me to repair it. Maybe I can, maybe I can’t, but a mediocre patch job might be better than a ragged hole. The customer doesn’t want the original artist to know that it got torn, so you only get to see a corner. I’ll show you Wednesday.
My neighbors are relandscaping their yard and asked me to help. It is very absorbing work, and we keep coming up with ideas. I really enjoy figuring out what might grow, and digging extras from my yard, along with starting new ones from cuttings. (We think of ourselves as “The Frugal Gardeners”.)
I’ve been reading a lot, and my Want-To-Read list on GoodReads is down to about 160 now. (If you want to follow me on GoodReads, try it – I don’t know how to instruct you other than to say I am under my real name, nothing cute or clever). 1. “The Blue Shoe” is a meandering novel of very little plot about people you could imagine knowing by Anne Lamott whose writing captures my attention whether fiction or non-fiction. 2. “An Innocent, a Broad” by Ann Leary is a memoir by a writer I’ve discovered recently. 3. I loved “The Good House”, also by Leary, a first person novel about an alcoholic in total denial. 4. “House Rules” is my 2nd Jodi Picoult novel and it was a page turner written in multiple voices; the main one was an autistic teenager.
Since I’m not ready to show you the calendar, and the torn painting is a slow process, have a look at the baby blanket in progress, our old friend Reading Rabbit, and some of the yardening.
100% cotton, machine washable, recommended for baby blankets, ordered from Webs online, stitch pattern from a book called The Stitchionary.
Salt & Light, or Reading Rabbit, oil on board, 11×14″, not for sale
There will be flagstone on the path, and we are trying to find something to plant around the stones. Moss? Grass that doesn’t require mowing? Low-growing thyme that can live in relentless summer heat?
I’m particularly enamored with the blue wheelbarrow.
Having a picnic on the friends’ deck by the river adds to the sense of being on vacation.
In 1992, I did this commissioned pencil drawing of a Mineral King cabin. The one who owns it sent me a photo of the card she had left from an earlier order.
Photo of little notecard
I tried to turn it into something that would print as a decent card. This was not acceptable.
Unacceptable!
The customer said she still had the original, and it wasn’t even in a frame, so I was able to scan it (after touching it up a little bit, because I draw better now (as one would hope, 27 years later).
Original drawing, retouched and scanned
Then, I messed with it on Photoshop Elements, and voila!
Ready to be printed.
Printing has changed so radically from the old days. I’m thankful that the ordering and reprinting process is accessible from my laptop these days.
