Little Break From Repainting Mineral King Mural

I wasn’t able to paint on Wednesday, due to life’s other commitments that make me thankful to be self-employed.

Have you been missing Samson? He is semi-civilized now, although better behaved for Trail Guy than for me. It might just be a male-bonding issue, or perhaps it is that Trail Guy is around more.

The first photos show our redbud tree in bloom. In the last photo, you can also see the tail end of the bloom on the flowering quince.

Just an average spring morning in Three Rivers . . .

Spring in Three Rivers is almost worth the long hot dry smoggy crowded summers. No, it IS worth it (but I doubt if you would like to move here – remember, we are all fat, poor, uneducated, have diabetes, get pregnant as teens, and have bad air. Besides, there is no Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods.)

 

 

Weird Connection

In 1994 I was commissioned by a woman to do 2 pencil collage drawings as gifts for her sons. Their last name was Dalton, and the young men had started a company to sell a special recipe of BBQ sauce, capitalizing on their ancestors, the notorious Dalton Gang. The gang robbed a bank in Coffeyville, Kansas and died in the raid, along with 4 innocent citizens. This incident in history is a huge part of the identity of Coffeyville, 125 years later. (It happened in 1892 – did I do the math right?)

In the past handful of years, I have become friends with a woman who lives in Coffeyville. (Yea, internet!) She is a writer and blogger named Cheryl Barker and this is the link to her site. When I learned where she lives, I told her about the drawings and she was very surprised that I had heard of Coffeyville at all. (She had never heard of Three Rivers, duh.) 

I told her if I ever found pictures of those drawings, I’d send them to her.

Last week I was procrastinating (quite productively, thank you for your concern), and decided to have another look. 

Wow, in the last century I kept appallingly horrible visual records of my work. Here are the two pencil drawings, after scanning the horrid photos and working a bit of photoshop magic on them.

P.S. I googled Dalton Wild Times Enterprises and found nothing.

Don’t Feel Like Talking

Today is 17 years since my Dad died. I don’t feel like talking. You can look at Samson biting his way out of a paper bag, and then we’ll take a walk in Three Rivers. Maybe later I can draw some water from one of these rushing river photos.

On the Easels and On the Needles

This jalapeno is a commissioned oil painting. I’m happy with the colors and will be tightening up the detail next.
The Honeymoon Cabin is a very popular subject. This is from an early evening photo with heightened colors. The size is 8×8″ and will be $100.
Sawtooth is another very popular Mineral King subject. This is 10×10″ and will be $150.

And in case you were wondering if all I do is work, please be reassured that I always find time to knit. A friend is waiting for a new pair of lungs, and there will be a fund raising dinner with silent auction and pick-a-prize items. I made these 2 infinity scarves for the event, and the blue/red/brown one already sold! No worries, I have just finished a brown/teal and have a second one on the needles, which I might be tempted to keep. Kind of tempted to keep the aqua one, but my friend needs to pay for her lung transplant infinitely more than I need another scarf.

Oh wait – you need to see what an infinity scarf looks like, not just all the colors.

Forget it – this one is mine! (Okay, make a large enough contribution to my friend’s lung account and I will send it to you, but it better be a HUGE check – email if you’d like further instructions.)

 

Did You Miss Samson?

Samson is still around and participating fully in everything.

So far he has wrecked 3 pairs of tights and a cable knitting needle.

I began this painting of a jalapeno pepper, and he immediately began batting the pepper around the workshop. I encouraged him to bite it, hoping it might cure him of this nasty habit, but no, he only chased it all around the room.

Water Cat

With all the rain, Samson has been quite interested in the movement of water.
samson 1 Samson 2 Samson 3 Samson 4 Samson 5Samson 6It is official. I’ve become a bore with photos of my cat. He’s really Michael’s cat, not mine. He took all the photos. Just wanted to be clear. Does that make me less of a bore?

Don’t answer that.

Rain in Three Rivers

Three Rivers got 9″ of rain in 10 days. This is phenomenal! We walked to the Dinely Bridge several times to check out the river.

I can’t remember how many storms – one big one? a wave of storms? The early ones were warm and the river was very exciting.

See that white stick on the lower left? It shows the depth of the river. I’m not sure the water even reached the stick last winter. In these storms, the stick washed away.

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Looking downstream, Kaweah River middle fork, from the Dinely bridge.
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Looking upstream. St. Anthony Retreat Center is the group of white buildings with red roofs in the distance.
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Looking downstream again. Either the stick is buried or it is washed away. See the little rocks sticking up on the distant ridge? Stay tuned.
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Looking upstream on the Dinely Road side of the river.
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Looking upstream on the highway side of the river.
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Where is that measuring stick?

Okay, now for those rocks in the distance. They are called “Comb Rocks”, either because they look like a rooster’s comb or because someone named Mr. Comb (or Combs?) owned them. I don’t know.

What I do know is that my walking buddy said to me one morning, “Turn your head sideways and look at those rocks. Whose profile does that resemble?”

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That’s what I’d call a peculiar sight.

A List and an Attitude

Here is a list about the vicissitudes* of my life; you may detect a certain attitude coming through. Tomorrow I will try to resume a more professional and detached approach to blogging.

  1. Samson caught his first rat! Yep, rat, not mouse. He played with it until Michael took it away. His cat food must be too tasty for him to consume a rodent.
  2. I updated the web page of The Cabins of Wilsonia so you can now look inside the book a little bit. There are arrows on the side of the book that take you to those interior pages. Or use the dots. Or is it my outdated browser on my outdated operating system on my outdated laptop that makes it appear this way?
  3. I no longer have a cell phone. What? You didn’t know I had one? Yes, a flip phone with a broken hinge served me somewhat for about 15 years. The Huge and Rude and Indifferent Phone Company offered me a replacement and said the old one would no longer work by the first of the year. I accepted the new phone, waited until the last possible minute, and called Huge&Rude to activate it. No problem. Done. Nope, not done. Called Huge&Rude again who insisted that I needed a passcode. A what? Can’t set it up over the phone, sorry, my apologies. Maybe via email? Oh guess what – they’ve had the wrong email address for me since 2001. My apologies, Ma’am, can’t correct the eddress without a passcode. You’ll have to go to a Huge&Rude store to set one up. I decided that I’d rather not continue with Huge&Rude, so I asked to cancel. Oh guess what – they cannot cancel over the phone but I need to visit Huge&Rude in person in order to set up a passcode in order to cancel. Why have a cell phone if there is sketchy service at my address and if I choose to not be available 24/7? No reason. I’m not driving 40 miles to stand in line at a store for 2 hours to get a passcode to cancel. 
  4. My laptop is on its last legs. I had to make a very expensive decision. I hope nothing gets interrupted or lost.
  5. This is getting unpleasant. Here’s a better subject: the Mineral King Room at the Three Rivers Museum will have its grand opening on Sunday, January 22, from 1-4 p.m. You can see my murals in person, listen to people talk about Mineral King, look at artifacts and learn about the mining and the Disney era, and eat and drink.
  6. UPDATE – and now I’m hearing that the various for sale pages aren’t working on the website. HOW LONG HAS THIS BEEN GOING ON?? Somebody make it stop.

If you made it to the end of the list, you deserve a treat.15

Cruise, anyone? Wouldn’t it be nice to escape the rats, the Huge&Rudes, updates, and broken things?

Dream on.

Okay, here’s what I really think:

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Samson agrees, but he is a bit more attitudinal.

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*Vicissitudes is a fantastic word. It means “changes of circumstance or fortune, typically unpleasant or unwelcome”.

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Happy Birthday, Trail Guy!

If you see this man around, treat him to a vanilla latte with a blueberry muffin. He is aging well, dontcha think? 😎 

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Happiness is being surprised by Trail Guy!

Trail Guy throwing rocks at Soda Springs
Michael's little friends

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Just One More Frivolous Post

I know, I was going to get back to work, but Samson is so fun that I have become one of those internet weirdos bores who post endless photos of her cats.

This is for Kaylee, and I don’t mind you called The Boy “Sammy”.

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This is my blog, I’m 57, so I’ll post what I want. Risky, I know.

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