Category: Learned List

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.

   

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. 

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.

*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.

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.)

    

1. It is possible to teach drawing or at least help established drawing students via email.

   

2. Paul Buxman is an artist from Dinuba here in Tulare County. He is also a farmer, and the subjects he chooses really appeal to me, although his style does not. He is a very accomplished painter, and speaks with humble authority about living and painting this area. We have never met, although I have read and heard about him for years. There is a great interview with him on the Arts Visalia page here.
3. Blog reader and virtual friend Marjie sent me a recipe for persimmon bars when she learned that I don’t like persimmon cookies. I cut the sugar in half, and they were excellent! Who knew? I usually reduce the sugar when I bake by 1/4 or 1/3. I wonder if I can slash it even further, but this will have to wait until next persimmon season.
4. Vinyl Composition Tile (VCT) used to be cheap flooring; now it is expensive, and there are very few solid colors to choose from. Several, nay, many cracked tiles in my navy and white checkered kitchen floor need replacing, but navy is discontinued. I suggested to the flooring expert that I just use red and let it be a random pattern. He said, “We call that a ‘scatter pattern'”; I said, “WAIT! It can’t have a name, because I just invented it!”
5. More flooring news: if you have a cement slab foundation, it might make alkali pebbles beneath your linoleum or VCT. These pebbles will grow like stalagmites, lifting, cracking, and making holes in your flooring material. You cannot prevent this. Twenty-two years is considered a good long run. There will be no scatter pattern in my kitchen; there will need to be an entirely new floor, and it will not be VCT this time.
6. I found a gardening blog by Anne Wareham who wrote a book called “The Bad Tempered Gardener”. She lives in Wales and keeps a garden that people pay to visit, along with writing for gardening magazines. I wonder if anything I read by her will translate to the Central Valley of California. . . prolly not. Too bad her book isn’t in our county library. Her subtle humor in her blog posts and photo captions feel very comfortable to me. An added bonus: she used to be a knitter – how does one stop being a knitter??
7. Most of the murals in Exeter have hidden items. One of the earlier ones was painted by a friend of mine from high school, and he hid a Monopoly shoe. A few years ago, I could not find it so I emailed him for help. He couldn’t remember where it was either, and the brochures from the Exeter Chamber of Commerce didn’t even mention it. When my cousins visited a couple of weeks ago, together we walked the murals, looking for hidden items. Suddenly, I saw it! It is quite faded, but it is still vaguely visible in the Waterman mural.
8. It is possible to paint on concrete stepping stones. I used some leftover exterior white paint for 2 primer coats, and then 2 coats of exterior latex for the brighter colors. It was easier than doing tile mosaics, easier than pouring wet cement into molds and tapping in some tchotchkes, and will be easier to maintain.

1. My friends don’t think of me first as an artist; this means I am not very self-promotional, which can be both a good thing and a not-so-good thing.
2. Quesadilla Gorilla is not just in Visalia and Three Rivers; it is also in Fresno and Hanford and is raising money to expand by selling bonds. How in the world do people learn how to do this high finance stuff?? 
3. Sharpshin hawks are creepy cannibals; one keeps getting other birds right in front of our kitchen window.
4. Nosocomial means “in hospital”; sometimes illness is spread nosocomial. I hope none of my blog readers ever needs to know this word.
5. Tucker, my black cat, is a digger. I was burying kitchen waste in the herb garden, so I dug a hole, dumped the stuff in, turned away to rinse out the container, and then when I turned back, Tucker was covering the pile up for me. I actually filmed him doing this, but don’t think it will work on the blog. Besides, there are plenty of cat videos out there on the World Wide Web. (Maybe not one covering up garbage.)
6. I went 30 days without sugar or sweets. The results: both a sense of accomplishment and one of deprivation. 
7. Horse bangs are called a “forelock”. I wonder why people forelocks are called “bangs” instead of a “forelock”. (A person could bang her head on the wall trying to figure this one out.) In Britain, bangs are called a “fringe”; I learned this back in the days of Princess Diana.
8. When you have tech troubles, it is helpful to engage in activities that cannot be accomplished with a computer. I had a bad couple of tech trouble days, and was helped immensely by Apple, but still took great comfort in knitting, baking bread, and yardening. Try those things on a computer, you Virtual Digital Techie Robots.
9. Bears might be able to wear a size 4 in Crocs.

Happy 2021!

Yeah, yeah, I know about 2020. No complaining here, and no unprecedented overusage of the word “unprecedented”. Just keeping on keeping on. Steady, sort of predictable, finding the good things in life about being a full time artist in Central California, AKA “flyover country” in the Golden State. (We feed the world, and don’t let anyone forget it.) 

1. Have you heard of a “Covid fee”?? I ordered some photographic prints from Shutterfly and there was a “covid fee” added to my order. What in the world for??
2. Drying persimmons the hoshigaki method is so bizarre but the best dried fruit I’ve ever eaten in my life. A friend is trying this method and sent me this photo. She also sent a photo of some finished ones, but they look rather alarming. I want to try this next year!
   
3. Rosemary and Thyme is a lovely thriving gift/clothing/home goods store in downtown Exeter where my studio was for 4 exciting years. The owner is one of the most creative, original and innovative people I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing, and her store is now becoming an online shop. If you like cool stuff, beautiful stuff, good stuff, for yourself or for others, this is the local place to support.
4. Maeve Binchy really is my favorite novelist. I’ve loved her writing since the 1980s, and with the current difficulties of getting library books, I started rereading her books. She is the only author whose books I automatically bought and kept. (I used to buy Sue Grafton’s books but decided I wasn’t going to reread them so sent them on to unknown bookshelves; also used to buy Barbara Kingsolver’s books but hit a few I didn’t like so that was the end of that.)
5. There is so much confusion and conflict in trying to discern truth these days. I heard from several sources that there are 21 cases of The Wuhan in our little town and one person has died of it. The truth is that there have been 21 known cases since the thing started and the person who died (a friend and former drawing student), died from heart failure after a surgery that didn’t turn out well for her.
6. Using “www” before your web address is so last year.
7. People aspire to riches in order to avoid ugliness.
8. Ring picking is something I never have heard of. It is a method of picking citrus to a particular size, using a metal ring to measure each piece as you pick. How could I never have heard of this before??
9. This isn’t anything I’ve learned but maybe something for you to learn about me. I enjoy doing yardwork and occasionally assist a friend with some of her vacation rentals. Sometimes I just can’t resist using the prunings to make a wreath.
   
10. This isn’t new information either, but Pippin is just too cute to not keep taking pictures of him.

11. And final piece of irrelevant jibber-jabber: Persimmons are so beautiful. They taste good when dried the traditional way. (No thanks, I don’t like persimmon cookies.)

Remember, I make art that you can understand of places and things you love at prices that won’t scare you.

Oops. I think I let Pippin into the house.

1. I found a new blog with a superb writer, Marianne Wilburn, called Small Town Gardener.
2. She also has a great book about gardening, written in her conversational style – Big Dreams, Small Garden.  It is one of the more realistic approaches to gardening I’ve read.

   

3. Through Marianne’s writing, I found a fascinating YouTube channel (?) or is it a person to follow; her name is Liziqi, and it is about a young, strong, beautiful Chinese woman who lives with her grandmother and gardens and cooks. What?? Yeppers. Fascinating to watch. (I’ve seen it before but can’t remember when or why.)
4. I learned in November how much shopping does not appeal to me. Or maybe it is stuff that does not appeal. I’ve never liked shopping, but this really drove home the point. A friend told me about Jane.com, an online shopping mall. I looked, and all the stuff almost made me twitch.  (No, I am not a Communist – thank you for your concern.)

   

5. When customers are in a hurry and my schedule is full, I learned to tell them that there is a rush charge. This is the first time I’ve done this, and I had three opportunities in November. This takes the sting out of having to work on Saturdays and Sundays to meet their deadlines. Two of three customers agreed to pay the charge.  The third customer made an adjustment in his hurried plans and said he could wait the normal 2 weeks that we discussed last summer; even two weeks feels like a squeeze right now, but I got the job finished.
6. There is something new, an alternative to FaceBook, called Parler. I wonder. . . but, no. I have enough to do.
7. There is something else new, an alternative to YouTube, called Rumble. 
8. A friend told me 2 really dumb jokes that he was surprised I hadn’t heard before: A. Why does a cowboy want to die with his boots on? So it won’t hurt when he kicks the bucket. B. Why does a man want to be buried in his truck? Because it hasn’t ever failed to get him out of a hole.
9. I ran across the term “EDM” in a couple of different places and got curious. It is Electronic Digital Music, and in my opinion, it qualifies as an audio assault rather than music. (In an elderly voice coming from inside my head: “My goodness, these young folks today!”)
10. In-N-Out has good hamburgers. This is a weird admission from someone who didn’t eat red meat for 17 years, and still feels a bit squeamish about burger. My conclusion is that it is the sauce that makes it so good. Wait – didn’t Micky-Ds used to advertise “special sauce”? This was so out of my realm of normal that I felt compelled to share the information. (Thank you for lunch, Jon!)

And here are a few more photos from November that didn’t fit into the list. (Nope, not going to photograph my food – this is NOT Facebook and no one who reads my blog comes here to see my lunch, thank goodness.)

P.S. Can you spot Pippin?

For a couple of years I have been posting lists of things I learn at the end of each month. This year it feels particularly important to encourage you, Blog Readers, that 2020 isn’t entirely filled with difficulties and mayhem. 

1. Kayaking! It was so fun, and easier than stand-up paddle boarding (well, duh).
2. White pelicans are huge and don’t dive like brown pelicans do.
3. Harbor seals and elephant seals are different. Did you know that? Elephant seals are playful and curious, sometimes trying to climb onto kayaks. Harbor seals are much more shy.
4. A friend sent a Youtube link to a song called Rayburn Crane by someone named Tom Russell – it is about a guy in Mineral King!
5. “8 million people have left California” – I heard this on a podcast, but the speaker didn’t say in what time frame. I think he must have been speaking of the past 10 years (since the last census). I looked it up, and the main states attracting California refugees are Texas, Arizona and Washington. I know people who have moved to Arizona, Idaho, Wyoming, and Colorado.
6. A little mosquito has been a real nuisance this summer (I didn’t save the newspaper article with the name of the bug.) The mosquito is smaller, it is out in the daytime, you can’t feel it bite, and it itches and sometimes swells up way more than regular mosquitoes. To add insult to injury, it carries West Nile virus. Good grief, what next??
7. Retail therapy late at night can be expensive. I ordered some clothes from a site, knowing it was probably a mistake. The sizing was wonky, the fabric was cheap, the clothing differed from the photos. In order to return things, the customer has to email and get an authorization code. The company didn’t reply in a timely manner, the 15 day return window started narrowing, and finally the company said they would offer a 15% refund so “you can buy cloth to repair clothing”. Or, if you prefer, they will give you the address in China where the order can be returned. WHAT?? Our local thrift shop just scored some brand new items. Sigh.
8. Vanilla water – I invented this because my giant bottle of vanilla extract ran out but had some residue in the bottom that I didn’t want to waste. I filled it with water, put it in the fridge, and it was SO GOOD!
9. Rock stacking – There are cairns or “ducks” along routes where trails aren’t visible, and this differs from rock stacking or balancing. This article goes into depth on the topic. Like almost everything, a little is interesting, copycats turn it into a problem, and then finger-waggers come along and turn it all sour.
10. This isn’t new, but it has been several years since I showed you – this is the link to the website of an artist whose work amazes me in its brilliance, precision and subtle humor. Her name is Sandra Busby.
11. This is new information to my blog readers: one of my drawing students had a Cooks Illustrated magazine with beautiful art on the cover. We looked up the artist, Robert Papp, and just swooned over his fruits and vegetables. Later that day, I reached for my favorite stamps to put one on an envelope, and was gobsmacked to see that they were Robert Papp’s work!
12. I can draw from my computer screen instead of ordering prints. This is a new experience for me. Using both print and on-screen provides the best information, but sometimes there isn’t enough time to wait for professionally made prints; my tired Epson printer is a poor option because it uses too much ink, has incorrect colors, and prints with stripes in the photos.

The summary lists continue as I keep working on some private commissions, a fancy Art Speak word for custom artwork.

Personally, not professionally, this happened in the last weird year:

• Tried and thoroughly enjoyed kayaking
• Tried and thoroughly enjoyed stand-up paddle boarding (even thought it made my feet hurt – a weird result)
• Missed church on Easter Sunday for the first time in my life
• Realized that I like not having social obligations
• The lock-down reinforced how much I like being at home.
• We managed to keep 3 cats alive by locking them inside the garage each night (although sometimes they still go rogue)
• Learned what possessions matter when facing evacuation from both our main home and our cabin
• Realized how much I depend on the library
• Learned how thin the veneer of civilization is in our country and how easily people are controlled by fear
• Learned how people share food with one another as a gesture of love especially in hard times – we got more food brought to us and shared more food with friends than I ever remember in the past.

What’s on your list? (Does anyone besides me do this sort of evaluating and list making?)