Jibber-jabber about blogging

“Blog” is a clunky word. It means an online journal, or a “web log”, condensed into the word “blog.

My first web designer showed me how to post to a blog. This was on April 15, 2008, and for awhile, I posted any time that an idea came to me. It was way more fun than I ever expected to have with a computer.

A few years into it, I started chasing down “experts” to learn how to “grow my platform”. I searched for interesting blogs, commented, wrote a few guest posts for other blogs, and even made a few virtual friends. There were formulas to follow about how often to post, how to arrange things, title things, and always end with a question to engage your readers. It took up time that may have been better spent painting or drawing or finding customers and new students. After a few years of this without any noticeable growth in my subscribers, I decided to forget about growing a “platform”. I’d rather grow thyme, rhododendrons, poppies, and maybe a few cucumbers or pumpkins. (Perhaps I am a rogue blogger, along with being a rogue knitter, baker, and painter.) 

Now with over 12 years of posting five days a week, mostly about making art and earning a living with unnecessary products in an unlikely place, it is automatic. A handful of people subscribe, mostly friends and relatives, and even a few strangers who have become real friends through the blog over the years. I don’t remember how to check my subscriber list, and it doesn’t really matter. I have no illusions (or delusions) that I will become either the Yarn Harlot or the Pioneer Woman of art. This is just a place for a solo working artist to stay accountable, to write because I seem to have lots to say about what I do, to keep track of what I have accomplished, to gather feedback when working alone threatens to make me even weirder than my sisters think I am, and maybe even to get a commission or a few sales.

I appreciate every single reader of this blog and am particularly thrilled when someone comments. I wish I knew how to thank my readers in a tangible way, but the best way I know is to keep posting, stay quiet about the stuff that divides people, be polite, don’t cuss and resist the pressure to “monetize”. I hate it when people cuss on their blogs, and I hate it when people whose writing I like get rude or political, have pop-up windows that interrupt my reading, have advertising or a begging button, so I will not to go down those dark alleys here.

Thank you for being here with me!

This is how my painting workshop and studio looked when I first started the blog. It was thrilling to have space at home to work and blank places to practice painting murals.

 

We’ve come a long way.

Mineral King and Somewhere Else

Fridays may be for Mineral King around here, but my last trip to the mountains was somewhere else. However, Trail Guy took a trip up to a spot above Timber Gap to have lunch with our friend Ted. He isn’t there, but some of his ashes might be. They enjoyed this view. ( I don’t know the laws about ashes, and I didn’t participate, so let’s say that they are allegedly in that location.)

A dear friend asked if I have painted this view. Sometimes, nay, often, it is brighter than this. No, I haven’t painted it. It doesn’t strike me as something that people care enough about. However, if you are interested, I can paint it for you, because I paint things and places that people love for prices that won’t scare them.

This is where I was on my last trip to the Sierra Nevada (mistakenly called “the sierras” – to use the familiar correctly, please say “The Sierra” – my dad taught me this, so I know it is correct.)

Hume Lake is a much different experience than Mineral King. Fancy road, comparatively fancy cabin (electricity, and even a microwave, and now the internet too), many many people, many cabins (most quite fancy), lots of flat miles to cover around and around the lake, various boats to rent (the canoe leaked, I returned to the boat house and found another one, which also leaked but more slowly), church services (both indoors and out), and much commerce. It was a retreat for me with 3 outstanding women from the Sacramento area, now a strong tradition for our little group.

The flowers are a little different because the elevation is lower. There are good wild iris, which surprises me each year. I’ve only found one in Mineral King, and I am not telling the location. You can also see them on the lower 5 miles of the road in early May, in the north facing wet drainages. And that’s all I’m going to say about that. 

Mineral King: Tiny & Unknown Flowers, White Chief

Another beautiful visit to Mineral King revealed many new-to-me flowers. Oy vey, a second Mineral King wildflower book will have to be published, maybe this one subtitled “Mostly overlooked boring and tiny flowers”.

Here is a peek, with my most elegant tapered and manicured finger for size:

I also found some other unknowns:

The new yellow one I showed you last week may be called Spring Gold:

For those of you don’t care about obscure and tiny unknown wildflowers but hung on to the end of this post, we went to White Chief, which has been relocated. It is no longer the short hike that I remember, although it remains just as steep. Someone moved that canyon up a couple of miles farther than last summer. Who would do that??

From the top down: Spring Creek; The Farmer and Trail Guy in White Chief; Off -Trail Guy in White Chief; the Honeymoon Cabin as seen from above rather than the normal view.

Mineral King, Opening Weekend

WELCOME BACK TO FRIDAYS ARE FOR MINERAL KING!

Memorial Day weekend is the traditional weekend that Mineral King opens up – gates, campgrounds (only Cold Springs this year), cabins.

  1. ROAD OBSERVATIONS: The road was well-pruned on the lower 6.5 miles, thanks to fire crews. The flowers weren’t very good until the mid elevations where the bush poppy, flannel bush, and blazing star showed up (all yellow, all kind of look alike). Drivers coming down were uncommonly courteous, but a couple heading up didn’t know the mountain courtesy custom of pulling over if someone catches up to you. (BECAUSE THEY ARE ALWAYS GOING FASTER THAN YOU, DOOFUS!) 
  2. It took 2 axes to tackle the low level of the woodpile. Trail Guy has been up the hill when the weather is cold, and he graciously leaves the splitting to me because he knows I love to do it.
  3. I walked the Nature Trail (down the road, up the trail) with my neighbor. We saw a shrub that has always seemed sort of like a currant – turns out it is a Sierra Currant, rather than the Wax Currant that is more common  in our neck of the woods.We also saw yellow violets (called Mountain Violets)and regular violets (called Violets in my book Mineral King Wildflowers)
  4. Trail Guy and I walked to the parking lot, where the 2 trees are marked for removal. (Who knows when it will happen?)
  5. We also walked to Crystal Creek, which is low and spread out, and then meandered our way back where I found a new-to-me yellow flower. The dandelions were out in large numbers too.

 

 

Things Learned in May

  1. Butternut squash – time consuming to prepare, decent eating. A friend once told me, “Squash is the past tense of squish, and squish is not a food.” However, I kind of like this stuff!
  2. Lung transplants – all aboard the Rachelle Express, with many ups and downs. She and I never discussed the details of what the surgery and recovery might entail, and I am stunned by the difficulties. I am also in awe of Rachelle and Steven’s courage, persistence, patience, determination, and strong strong faith.
    Rachelle helped me with Studio Tour in 2014.
  3. I used to get azaleas and rhododendrons mixed up. I think I can tell them apart now, and so far, my rhododendron has escaped the deers’ notice.
  4. Maeve Binchy has long been my favorite novelist. I found her after I ran out of Rosamunde Pilcher (before she wrote The Shell Seekers — now all those older novels seem so silly). JoJo Moyes’ Me Before You became a very well-loved story, and then I found that she has been writing full time since 2001 and has a pile of very well-written books. (Don’t you just love it when you discover a great author and then hate it when you run out of their books?)
  5. Did you ever use those colored aluminum tumblers when you were a kid? I bought some reproductions and use them regularly. I left water in one for quite awhile, and then had to soak it with vinegar to get the hard water marks out. IT LEAKED!! Leaked, I say! Developed a bunch of holes in the bottom from the acid in the vinegar. If you have those tumblers, consider yourself warned. (Trail Guy says I had probably weakened the bottom by jabbing something frozen in it with an ice pick awhile ago).
  6. I learned how to set a gopher trap, the kind called “macabee”. I’ve never done this, because between Trail Guy and our ever-changing stable of cats, the gophers were somewhat under control. Trail Guy finds this task to be repugnant (it is), and our three cats seem to prefer hunting on the neighbors’ properties. Meanwhile, those rodents are just wrecking my herb garden. All the vegetables are planted in wire baskets, but everything else, in particular the ground-cover thymes, went from full to spotty. Caught one, fed it to Tucker, and still, the destruction continues, but I will not stop trying to protect my garden. (Those macabees are crazy hard to set!)
  7. If the gauge on your propane tank is not working, you can estimate how much propane is in the tank by putting your hand on it, rubbing downward until you feel it turn colder. That is the level of propane.
  8. Movies are not a large part of my life – we don’t have (or is it “get” or is it “belong to”?) Netflix (or is it “the Netflix”?), and I always prefer the book version of a story. (Yeppers, always.) However, I watched 2 movies in May, both of which were excellent (used Amazon on my laptop computer). Fisherman’s Friends, and Accidental Courtesy, and both of which I recommend. 

Distracted and Dabbling

The sold paintings and drawings are delivered, and the rest are back in my studio and workshop. The paintings I hope to sell at the Silver City Store are all ready to go, but it isn’t quite time to deliver. The only commission I had is completed and delivered. There are a couple of phone calls I could make to shake up some work, but I am distracted by other things in life.

I had a reunion with a friend from 6th or 7th grade. We met at Hartland Camp, and reunited about 5 years ago, now getting together when we can figure out a way.

Then. Scary.
Now. Possibly scarier.

Do deer eat rhododendrons? They appeared on a Deer Resistant List, so I planted one. I hope our deer read that list.

Meanwhile, I fixed the arch on the painting of the Oak Grove Bridge that has hung in a County administration building for a couple of years, and then at Arts Visalia, where I noticed that the arch wasn’t all it could be. The problem was noticed by one of my drawing students and I at the same time. She wanted to know why I was so hard on her as she drew an arched bridge but then I was casual in my own approach. (My students and I are very honest with each other because this is the best way to learn; if you want compliments on your art, show your mom.)

And I fiddled around with my giant painting that combines scenes from both Orange Cove and Lemon Cove – to be titled “Citrus Cove”, perhaps. For some reason, this feels too hard, so I am just jumping all over the canvas. (No, not literally.)

P.S. It costs a fortune to have a transplant, and while insurance covers much, there is much that it does not cover. If you feel generous and inclined to help my friend, Rachelle, this is the best way to do so: HelpHopeLive.Org

9 Things I Learned in April

  1. A stainless steel refrigerator makes a kitchen look darker than a white one. We never realized how much light that old white one was reflecting into the room.
  2. Someone wrote Easter words to Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” and it is stunning to hear it sung by 2 Canadian sisters, one age 10 and the other age 19.
  3. My painting called “Yokohl Oak” is actually a tree where bikeriders heading up the Yokohl Valley Road regularly stop to rest; they call it the Bike Oak.
  4. Amazon has a severe quality control problem in its instructions to sellers. Does this sentence make any sense to you? • “Starting July 1, 2021, Individual Sellers will longer need to do provide customers with a prepaid return shipping label for in-policy returns.” (No, I did not click on any links in that email!)
  5. Shutterfly, where I order photographic prints, has changed to the point that I think it might be time to find another photograph printing company. Why do so many web businesses have to keep changing, becoming less helpful, shrinking their offerings? Anyone know of a good place to get prints made? (No, I don’t belong to Costco).
  6. April has its charms, in spite of only being my 3rd favorite month.
  7. I found a new podcast to listen to: it is an artist interviewing other artists. Might not be your cup of tea, but if you like hyperrealistic paintings, you might enjoy seeing the podcaster’s art, Andrew Tischler, along with another artist that he interviewed, Renato Muccillo. (I’m getting a clue as to why I still feel like a beginning oil painter.)
  8. A friend from Kansas sent me a recipe for an orange cake several years ago. In spite of never having made a layer cake or having round pans, I made the cake. Apparently I am as much a rogue baker* as a rogue knitter, but the batter tasted great so I knew the cake would be decent, in spite of looking a bit wonky, as if it is covered in lumpy gravy.(Yes, eating sugar again. Wanna make somethin’ of it?)
  9. Sometimes people make an appointment to stop by my studio. What I learned is that sales do sometimes occur, so I need to stop viewing this as an interruption to work — it IS my work. These 4 paintings found new homes due to the in person visitations in April.
Pippin, AKA Orange-Bob-Square-Pants, is oblivious to the herd of giant plant-consuming rats behind him.

*Cut the sugar back by 1/3, tripled the amount of orange juice, substituted butter for margarine so skipped salt, used square pans, added about 3 times as much vanilla, doubled the nuts, added orange zest to the frosting, and had to guess how to duplicate mixer speeds with wooden spoons and wire whisks.

Ten Things I Learned in March

Even after being away for twice as long as I lived in Lemon Cove, I still love the place. (No Trader Joe’s there, for sure.)
  1. If you find a surprising rip in your clothing while out in public, packing tape is a handy quick solution. 
  2. Farmer Bob’s World is a new citrus museum just outside of Ivanhoe. I posted about it on March 12.
  3. Somewhere I read that the way to wake up a body part that has gone to sleep is by shaking your head. What?? Someone please try this and let me know!
  4. If you want to leave money both to charity and to people in your will, use your IRA for the charity, because they don’t have to pay taxes on it, but people do, just as if it is their own IRA. Just list the charity or charities as the beneficiaries. You’re welcome (because now you don’t have to pay a lawyer to tell you this.)
  5. Three Rivers made #3 on a list of the 12 most charming small towns in California. Really?? They obviously didn’t dig very deep and learn that our air is foul, we are uneducated, unemployed, and fat. And, there is no Trader Joe’s. Here is the site: PureWow True, it is fabulous here in February and March.
  6. I met someone who is convinced that Elvis didn’t die and is now in the Witness Protection Program as Pastor Bob Joyce (or Robert E. Joyce, as in “rejoice”) of Benton Arkansas. That guy was born in 1953; Elvis was born in 1935. He sings like Elvis, but so do lots of impersonators. It made for some fun conversation (and DuckDuckGo searching).
  7. One of my drawing students has been painting with watercolors on used tea bags. Yes, you read that correctly. Her inspiration comes from Ruby Silvious. This  sounds too bizarre to believe until you see it. I grabbed this image from My Modern Met
  8. When pictures are hung in a group in a gallery, it is called “salon style”; when 4 are grouped together, it is called a “four-pack”. 
  9. If you live in Tulare County, have a power outage and the restart kills your 33-year-old refrigerator on which you have a DNR, call Frank’s Appliance first. (Whirlpool goes the distance.)
  10. There are 2 kinds of naked ladies bulbs: one is called Lycoris and works where the winters are cold; the other is Amaryllis Belladonna and pops up in August after all hope for a decent looking yard has expired in that dismal month. (This learning was triggered by a gardening blog and is not relevant to March but I learned it in March, so there.)
    Amaryllis Belladonna, always a nice surprise in my yard in August, because the deer don’t eat these.

Loving March

No particular order, no particular reason. Just sharing some of what I love about March in the foothills of Tulare County (where there is no Trader Joe’s).