Can’t Let Go of Spring

Spring happened early in Three Rivers this year. It also seems to be ending early. It is hard to comprehend that Farewell To Spring began blooming around the lake at the end of March, when normally they don’t appear until the end of April or beginning of May.

You may have noticed that I am a little obsessed with the flowers growing in the wild and the ones blooming in my yard. By the time this post is appearing, all of these will be toast.

On the front porch; I think these are called Queen’s Tears.

Early early early for the climbing roses—normally they appear at the end of April.

A last hurrah for these iris. . . I think I’ll plant even more next fall. (Greedy? yeah, maybe)

In the orange grove of a friend, where we like to glean oranges, particularly when they are in bloom. Citrus is unusual in the plant world in that the blossoms and the fruit can be present at the same time (depending on when the fruit is picked.)

Around the time that the rest of the wildflowers and the green fade, I can always count on finding these penstemon on a regular walk in the neighborhood.

Fading fast. . . sigh.

This one would make a nice painting, and if I substituted poppies for the common madia, it might even sell.

The fiesta flower takes some of the pain out of spring’s end.

Okay, I’m tryna be brave here. ‘Posed to be working. Imma get something done besides obsess about flowers.

Maybe. Maybe I’ll stop speaking slang and straighten up and fly right now that spring’s distraction is ending.

Tryna Paint | A Few Other Things First

So many parts to my little life: editing, gardening, doing stuff for church. . . but I was ‘posed to be painting.

Look! This crape myrtle tree isn’t dead after all!

Hey! Why are these iris hiding?

This sign will be repurposed, but first Trail Guy had to scrape off old lettering, and then I had to put forty-eleven coats of paint on it. Now we get to store it until the next volunteer does his part.

What? You want another sign? Okay, fast-horse quality

LOOK! The climbing roses are blooming, and they usually don’t appear until the end of April!

Wait! I’m ‘posed to be painting!

Remember this guy? I thought he looked weird. After studying him upside down with the photo, I made a few adjustments, added a bit more detail, signed it and set it aside. This ain’t no piano I’m building here. . . let’s not get paralyzed by perfectionism, because summer’s selling season approaches.

Moving on, there are 3 more Honeymoon Cabin paintings to complete.

That was quick and easy. Next!

Back and forth between the two, tryna be efficient with the colors on the brush so I didn’t waste either paint or time.

Still, I didn’t finish either one of these. Maybe the next time I can get these both finished and move on to some Three Rivers paintings. Shoulda coulda woulda had them done in time for Easter weekend/First Saturday in Three Rivers, but there were so many other distractions. As you witnessed by the beginning of this disjointed post.

Morning Walk in Three Rivers

This was on March 26, so things already don’t look like this. Spring goes too fast, particularly when we get early days of heat.

And look at my yard when almost everything bloomed at the same time because of the early heat.

Spring will end soon, and I will remember that this blog is supposed to be supporting my art business, not just a place to gloat about being able to live in Three Rivers in the springtime.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!

Even More Spring in Three Rivers

Okay, it’s just pictures of spring in my yard. And I took these photos 2 weeks ago. Just hanging on to every last drop.

Herb Garden first. Why do I have an herb garden? Because when we first moved to Three Rivers, I was desperately looking for anything the deer wouldn’t eat. Eventually I cobbled a series of fences together to protect this little area, but the soil is poor, and it gets zero sun in the winter while baking in the summer. So, herbs mostly work.

Now let’s return to the most beautiful part of the yard. Yeppers, you’ve seen this before, but more are open now and the light changes too.

I’ll pull myself together soon, think of something to write about, focus on the work ahead. Thanks for hanging with me.

More Spring in Three Rivers

Yes, some repetition here. This little segment of the yard is stunning, and I try to look at it different times of the day, every single day.

Enjoying our seasonal “lawn”, which is mowed weeds, irrigated by rain.

Lilac!

P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, K.C.!

Eleven Things Learned in March

  1. I’ve never heard of sous vide style cooking. Read about it here: A Beginner’s Guide to Sous Vide Cooking on a site called “Spruce Eats”. Pronounced “soo-VEED”. Not planning on trying it. I made it through the Insta-Pot and Keurig crazes without buying anything and will continue to keep my life and possessions simple wherever possible. But it is fun to learn about what other people are doing. If you want more info, Serious Eats is a great website for all sorts of cooking info.

2. Do NOT let piles of paper accumulate! I finally went through the stack of birthday and Christmas cards and in that stack I found THREE Very Important Items: 1. a letter I thought I had mailed in October (ARE YOU KIDDING ME??) 2. a gift certificate to Luis Nursery (ARE YOU KIDDING ME??) 3. An email and phone number for a dear old friend (HI CAREEN!! WE ACTUALLY TEXTED AND I ALWAYS THINK OF THINGS TO TELL YOU BUT DON’T WANT TO BE A WEIRDO AND A PEST.)

3. “Faff” can be both a verb and a noun, considered British English. (Great word, thank you, Elisabeth from Canada!) NOUN: An unnecessary or over-complicated task, especially one perceived as a waste of time. VERB: To waste time on an unproductive activity.

4. “Cruft” is similar to “faff”. It means redundant, old, inferior, especially as it relates to code (computer stuff).

No faff or cruft here.

5. Brushing scam is an entirely new term to me. It is yet another scam, this one a “fraudulent tactic where sellers send unsolicited packages to individuals to create fake “verified” reviews under their names, boosting the seller’s credibility without the recipient’s consent. This can expose personal information and lead to identity theft or other scams.” So, beware if you receive something you did not order! Keep it, donate it, bury it in your garden, but do NOT review it online or respond to the wicked “geniuses” who sent it.

6. Lone Oak Cemetery, still there in spite of neglect, still with poppies and a lone oak, right there in the orange groves of Ivanhoe as it was 60 years ago.

7. There are tollways in California. I thought there were only freeways, but I was wrong. It is a real privilege to live in a place where we say “the freeway” and everyone knows what is meant.

8. My cousin was a voracious reader and a list-maker. How did I not know this about him? Despite all our differences, we really and truly were related!

9. I went to an awards dinner (as a guest of a winner friend) and this tiny oval-ish citrus fruit was part of the centerpieces. I took a couple home to try and they were Very Sweet. No idea what they were! I should have taken more. . .

10. Wisdom from James Clear about unexpected forms of generosity: 

  • Not taking things personally can be a form of generosity. You give people the space to say things imperfectly.”
  • Leaving something unsaid can be a form of generosity. You don’t always need the last word. 
  • Being early can be a form of generosity. You wait, so they don’t have to. 
  • Delivering your work on time can be a form of generosity. You make life easier for everyone downstream. 

11. I learned how to make scrambled eggs that don’t stick to the pan. (But where did I learn this??) Put your fat in the pan and heat the pan hot enough that a drop of water dances, not sizzles. Then your eggs won’t stick! It actually works. ‘Bout time I figured this out.

And thus we conclude a month of many new pieces of information. I wonder how much I will retain.

Did you learn anything new in March?

Loving Spring in Three Rivers

Let’s just enjoy some photos. Or how about you enjoy them while I recover from the book project, Springville’s Hospital.

And then, I headed to church to work on Phase II of the landscaping project begun a couple of years ago.

Last year
This year
Forty new plants, all native to this area, with little buckets to indicate where to put the drip irrigation! I had help choosing, help raking the wood chips, help planting, and help putting in the irrigation. Prolly won’t have much help weeding.

Mid-day Walk in Three Rivers

Was it mid-day? or mid-morning? Dunno. Nobody cares. Let’s have some photos.

Oops, these are from the early morning walk.

Look how much the tulip opened in the 1/2 hour we were on the walk!

This is Ray Hartman ceanothus, maybe the best one I’ve seen. There are several in the neighborhood.

I like this mural, but the Ivanhoe library mural remains my favorite.

Comb Rocks in the distance.

I shook this blooming tree branch to see if my inferior phone camera could catch the pollen blowing around. This is a Chinese pistache tree, the kind that self-sows and looks brilliant in the fall.

The rest of these photos were at home. It was so beautiful out that I lollygagged around, taking photos, procrastinating about diving into that indoor editing job.

My life is mellow, everything near home, just the way I like it. Except for that nagging book deadline. Self-imposed, but still urgent. Back to work!

UPDATE: The book is now finished. . . I wrote today’s post a week ago.

Field Trip

A dear friend had a birthday and expressed a desire to see my Ivanhoe library mural. I thought we’d just have a little tour, ending with lunch at Super Taco in Woodlake. We barely made the trip before all the green went away. This happens when it gets hot in March. Tryna not be greedy, because we have had several long cool springs in the last handful of years. But we do NOT like it when it is hot, there is no rain, and the grasses and flowers shrivel too soon.

Sorry. Didn’t mean to complain.

First we drove around the country roads, and I showed her the two places where I grew up, along with Twin Buttes, and a different angle of Venice Hills than she is accustomed to. The orange blossoms were divine.

Then we headed to Ivanhoe proper. Not much to see there except for the library. I felt doggone proud of this mural; it is currently my favorite. Am I allowed to say that? Oh yeah, that’s right, it’s my blog.

This is a map showing the way to the Lone Oak Cemetery. I visited it in first grade, because my best friend Kelly lived next to it. I tried to find it again when I was working on the mural, but felt weird driving down someone’s driveway. With my friend in her 2007 white Mustang convertible, I didn’t feel as weird about the sense of trespassing.

Kelly’s house is gone and there is a big one in its place, and we just headed down the driveway as if we had an invitation. Boom! It was exactly right there!

The sign is a lie. The cemetery isn’t maintained. It is in sorry shape.

Here is the lone oak. Must be a good source of underground water, because the oak is a Valley Oak, a quercus lobata, and there is also an enormous cottonwood tree (those leaves at the top of the photo.)

What is this bizarro stuff? Chiseled headstones without any words, and tangerine trees in the background with the nets to prevent cross-pollination.

The wall was weird. I wonder if it was made from the stuff from when Kelly’s house got torn down. See the wind machine in the distance?

The highlight for me was seeing the poppies in bloom. When Kelly and I were poking around in the first grade, I picked a few poppies and she told me I was going to jail because it is against the law to pick poppies (the state flower) in California.

I didn’t go to jail or even get in trouble by any grownups, and the poppies have survived for 60 years despite my accidental vandalism.

We also circled around the backside of Venice Hills, and had some fantastic tacos for lunch before heading back home. I had a lot of book work to do. Gonna get it done, yeppers, I am!