This is an enormous empty lot in Visalia, and I took the photo because I am astonished that it is green! It rained in September and October, something that doesn’t always happen around here. See those enormous trees in the distance? Valley oaks, quercus lobata, the largest oaks in the country (or the world? I forget). They follow waterways through town, just like they do in Three Rivers; that is Mill Creek over there.
I even spotted wildflowers in the lot—morning glories are actually an invasive weed.
Those car places aren’t always boring.
Are buildings ever built with rounded corners any more?
An alley full of succulents? Yeppers. I wonder if it is profitable. I saw it there about 6 years ago, so maybe it is.
I saw the sign for Component Coffee Lab, a place I have heard about but never knew where it was. Looks as if they rent one place to do their roasting, in another, not far away, tucked into a walking alley, is their very cool coffee shop. It was full of people on devices, with plugs available by every seat. Their logo of 3 circles is too subtle for me to understand, and their back entrance could use some landscaping, but everything else was excellent.
What is this?? I didn’t walk right up to it, but saw it when I was in the back of the coffee place on a street parallel to Main Street. What is the significance? That is where Foreign Auto Works was when I first discovered them in 1983. (More oaks along Mill Creek).
*Visalia, population 146,000, is the county seat of Tulare County, about halfway between Bakersfield and Fresno, California’s flyover country. No one knows about it, no one cares, but we feed the world. Might be more helpful to know it is about halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles, each about 200 miles away. But really, no one cares, and I like it that way.
If you’ve been hanging around here on the internet for awhile, you know that Trail Guy and I drive old vehicles. The reason that we are able to keep them running is due to Mark at Foreign Auto Works. Mark just sold his business to Frank, and we will continue going there. However, before Mark vamooses in retirement, we had him do final oil changes for us. I’m his longest customer and I will really miss him.
I dusted the odometer so you can read it more clearly.
Hence, time-kill in Visalia, which I used to go walking and exploring downtown. The first part of the walk is full of auto places: repair shops, tires, transmissions, detailing, used car lots, new car lots, smog checks. When I got through those parts, I paid attention to architecture and other details.
Remember when buildings were made pretty, just because? Compared to buildings in older cities, particularly in the East, this is probably considered a nothing-burger. But I happen to think it is classic.
This part of Main Street connects all the automotive shops to the retail shops and restaurants. For awhile, it was full of antique malls; now there are empty buildings, a gym or two, and some mysterious unknowns (I didn’t linger). Visalia has tried to keep the trees going along Main Street, and as you get closer to the retail part, there are speakers up high on the lights, playing a variety of music. I heard some classical, I heard some Neil Diamond. I wonder why they think music is important walking along the sidewalks.
I stopped in Pacific Treasures, a business that was new when I worked in downtown, 30+ years ago. Now it is one of the few I recognize, and it was a real treat to have a visit with an old friend from elementary school who has worked there for many years. Great store, full of merchandise, so full that I almost developed a twitch. Got it under control, and bought some basil olive oil. My friend said they stock it because I asked for some. Ahem. I asked 9 years ago, and haven’t stopped by since asking. (They could have called, but they probably haven’t had any trouble selling it.)
There’s an old sign. Really old, older than me, prolly older than Trail Guy. The restaurant is no longer functional. Maybe the downtown Visalia organization wants them to leave the sign for nostalgia’s sake.
I love this sort of tile detail. This would prolly cost a mint to have done on a new building.
(SHARON, I moved the picture of the calendar back to lower on this post so you can skip it.)
Around Here—and Sometimes a Little Farther, 2026 is a collection of new pencil drawings by your Central California artist.
The drawings are mostly rural scenes, mostly from this often overlooked location in the heart of California. As a life-long resident of Tulare County, I continually seek out what it is that keeps me here. Pencil remains my favorite medium.
The price of $25 includes tax in California (unless Paypal goes rogue and adds it in, something over which I have no control and some angst). Cabinart will also pay for postage within the USA, because I know you could easily skip buying a calendar, and I wish to express my gratitude to you for liking my art.
I also wish to let you know that I only have 100 for sale this year, and when they are gone, it’s hasta la vista, baby!
All the drawings with the exception of the pier are for sale.
Check out work by two of my drawing students. The first one is finished, and the second one is in progress.
I teach people how to put on paper exactly what they see. It is the beginning of all art, in my opinion. (If a person can only see it in his mind, I cannot help with that.)
Lessons are $60/month, one hour per week with other people, all of whom are learning too, all at different levels of skill. I don’t know where you’ll ever find a better group of people to spend an hour with each week—the friendships grow, the encouragement flows, and we laugh a lot too.
We don’t draw together in December, July, or August. You are welcome to stop by and see what it is like!
Tuesday afternoons, 2-5:30, CACHE, 125 South B Street, Exeter
Trail Guy nailed some boards together for me several years ago, and I painted redwood trees on them. We got on a roll, and he pounded a few more of these panels together, but sales slowed and I moved on. We were cleaning out an area in the workshop and 2 of these appeared. I delivered one to Stem & Stone, where it adds attention-getting eye-appeal to the store front.
Screenshot stolen from Stem & Stone’s Instagram
The other needed some reworking. It was made from fence pickets. I painted a single tree in the middle, and it looked as if someone with a vee-shaped mouth took a bite from the top. Alas, I took no photos of the previous awkwardness.
Feel like watching paint dry? Here you go:
Greatly improved.
P.S. It’s not a mural, but I did use mural paints instead of oils.
Home Depot is a mess. In 2021 I bought a mini-refrigerator. It only worked for one year. In 2022 I bought another one, which wouldn’t fit in my car. They put it in their Will Call department (or something similar) and I returned with the pick-‘em-up truck to retrieve it the next week. They couldn’t find it. I chose another. Did I or didn’t I take it? I sort of remember canceling the entire transaction, and I think a friend got me one from Costco instead, but my memory is a mess. Home Depot sent me a refund check, which I returned to them. Two years later, I got another refund check from Home Depot. This time I decided that if they are dumb enough to keep giving money away, I’ll take it. In early October, I received a third check from Home Depot. After about 7 or 8 phone calls, I found a human who told me that I had purchased 3 refrigerators from Home Depot. Hunh? It took them three years to refund my money?? I cashed the check.
Hey there, Jackson.
2. I am a mess in my bookkeeping. Why do I not know if I got a refund or not for all those refrigerators? Ugh. I’d rather draw or paint or teach people to draw than fiddle with numbers, paperwork, phone trees, and records.
Finished and mailed 2 red scarves to Foster2Care in Cleveland. Now I have to figure out how to use the leftover red yarn.
3. Phone calls are a mess. For many years after Kodak croaked, I used Shutterfly to print my photos and to create photo books. Several months ago the site stopped working. My photos won’t load. I postponed calling them because those kinds of phone calls require much time and patience while listening to menus, terrible hold music, and people with difficult accents reading polite scripts. It took 45 minutes for Shutterfly to determine that the problem is DuckDuckGo. I told them that I will no longer be using Shutterfly because I am unwilling to download another browser.
Redbud trees become yellow-leaf trees.
4. Keeping life simple creates a mess. Well, not exactly a mess, but some sacrifices and some work. Since I insist on keeping life simple by not downloading another browser, I will not be able to print photos or photobooks unless I spend time looking for another company.
Hey Pippin, I’m tryna keep Mom’s car clean here. Do you mind??
5. Laura Ingalls Wilder’s life was a mess. My favorite blog, The Frugal Girl, posted What I’ve Read Lately. One of her books was Prairie Fires: the American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser. That book sparked more discussion than any of the others mentioned. It also led me to Wilder, a podcast by Glynnis MacNicol which completed and corrected (and stole some of the magic from) the Little House books. The impact and influence of those books is worldwide, transcending several generations, and now, sparking controversy. Warning: the final episode on the podcast was full of vitriol and cussing so I didn’t finish listening.
This door was a mess until I painted it. It’s more interesting as a photo in its messy state.
6. Staying current with computers is a mess. While editing a new book, Word lagged. The spinning beachball of doom responded with rotations every time I did anything on the book. I went online to see if there was any help. The main information was that Word needed to be updated. In attempting to update, I learned that my laptop must first be updated. I called Apple and learned that my laptop is maxed out in terms of updates. (They think a 2015 is old?? Listen, punks, I have a NEW car that is a 2004, so what are you talking about??) So, wanna know what I did? (I figured this out all by my lonesome—please be impressed.) I divided the 187 page book into 2 documents, so there! Now I can keep my 2015 going, while all those know-it-all children keep buying new things (probably made by slave labor) and putting their old (probably functional) machines out there into landfills (or their mama’s basements.) But I’m perfectly reasonable and calm about it all.
7. AI is messing things up. But if you want to find things on the internet, information NOT created by Artificial Intelligence, type what you are seeking into the search bar, followed by a space and -ai. That’s a minus sign with the letters “a” and “i”. I haven’t tried it yet but learned about it on a non-AI using blog.
My herb garden is a mess, so I’m showing you this photo from a previous year.
8. AT&T is a mess, and they are messing with me. In 2023, I tried unsuccessfully to get a phone reconnected at the cabin. AT&T had no humans available who could handle landlines in California. They couldn’t understand how to flip a switch to activate the phone, which was already in place from previous years. They insisted that a tech guy needed to drive up the hill to do the job in spite of merely flipping a switch in the past. Alas, the road was unpassable for the AT&T giant truck. So, we decided to do without a phone and have managed without one for three summers now. A few months ago I got a letter from a collection agency that I owe AT&T $666. (evil number!) Au contraire, they provided no service, I had no phone, I never received a bill, I owe nothing. However, this crock of barnyard fertilizer has cost me several hours on the phone with the collection agency, and several dollars in mailing things in a manner that no one will be able to lie about receiving my documentation. They insist that I owe them, and I insist that I do not. I wonder if I can get through to Dave Ramsey so he can tell me how to deal with these stupid hon-yocks.
Why can’t I remember whose screen door this is?? Apparently my memory is a mess.
BONUS—This made me laugh: A dear friend recently said, “You can lead a man to knowledge but you can’t make him think.” Gotta be thankful for dear friends!
Perhaps November will be less of a mess and we can learn some good things together.
I’ve been getting my art printed on notecards since 1987. In the olden days, a package consisted of 2 each of 5 designs. In the olden days, people communicated on cards and mailed them with a stamp rather than talking into a little machine and tapping something. This meant that I had 1000s of cards printed at a time. Some of those pressruns produced uneven amounts of cards in a set, which meant leftovers.
What if I make packages of those old designs and sell them at a discount? There are six different designs, all in random amounts in a box, collecting dust on a shelf.
The ones circled in red are what is available. (For the curious reader*, the sets from left to right are Kings Canyon, Sequoia, and Tulare County Landmarks.)
These were printed a long time ago. If someone had told me back then that I would become a blogger (a what??), an oil painter, a painter of murals, a knitter, a resident of Three Rivers, and that I would drive an automatic transmission car, I would have laughed out loud in disbelief. (And if someone would have said “LOL”, I would have looked at them with puzzlement. It used to mean “Little Old Lady”.)
Okay, decision made, packages compiled. Each package contains 4 different cards (and envelopes), mostly chosen at random with the exception of the first one on the upper left below. I have more of that drawing than any other, so every package contains one of those. They will be $5 a package, as opposed to my current cards. (The current ones are $10 a package and are all the same design within a single package.) These will be potluck.
It will cost too much to mail them, so they will only be available in person at the upcoming Holiday Bazaar.
*For the Very Curious Reader, the drawings from left to right, top to bottom: Kings Canyon overlook, General Sherman Tree, Four Guardsmen, Clover Creek Bridge, Exeter Woman’s Club (yeppers, that is the correct spelling), the Hilliard House (burned down in 1983 but never forgotten around here.)
No reason for this photo. Just hoping to make you smile.
Some recent thinking has led to this listicle for you.
The Ivanhoe Library mural is getting closer. I am waiting on several decisions that are outside of my power.
My hope is to begin the week of November 10, but since the library is only open on Tuesdays and Fridays, and I teach drawing lessons on Tuesdays, this project could take a V E R Y L O N G T I M E.
The annual Holiday Bazaar at the Three Rivers Memorial Building is scheduled for November 22 this year. I haven’t participated in quite a few years, and this year I hope to do so.
If I don’t participate in the occasional bazaar, boutique, festival, or fair, people forget about my art.
When going through my notecards to decide which designs to reprint, I had a good idea. Maybe… I’m thinking about packaging leftover notecards from old pressruns (when I sold assortments) and selling them at a discount. This requires more thought, perhaps even another blogpost while I bore you to pieces with my thought process.
The 2026 calendar is completed but not yet revealed or on my website or ready to be sold.
Waiting for a special size canvas to arrive for one oil commission with a deadline and to decipher some notes for a special commission without a deadline. . .
In case the previous elephant didn’t make you smile, maybe this one will do the trick.
While I am wading through unbloggable territory, I’ve been able to attend to some of the business of art. This means lots of computer and phone time, along with digging around in filing cabinets. The phone time isn’t as awful as when you actually need assistance, because most companies are available with live humans if you are spending money with them.
B O R I N G
It had been quite awhile since I stocked up on supplies. This meant chasing down old invoices and lists and emails to discover product item numbers, or what size a customer requested, or doing inventory to see if certain things were actually needed. I made lists of what is here and there, up in that basket, out in the workshop, in a filing cabinet, in a drawer, on the spinning cardrack. Then I evaluated what I really need alongside what I might be able to use if it only takes a few more dollars spent to qualify for free shipping.
B O R I N G.
I ordered old notecards, new notecards, this year’s Christmas card, clear bags for packaging, blank boards for packaging drawings, canvases, and drawing paper. The goods came from three businesses plus from three different sellers on eBay. Almost all orders qualified for free shipping.
B O R I N G
At least I have internet access, experience to wrestle through the various sites, a laptop that knows my passwords and user names, a phone that works (mostly) to call businesses when their websites don’t work, the time to get it all handled, and money to pay for these things.
So there. In all the boredom, I can find some thankfulness.
