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!

Morning Walk in Three Rivers

Before the sun hit the ridge across the canyon.

Same flowers, after the sun hit the hills across the canyon.

Comb Rocks.

Now, back to book editing, photo editing, photo captioning and placing, and book formatting.

How Fast?

Walking Partner and I noticed something different a week or two ago here in Three Rivers: new speed limit signs on a private road.

This is one post. 15 mph heading upstream, 5 mph heading downstream. (This is along the river—could you guess that?)

Here’s another one: This time it was 15 mph going downstream and 5 mph going upstream.

And here is another on the same road: 5 mph both upstream and downstream, but this time there is an explanation for those heading up. “Slow blind curve ahead” could apply to the bulk of the road.

And at this intersection, it is 15 mph regardless of the direction you head.

Never mind. Let’s look at some wildflowers along the walk.

This is the kind of sign I’m used to. Custom. Interesting enough to perhaps cause someone to notice.

Walking Partner and I walk about 3.5 mph, in case you were wondering. We used to walk 4 mph, but we’ve never been this old before.

(Neither has my friend GE. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GE!!)

Tempted Away From Painting

On a fabulously springlike day in February, Trail Guy tempted me away from painting: easy to do when there are wildflowers and it isn’t hot and I don’t have a tight deadline.

First, I noticed all the chemtrails. Yeah, yeah, I know, “contrails”, but I still think there are way more than we have passenger jets above. The general direction is usually south to north, or west to east. I believe something secretive and possibly nefarious is taking place. Yes, I am susceptible to conspiracy theories; often the distance between one of those theories and reality is about 6 months.

We drove down toward Kaweah Lake, parked at the upper end of the Slick Rock area and then meandered upstream along the river, with a wee bit of accidental trespassing behind the Lazy J Motel.

A great redbud in the parking lot!

We headed toward the river, went across someone’s former foundation and down these steps to the river trail.

In putting this post together, I remembered WAIT (Why Am I Talking?) and decided that the photos can do the talking today.

I also decided to start looking for a new camera.

Just thinking about inspiration

Just outside the gallery/museum where I teach weekly drawing lessons.

People love to ask artists what inspires them. This is kind of annoying, because generally speaking, artists just love to make their art, not sit around contemplating the reasons. An artist who helped me get going in oils said that what inspired him were the bills in his PO box. I’ve occasionally pondered the question of inspiration, and all I can ever come up with is so mundane, predictable, commonplace, and ordinary that it embarrasses me to admit such a thing.

a morning walk

And the answer is. . . . BEAUTY.

The same walk. . . these are fiddlenecks

Well, duh. Of course I have to surround it with something a little more detailed, something to make it a bit more challenging, because I came here to earn a living. I am looking for the beauty of Tulare County, this poor, uneducated, rural, overlooked place in the middle of California. We do not have the Golden Gate Bridge, Hollyweird, the beach, Lake Tahoe or Death Valley. But we do have Mt. Whitney, sequoia trees, the largest oaks, the best citrus, more dairy than the entire state of Wisconsin and an enormous variety of agriculture. So, I continue to look for the beauty here in Tulare County.

A little life remains in this surprise bouquet, salvaged by the oh-so-thoughtful Trail Guy from flowers knocked over by rain.

Why? To generate pride (the good kind, not the sinful kind) in those of us who wonder what holds us here (No Trader Joe’s?? Who can withstand this sort of deprivation?) And, of course, to sell. We get a million or so folks (nope, haven’t looked up the numbers) passing through Three Rivers on their way to The Park (AKA Sequoia National Park) every year.

Sitting at a long traffic light on the drive home. Those are orange trees, in case you were wondering. And why not enjoy the sunset instead of being frustrated by the wait? There are only 3 traffic lights on my weekly commute, and I can actually skip all of them by choosing less direct routes.

That’s it, that’s all. Beauty inspires me. God is the creator, I am the imitator. And sales, because without those, I might have to get a real job, and then I wouldn’t have as much time to appreciate beauty.

P.S. Happy Birthday, Dad. You would have been 94, and although other family members have that longevity, it ain’t pretty.

Exploding Head

Not literally. Figuratively. There is a difference in these two terms despite the language butchering (figurative, not literal) that is commonplace.

Using a template to convert a book from Word to InDesign is supposed to be easy. Sure, if everything works. When does that happen??

Converting the InDesign file to a PDF for proofreading is supposed to be easy. Sure, if everything works. When does that happen?

Getting a 1099 form used to mean waiting for the mail. Now you “just log in and download and print”. Supposed to be easy. Sure, if everything works. When does that happen?

“Go digital” to get your Social Security statements—“It’s Fast, Easy, and Secure”. Easy?? Who are you kidding?

“Get 85 Free Prints A Month” from Photo Affections! It’s fast and easy! Sure, except for all the hidden prompts, tiny clever little tools to guess at, and oh, by the way, only one print per image is allowed for free.

My head is about to explode.

Let’s just look at a few photos and try to regain our balance.

The beginning of spring in my yard: flowering quince, daffodils, germander
Morning light on Comb Rocks
Presbyterian Church: you can bet they never put kraft paper over their windows because they have stained glass with local wildflowers.

Now maybe I’ll go try to balance my checkbook with all those Paypal entanglements, debit cards, and oh, oops, I used the wrong account to pay for business expenses, and what was that automatic deduction for? That’s right, the printing 10-key machine makes illegible numbers, so I’ll clean it. Well, oops, now it won’t print. (Felt great to shove it in the trash, so there.)

Never mind. Today I am painting the mural in Ivanhoe, listening to roosters crow, dogs bark, cats yowl, and cars go past. Nothing on the computer, very very peaceful. I’ll show you all about it on Monday.

Maybe I’ll Work Tomorrow

While the east side of the country is getting hammered, the west side is having beautiful springlike weather. Let’s look at another walk, which probably could be classified as a hike if I had had the foresight to bring lunch. I did bring water and my walking stick, which was a good decision.

Poppies in January!

Not much water in that waterfall*.

Or this one. (It is a tiny light line in the shade.)

How in the world was this picnic table transported to this spot with no road??

Pippin was waiting for me to get home. Little sunshine kitty. Well, not actually little.

Jackson was also waiting, but he doesn’t want to look eager and make me think that he actually likes me.

Maybe I’ll get some work done tomorrow. Maybe I’ve done work already this week but haven’t shown you yet. Maybe I will work on the mural on Friday.

More will be revealed in the fullness of time.

*The waterfalls had good water when I photographed them in Spring 2023 for this painting (It shows as $700 on the website because the website is supposed to add sales tax, which I estimated to be $50.)

Salt Creek Falls, oil on wrapped canvas, 16×20″, $750

Still Field-tripping

I recently read a useful acronym in Dusk Night Dawn by Anne Lamott: WAIT. It means Why Am I Talking. So today I will not talk, because I can’t think of a reason to talk that anyone would actually care about. Please enjoy these photos of what has masqueraded as winter in Three Rivers, California in January, 2026.

A Break From Painting to Enjoy Autumn

I had a job about 100 years ago at a vocational school. It was a terrible job, because one of my duties was to collect on unpaid student loans. One of my few good memories of working there was meeting a student named “Autumn Eve”. I didn’t get to know her very well (fraternization was discouraged between students and hired help), but I never forgot her name.

But I digress.

Let’s take a look at some autumn pictures in Three Rivers.

The flowering pear tree outside my studio is The Champion. (Not interested in hearing about native and non-native trees during Autumn, but thank you for your concern.) Chinese Pistache trees are also stunning this time of year. So there.

That was fun. Let’s do this again in a couple of days.

Mineral King in October

I stayed home last weekend. Our cabin is a summer residence in a summer place, and I am very ready to be home for awhile. So, I went through my photo archives, and today’s post will be random October photos of Mineral King from past years.

2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012

That was interesting. Let’s do a few more next week.