Category: Learned List

1. These are dogwood “berries” (don’t know if that’s the real word for this). A friend showed me that her domestic dogwood tree made berries, but this is the first time I’ve seen them in the wild.
2. This same friend introduced me to this: “Cottage gas stations” a style of gas station built in the late 1920s and ’30s. What?! The idea was to have them blend architecturally with residential areas, and some went so far as to have decorative non-functioning chimneys! Many have been remodeled as coffee shops, retail stores, hair salons, markets, offices, and all sorts of businesses, while others have fallen into disrepair. Here are a few links to some of these photogenic structures:  History of Cottage Gas Stations, Historic Filling Stations, Gas cottages Phillips 66
3. The topic of cabins and what makes a cabin is much deeper and more thought-provoking than I ever imagined. A cabin might be simple, but discussing it is not. Who knew??
4. I learned the hard way that buying a template is no guarantee of correctness. Even when you buy a calendar template from a printer and add your own artwork to the template, YOU NEED TO PROOFREAD THEIR TEMPLATE. If you ordered a calendar from me, you will be receiving a replacement one in the mail soon. If you bought it in person, get in touch with me for the replacement. (I don’t know when they will be arriving, but I will replace every one that I am able to find the buyers, all 65 calendars if possible. . .Oy Vey. . .)
5. Each summer I think I will learn the names of trees in Mineral King. Then I get so into the wildflowers that I don’t pay attention to the trees. This fall I learned Western White Pine, AKA Silver Pine. We found one between Crystal Creek and Soda Springs, and then I was able to find it in a simple “Tree Finder” book. I’ve never seen this before, and don’t know if I’d recognize it in another context.

   

   

   

   

6. Did you know that in the publishing world, it gets busy in the fall? Many people want to get their books printed by Christmas. It is slower in January and February. This is helpful information to me as I work on Wildflowers of Mineral King. No one needs this book in December; no one needs this book until May. Hence, I am slowing down the process of completing the book. (This will give me more time to proofread it. . . sigh.) 
7. Magnifying glasses, just like a kid’s magnifying glass, can start fires or melt plastic.

   

It has been over a year that I have posted these monthly lists, and one of the things I’ve learned is that I learn 6-8 notable things every month. (I didn’t add this fact to September’s list because it felt so obvious.)

1. Ladyfinger grapes are a new variety of seedless grape. I don’t know where to buy them, but I sure enjoyed them at a potluck!

   

2. My last name is associated with jaundice in Ukraine; they call it Botkin’s Disease. Jana Jaundice does sort of flow, but I will choose to stick with Botkin.
3. The wildflower Indian pink, which blooms in the foothills in the spring, is red, not pink. This has bothered me for many years (Yes, I know, get a life already). In September, I learned that it is so named because the edge appears as if it was trimmed with pinking shears!
4. Duckduckgo is a search engine that doesn’t save history, chase you around the internet, and clutter your life with ads. I’ve used it most of September; this is how my home page looks now. Back in the last century when I chose the G for my home page, it was because of its clean white simplicity. This will do quite nicely instead. I’m very happy to not have ads chasing me onto every web site.
5. Clean air is essential for people with lung diseases even with oxygen 24/7. My friend who is waiting for lungs is markedly improved in her strength, endurance, and overall health after 6 weeks in a place of clean air.

   

6. The Elfin Forest in Los Osos is a  San Luis Obispo County park. It has pygmie oaks, because of the salt air and poor soil. It all looked like shrubs to me; seeing it satisfied my curiosity about the place.

   

7. Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal is the most instructive book I’ve ever read about aging and terminal illness. If you have people in your life who are aging and are wondering about assisted living options for them, or people who are facing a terminal illness, this book will help you figure things out with your loved one’s best interests in mind. It is outstanding, teaching through stories and the author’s personal experiences. I learned way more than you want to read in a blog list.
8. The plant that I and everyone I know calls “Ice Plant” at the beach is actually called “Sea Fig”. “Sea Fig”? Who makes up these names? I found it in several of the wildflower books that I’m using to gather names for the upcoming Wildflowers of Mineral King: Common Names.

And now, may we PLEASE be finished with summer’s heat??

Fridays are for Mineral King, but today’s post is my end of the month list of things I learned. Here is a Mineral King photo for you as a consolation prize.

1. A friend of mine is always on his phone, always always always. But he only uses it as a telephone. For note-taking, he uses a yellow legal pad, which he refers to as his “y-pad“. I’m stealing this term!
2. In August I learned the real difficulties of lung disease by helping my friend who is waiting for new lungs. Become an organ donor!!
3. A friend is moving to Furnace Creek, the settlement in Death Valley. She learned that in the summer, residents turn off their water heaters and use it for cold water; their cold water taps become their hot water sources.
4. Tulare Co. ranked 150 out of 150 in adults aged 25 and older with a bachelor’s degree or higher, quality of the public system, and racial and gender gaps in local education. The study, by WalletHub, was of major metropolitan areas. Tulare County is hardly a major metropolitan anything, but the study combined Visalia and Porterville, the 2 largest cities in the county. Well, bummer. (We’re fat and poor here too. Oh, we also have really bad air. Sounds inviting, no?)
5. Making Sense of God by Timothy Keller is one of the most helpful books I’ve read in a long time, and I learned more than this post can contain. If you are a skeptic or know one who is seeking solid truths about Christianity, this book is a winner. It requires thought and took me a long time to get through, and now I need to reread it and take notes for more solid remembering.
6. For years I’ve wanted to find something cold to drink that had no sugar, no fake sugar, no caffeine, no alcohol. This was just a vague wish for something more interesting than plain water or herbal tea. At a block party this summer, my good friend said, “Ooh, this is not very good!” so I picked up her can for a taste. Wow! carbonation, no sweetness whatsoever, and a hint of berry flavor. It was LeCroix, nothing but carbonation and a hint of flavor. Eureka!
7. Keeping cats is almost impossible around here. (We’ve lost four in 2018.) Now there are two – Scout and Tucker. Bye-bye, Piper. I didn’t even get to know you.
8. If you need to get rid of an old couch, you have 3 options: dump it on the side of the road, drop it off after hours behind a thrift store that won’t take it when they are open, or take it to the dump. We took the third option, and it hurt my heart. Trail Guy salvaged the good fabric from the backside (the front was wrecked by cats through the years). The couch served us well from 1984 onward, and was reupholstered once. The only thing that helps assuage my guilt is that we saved two antique pieces of furniture from the same fate.

   

   

1. If I don’t keep track of learning new things during the month, I’m hard pressed to think of them at the end of the month.
2. There is a wildflower called “Giant Blazing Star”; it looks like its smaller cousin, “Blazing Star”. Wildflower naming is just confusing and weird to learn, but I persist in my quest, and one day there will be a book called Wildflowers of Mineral King: Common Names.
3. Do great books count? I read an unusual number of books that I rated with 5 stars on Goodreads. We Took To the Woods, Blackbird (and the three other books by Jennifer Lauck), Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine.
4. I didn’t learn an answer to this question but here it is for you:WHY DO WE HAVE SO MANY WILDFIRES IN CALIFORNIA??? It wasn’t this way until about 10 years ago, at least in my memory. WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?? A friend has the theory that it has to do with a change in Park policy about suppression. Many wildfires are not in the national parks, so that doesn’t really cover it. I think the tremendous media attention causes arsonists to crawl out of the woodwork, but that is just a hairbrained theory of my own warped thinking.

   

5. A cat will do what a cat will do. After 2.5 months of trying to befriend Heidi, she ran away. No amount of mentoring by Piper or acceptance by Tucker and Scout could fix whatever was broken inside her little head.
6. I’ve had an ongoing discussion with a friend who calls lodgepole trees “tamaracks”. Turns out that there is a tamarack tree that is not a lodgepole, but a deciduous conifer. Who knew?? I learned of this in a book called “Devotions From the Mountains” by Lisa Ham (published by Thomas Nelson). I’m not sure that was the intended lesson from that day, but it sure was interesting to me.
7. We heard a guy interviewed on the radio who runs an organization in Montana called Provision International. They collect excess food and things, then ship them to needy people in poor countries. Among the things that they provide are used shoes, called “Share A Pair“. Trail Guy and I went through our closets and we filled a large carton with shoes to send to Billings. If you like their philosophy and mission, you might do the same. It seems more helpful than loading up a local thrift shop or just hanging on in case you might wear them again.

1. 1. 1. I could be doing something called “affiliate marketing” on my blog by listing products I use and like and then putting the link on the site so that if you click and buy, I would earn money. It is called “passive income”, but that term fails to take into account all the work of signing up and staying current with the various companies, along with doing all the copy/paste work on a blog post. 
      2. There is a wildflower shrub, native to the west coast, and also the state flower of Idaho, called Mock Orange. It grows along the Mineral King Road, is in the hydrangea family, the genus name is Philadelphus and it is called Mock Orange because it smells good like orange blossoms.

         

      3. If you swish oil around in your mouth every day, it could repair all your damaged teeth and gums. I thought this was an internet hoax, (called “oil pulling”, often done with coconut oil) until I talked to a neighbor who had been doing this and got the best dental check up of his entire life. Weird.
      4. There are insect repellent bracelets! Yeppers, and they look like curly old phone cords. Some company called “Gorgeous Ranch” makes them, says they are all natural (citronella, lemon grass and geraniol) and last up to 300 hours. I wore one and it might have worked! WAIT! I can try that affiliate marketing thing! See if this takes you there and makes me “rich”: They smell good, in case you are wondering. A box of twenty costs $11.99 on Amazon. 

   

   1. Life is funny. At the same time I am paying someone big bucks to rebuild my website (Way Too Difficult for my website building skills), I designed a website for a friend (much simpler than mine). Check this out: www.sequoiavacationrentals.net
   2. I found a new enjoyable podcast by Gimlet Media. “Heavyweight” has a host who tries to resolve old problems or lingering questions. He chases down people, asks questions, and has a very direct but caring conversational style (but why do people cuss so much??) The description is “Jonathan Goldstein goes back to the moment everything changed”. Fun to listen and learn while painting or drawing.
   3. Also on Gimlet is a podcast called “The Recappery” by The History Chicks. They have three 2-hour episodes talking about a PBS version of Little Women. I found it more entertaining than actually reading the book, which I’ve done many times. These two women are so fun to listen to – completely unrehearsed, just talking about a program as we eavesdrop.

1. There is something called “Allergic Pneumonitis” that you can get from breathing the dust of certain tree bark and sawdust. I learned this the hard way.
2. When bad things happen, such as Allergic Pneumonitis, the best question is “What does this make possible?” What it made possible was uninterrupted time for me to work on my new website. Not ready yet, but I sure have been learning how to operate new computery things behind the scenes.
3. Roundworm makes kittens have round bellies. (You are welcome.)
4. Manx cats are an unnatural, human perpetuated “breed” of cat. There are “stumpies” with a stub of a tail, and “rumpies” with no stub whatsoever. Sometimes they happen by accident; sometimes breeders try to create these creatures. The “rumpies” often are undeveloped in many critical body parts. I’ve heard that when cats are born this way without either parent being like this, that it has to do with malnourishment in the womb. Whatever it is, I won’t be making the mistake of choosing such a creature again. Sigh.
5. One of the best memoirs I have read in awhile is Educated by Tara Westover. WOW and WOW. I must have learned something. Mostly I was completely captivated by her courage, toughness, fantastic writing, and brilliant mind.
6. Maeve Binchy has been my favorite novelist for many years (I named a cat after her). In May I discovered Monica McInerney, whose characters are as complete and stories are as engrossing as Maeve’s. (The only drawback is that she treats sex like a spectator sport. With paper books, unlike audio books, one can flip past the parts that don’t enhance the storyline.) Family Baggage might be the best I’ve read of hers so far.
7. Lots of successful people listen to talks over and over by people like Zig Ziglar, Og Mandino, and Brian Tracy, all motivational speakers who help people set and make goals. I learned from one of those guys that “We become what we think about”, and that we have to write down goals and read them every day and think about them. But what I really learned is that I am fairly goalless, just drifting along on auto pilot. This is a topic for further exploration in another blog post down the road.
8. Ever heard of “bullet coffee”? I have no idea why it is called this. People put coconut oil or butter in their coffee, sometimes running it through a blender. I had no idea why they would do this, since I am still stuck with one foot in the land of Fat-Is-Bad. But I learned that the fat slows down the caffeine in one’s system. Hmmm, why isn’t it called “time release coffee”? 

   

   P.S. I forgot my resolution to show my paintings regularly, so I’ll start again now.

1. If you don’t know how to tell a sheep from a goat, remember this: goat tails go up, sheep tails go down. (You are welcome – I’m sure this will be useful information to you at some time in your life.)
2. Glazed ceramics are porous- who knew? We have this pretty bottle for dish soap sitting on the kitchen window sill. Trail Guy kept telling me that the outside of the bottle was slippery with soap, and I just couldn’t understand how that could be. Then one morning I saw what was happening:Soap is seeping through the almost invisible cracks in the glaze. Weird.
3. Flying in a helicopter is magical. I always thought it was fun (except for that med-evac off Sawtooth when I was 16), but now I am convinced it is magical, EVEN WITH THE DOORS OFF! MAGICAL!

   

4. If you make yogurt from scratch and use store-bought vanilla yogurt for the starter instead of leftover yogurt from your previous batch, it is REALLY good. (Yeah, I know, who makes their own yogurt?*)
5. The place where the Dodgers play is called Chavez Ravine. No reason I should know this because this is a house of Giants fans (well, really only one, since I’m fairly indifferent to sports). Never heard of this until April when I drove past it and my sister, wife of a Dodgers fan, asked me to photograph it as we were passing AND a friend of mine was the recipient of the Dodgers make-a-wish type deal and mentioned Chavez Ravine. (No one in my life who loves the Dodgers reads my blog, so I could take this opportunity to really jab at them. But, as I mentioned, I am fairly indifferent to sports, so I’ll let the moment pass.)
6. I’ve been doing Roman numerals wrong. I thought you could put smaller numbers to the left to subtract, but that only is acceptable on the number 9. So, 9 is IX, but 14 is XIIII. I think IXV is more efficient, but someone else made the rules. (I am taking the word of someone smarter and more educated than I am, but I haven’t consulted The Google yet.)
7. UPDATE ON ROMAN NUMERALS: Only 4 and 9 use the “subtractive notation”. 4 is IV; 9 is IX. This means that 14 is XIV, not XIIII. So, I was right about smaller symbols on the left, but I did it the wrong way. I wonder how many of my painting series are numbered incorrectly?

*Me, that’s who. I make my own bread too. No, I don’t drive a Prius. . . they don’t come in stick. Besides, how smart is it to pay $30,000 for a car just to save some gas money? And what happens to the old battery when it is time to buy a new one? And doesn’t the making of the electricity to charge the battery have a more negative effect on the environment than burning gasoline?

This month’s items don’t have anything to do with art or my art business, but they are all interesting to me and I hope they will be to you too.

1. The 5 Second Rule by Mel Robbins says we have to parent ourselves because we will NEVER feel like doing the difficult or unpleasant things. Our brains only have two speeds – auto-pilot and emergency brake. We want to do what is comfortable, and the minute we begin something not auto-pilotish, our brains pull the E-brake. Self-parenting is when we tell ourselves to do it anyway, to think about the long-term results. That’s what I do to make myself paint when I’d rather be drawing. Do you parent yourself?
2. Crocs are coming back in style. What? They were out of style? I’ve only had mine for about 3 years, and apparently I was 7 years behind when I discovered them to be the perfect shoe for my weird little cube-like feet. Do you wear Crocs?
3. Amy Dickinson wrote one of the best memoirs I have ever read, Strangers Tend to Tell Me Things. I rank it with my two other favorite memoirs: Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen and The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. Do you have any favorite memoirs?
4. “The Road Back To You” is the podcast (and book) from which I learned about the Enneagram. Now Ian Cron has another podcast called “Typology”, which is more about the Enneagram. Fascinating topic, and also the most relevant personality typing information I’ve encountered. Have you learned about the Enneagram yet?
5. Nobody want a Nordic Track ski machine. A friend listed mine on the local Facebook Trading Post at $50/ OBO and we’ve had NO responses. Are you interested in this exercise machine? I will ALWAYS choose taking a walk over doing something repetitious inside.
6. A friend told me this: all of the music we call Negro Spirituals can be played on only the black keys of the piano. (Say what? How did people without pianos know which notes were the black ones??) The slaver John Newton picked up the melody of “Amazing Grace” from the Africans in the hold of his ship, and after he repented, he put words to it. When I learned this, I went to the piano to try this theory and sure enough, if you start on D-flat, you can play the entire song on only black keys. But, The Google said the song’s lyrics were put to the music of a song called “New Britain”, so I’m not entirely sure about the origin of the melody. Still, it makes me want to find songs in this category and test the theory. Have you ever heard of this??
7. “Dx” is the abbreviation for “diagnosis”. Does this enhance or simplify your life? (It makes me feel a teensy bit smarter about medical terms).
8. Dreamland by Sam Quinones taught me about black tar heroin and Oxycontin. If you are interested in learning about the opioid epidemic, this book is very easy to understand, full of stories that explain the rise in popularity of both of these truly terrible drugs. The only good part is that Quinones is an excellent writer, so I might see what else he has written and learn more.

What did you learn in March?

I began writing this post on February 5, and was quite happily surprised that I learned the first 3 things on this list so soon in the month. I think we all learn things constantly; writing them down helps us realize it is happening.

1. Young Miner’s Lettuce tastes good. I’d heard this most of my life, but didn’t get the “young” part, and would pick it when it was in flower. Then, it tastes bitter. “Young” means newly sprouted, pre-flower stage.
2. There is a new podcast on the World Wide Web called Women’s Work. Tsh (yeah, I know. . . it is pronounced “Tish”. . . whatsamatter with her parents?) Oxenreider interviews women who work in interesting businesses. I discovered the vowelless Tsh when she was interviewed on What Should I Read Next, and I liked her book choices. 
3. Did you know there is an International Correspondence Writing Month? Yeppers. It is February, and in the spirit of creative, cute and trendy, it is called “InCoWriMo”; I learned of this from Pencils.com. They, the pencil people, said to write them a letter and they would send something in return. (Prolly just a coupon for a slight discount on a product if you spend an enormous amount first. . . yep, I am cynical.) InCWriMo actually has a website, and it is simple and beautiful, the way I hope my own will become.
4. There is a thingamajig that goes on the end of a special camera lens that allows one to insert a slide and then photograph it to convert it to a digital file. In the olden days, art was photographed onto slide film, and it was tricky business to get the light right and the image square. Now, when we want to see pictures of our old work, we hold up a little slide to the light and squint, unless we have a friend with a thingamajig on her camera. But, this teaches us that our slide photography was dismal and horrible and didn’t show off our work. Is this why we didn’t get our work accepted into juried shows? (Notice I am hiding behind the royal “we”?)
5. For some reason, Guatemala keeps appearing in my life. A few months ago, I proofread a book called Rooftop Reflections for a friend about his home-building trips in Guatemala; a few weeks ago, 2 friends went to Guatemala on a mission trip; recently, my niece announced her engagement to a fine man from Guatemala. Yesterday I met a man who is married to a woman from Guatemala.What does all this mean? (This one is more of an observation; learning will come later, if at all.)
6. The word “anthropogenic”: it means environmentally despoiled by humans. Can’t say that I’ll use it much in conversation, but it is always good to increase one’s vocabulary.
7. Cows rarely have twins. Did you know that? I didn’t. Ewes are more likely to have twins.
8. Ever seen the classic portrait oil painting called Pinkie (painted in 1793 by Thomas Lawrence, hanging in  the Huntington Museum)? Did you know Pinkie had TB and died a year later at age 12? New info to me.

Happy Birthday, Robin!!

Some of these things are new, and some got relearned. 

1. If you have an indoor/outdoor cat, don’t get too attached. Nature is just out your door, and it is brutal and wild. Bye-bye, Samson, the bitey Bengal boy. Still, we think it is better to let a cat be a cat instead of trapping it inside.
2. If you don’t have a cell phone, it is harder to order from Amazon. They want you to sign in, receive a call and then sign in a second time with a code that comes through the phone. This doesn’t work when you are at your mom’s house, wanting to order something for her. Still, I think it is better to not have a cell phone.
3. The Blackwing Colors colored pencil set of 12 can be used to obtain almost as many colors (via layering) as either Polychromos or Prismacolor sets of 120 colors. Score another point for simplicity!
4. There is a very fine upholstery and wood-working shop in downtown Visalia called Quality Upholstering. I’d heard of them because they have been there 40 years!! They do great work with quick turnaround, and are a pleasure to deal with. 
5. Lifesource Water Systems is The Answer To Bad Water from your household tap. Why did we wait so long to deal with the excessive chlorine?? Don and Shelley Lovelace have the franchise in Fresno and they are a pleasure and a delight to work with.
6. I am more vain than I thought. A stranger referred to me as a “blonde”. My hair is brown, but the gray in it was deceptive to the stranger. I thought this would never enter my mind, but I have been considering hiding the gray.
7. The History Chicks is an excellent way to learn some history. This is a podcast with 2 women telling the stories of various women, just talking as women do. Eavesdrop and learn (and they DON’T CUSS!)
8. I learned how to make a secret book safe – it was harder than I expected. You can see the instructions here: Little Vintage Cottage. 
9. As a bonus to #8, I learned how to make ModPodge. What is this? It is 1 cup white glue with 1/3 cup water, sold as a specialty craft product, but not at the local hardware store. (We used it in the 1970s to decoupage cut up posters onto grape trays; this was an important decorating skill.)
10. There is a little battery pack charger thing. . . a friend jump-started my car from this little dealie, which put the stereo in a coma and temporarily disabled the automatic locking system (or maybe that was the dead battery). But, it was so compact and handy! (My amazing mechanic, since 1983, Mark at Foreign Auto Works in Visalia got everything repaired and I got a new battery.)
11. The definition of middle-aged is 45-65, according to The Google. Who cares? A friend my age (58) and I had quite a discussion about it. She insisted we were old, and I was certain we are still middle-aged. Again, who cares? It was an interesting discussion, and caused me to think about the differences in our lives that give us differing views. She is a grandmother, has no living parents, lives in a college town in a wealthy area, to name a few; I am not a parent nor a grandparent, have a mom who is doing quite well (thank you for your concern), and live in the 3rd poorest and 13th least educated county in the state. Those things all influence one’s perspective.