Maintaining

Workwise, I have a whole lotta nothin’ to share. Any day now, I could get a green light to begin on some murals (when it is too hot to paint, thanks, all you decision makers). So, I am enjoying the free time to continue yardening, meet with an old friend, help out on a church project, and unfortunately, deal with an insurance claim.

 

These iris love wet feet. They are not natives but are domestic flowers that have escaped someone’s yard and established themselves in this seasonal drainage on one of my walking routes.

Yes, we love red, white, and blue around here.

Only one of my favorite dutch iris bloomed here.

But then look what showed up by the studio!

The lavender is abundant, luxurious, extravagant, and if I had my thesaurus handy, I’d keep going.

Remember when I showed you some pistachio trees mostly submerged along the highway? (Scroll to the bottom of that linked post to see the picture). Part of the grove got planted in a seasonal lake, which filled up this spring and the pump couldn’t keep up. Those submerged trees drowned.

Morning sun is so beautiful on our surrounding hills.

While sitting at The Fourway (that’s what we call a main intersection, because it used to be the only stoplight between our rural areas and the county seat; now there is one more, but we call it “Spruce” because that is its name) WHERE WAS I? At the Fourway, waiting for the light, amused by the message on the back of the pickup ahead.

 

On my way home, I stopped for gas at a super busy little place along Highway 198. Been there before, no problem. This time, a problem. Sigh. Poor Fernando.  The guy in the huge pickup who backed into me was watching out the other side. It rocked the car as I was waiting to pull out onto the busy frontage road. I was afraid to get out and look, but he signaled to me that it was small damage. He was a gentleman, instructed me to take photos of things, including his insurance coverage and registration. Then when I got home, I learned that he had already called the insurance company (we have the same one, which helps.) 

With 247,000 miles, should I get this repaired? Should I start looking for another car? (Not because of a little bumper divot, but because of the high number of miles, and the catalytic converter on the edge) How does one find a manual transmission? How does one find a simple car with a manual transmission? (Only Honda or Toyota need apply, because of Mark and Foreign Auto in Visalia.)

Life is a series of decisions and choices. (My very wise dad used to say that, causing me to roll my eyes, and now I fully agree.) Life is also about maintenance. 

I will try to maintain here.

Thoughts About Life in Three Rivers

Thoughts About Life in Three Rivers was my first thought for a title. Perhaps a more accurate title would be “Thoughts About Life in Rural California.” Or simply “Life in California”. Or even “Life in These United States”.

Last week at 12:30 AM the power went out. Trail Guy made coffee that morning using our campstove, a logical and competent move.

After a few hours, we decided it would be prudent to hook the refrigerator and freezer to the generator, since these unexplained power outages can go on for hours. This is a little Honda generator, very efficient, lightweight, easy to start; we bought it last summer just for circumstances such as this. 

The new generator wouldn’t start.

(That’s a topic for another conversation.)

Around 9 AM the power came back on, but the situation brought home the uncomfortable truth that we rely heavily on electricity, which is becoming less reliable.

  • Our landline phones used to work without electricity until they became fancy cordless phones; now they are being replaced by cellphones which often rely on wifi due to spotty cell coverage, and the wifi relies on electricity.
  • Same situation for texting, which relies on cellphones, which rely on electricity to recharge
  • We communicate via email, which relies on computers, which need electricity to charge. And those computers rely on wifi which needs electricity.
  • The state badmouths normal cars, telling us to get electric vehicles. Then they tell us to not charge the vehicles.
  • Homes aren’t supposed to be built with natural gas anymore, and some states are outlawing gas stoves, pushing electric stoves.
  • Gas-powered chainsaws, leaf blowers, lawnmowers and other tools are being replaced by electric tools; the batteries to run those tools need electricity to be recharged.

We are told to switch to electric everything at the same time less electricity is being generated.

The three power plants in Three Rivers aren’t generating very often (one is kaput); water is now considered a “non-renewable resource” for generating electricity.

A year ago, a big freeze in Texas proved that those windmills and solar are not reliable.

Solar panels don’t get enough sunshine when we have overcast days or wildfires.

The more “gentle” the generation of power, the more resources those items require to be built and to run.

Windmills kill enormous numbers of birds; the ones in the Atlantic ocean are killing whales. Solar panels and batteries use precious minerals, mined in terrible conditions by horribly abused people. Disposing of those batteries puts toxic stuff in the landfills. 

All this is supposed to be “saving the planet”? Do these people not understand how electricity is generated or what the downside to all the alternatives are? 

Where is the logic in this push to use electricity, while at the same time we are generating less?

Something is happening to common sense, and it is not an improvement.

Cowboy logic is endangered.

P.S. My opinion is not about politics: it is based on logic and reality. The poor decisions of the lawmakers are not based on logic and reality but based on what benefits the lawmakers, what looks or sounds good to the lobbyists, the media, and giant blocks of low-information voters.

Happy Birthday, Ann! (stay in Florida)

More Animal Encounters

If you would like to see the pictures, go to jana botkin dot net (written this way instead of being a link you can tap to confound the evil robots who are messing things up.)

My neighbor adopted 4 kittens, then gave one to her coworker. Now she has 3 black kittens, and we don’t know how we will be able to tell them apart, other than one has a permanently crooked tail

It is baby turkey season.

The deer are back, but so far are hanging out across the street from the kitten house, not yet in my yard (which is why there are a few geraniums in bloom in pots, not yet eaten).

We are seeing bear activity in the neighborhood ALREADY, because the bad bears didn’t get moved, retrained, or dispatched. They may have slept a bit (do foothill bears hibernate??) but now are back to their habits of dumping over trash cans. No photos. You’re welcome. We try to keep things pleasant here. (The royal we, because we have no staff here.)

In Three Rivers, we may not be able to control the critter-caused troubles, but at least we can make our own signs about how to drive and what to expect in our neighborhoods without someone calling a bureaucrat to tattle.

Animal Encounters

If you would like to see the pictures, go to jana botkin dot net (written this way instead of being a link you can tap to confound the evil robots who are messing things up.)

Why is there a cat in my living room? Hello Pippin, AKA Orange Bob Square Pants!

While weeding, I saw this stripey slithery creature. 

“HEY MICHAEL WILL YOU COME LOOK AT THIS SNAKE FOR ME??”

“It’s not a snake, it is a lizard.”

“Oh. It is a very long lizard. Thanks.”

“I thought you would have been able to recognize that.”

“Nope. Thought it was a weird snake.”

(I didn’t notice the little feet until I looked at this photograph.)


While lollygagging in the house on a Sunday afternoon, this critter was lollygagging outside my window.

No deer photos. They are busy elsewhere right now. That is just fine with me. MY YARD IS NOT YOUR CAFETERIA!!

Finally, I recently read a fascinating novel, based on a historical incident, titled West With Giraffes, by Lynda Rutledge. Excellent story!

Painting, Wandering, Waiting, and Wondering

My blog seems to be back to normal, so if you are receiving my posts via email and can’t see the photographs, tap here to go to the blog on the internet.

I am slowly working on the commissioned oil painting, and wandering around the yard while waiting to hear about two mural projects (each with two murals) and wondering about several subjects.

Oil Painting Commission

Wandering

Sometimes while thinking about the painting, I amble around the yard.

 

Wondering

I am wondering if the host of my website will sort out the evil robot situation, if I will be able to make the oil commission match Mr. Customer’s vision, when I will hear about those upcoming murals, when I might be able to start, and why the deer haven’t eaten all these irises and roses.

 

 

Paint, Yarden, and Paint More

For awhile I had a link in these emails of my daily blog post to take you to the site on the internet so you could see the photos. Now there is some tomfoolery happening with my blog, so I am not putting the link in until it gets sorted out. If you would like to see the pictures, go to jana botkin dot net (written this way to confound the evil robots who are messing things up.)

The commissioned oil painting of mountains is challenging. I paint a little, get stuck, try to figure out which photo is my guide for whatever section I am working on, paint a little more, and then take a break. Here’s how that looked a week or so ago.

Yeah, no problem, I got this figured out.


Wait, where am I? These rocks aren’t lining up with the right peaks. Where’s a pencil??

Yeah, I got this figured out.

Hunh? Time for a break. I’ll just survey things in the yard, pull a few weeds, decide the next priorities.

Does that mean yard priorities or does it mean oil painting priorities?

These weeds are sure pretty. But remember, one year’s weeds equals seven years seeds. . .

(Oh yeah? Then why do I have prolific weeds in the areas that I have been weeding for 24 years?)

The iris around the pillars are supposed to be prettier than the weeds, but they haven’t bloomed yet.

STOP IT! YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE PAINTING.

I walked back to the painting workshop but kept seeing beautiful things and weeds on the way.

Finally got back to work. 

Oh no. Now I have to figure out the foothills, again working from forty-eleven photos.

In case you were wondering, I LOVE to work at home, both in the yard and in the painting workshop. 

More Questions, and a Few Answers

For awhile I had a link in these emails of my daily blog post to take you to the site on the internet so you could see the photos. Now there is some tomfoolery happening with my blog, so I am not putting the link in until it gets sorted out. If you would like to see the pictures, go to jana botkin dot net (written this way to confound the evil robots who are messing things up.)

Yesterday I asked fifteen questions. Today I am answering a few questions that I didn’t even ask yesterday, along with a few answers to yesterday’s questions.

  1. When will the Mineral King Road be opened? After the County repairs its section (they chose a contractor who might begin soon), after the Park surveys its section, after Trail Guy and The (former) Supervisor do some work, after the Park grants permission to enter. 
  2. When will I begin the murals at St. Charles of Borromeo, the largest Catholic church in all of North America? No one knows. Yet.
  3. Will I get to paint two murals on a county library? No one knows. Yet.
  4. Why did my mechanic tell me not to drive Fernando to Oregon? Mark the Magnificent Mechanic said that 247,000 miles means anything could quit at any time.
  5. What did I do about the Microsoft Word problem? I learned it is incompatible with Mac, so the controls I was looking for never appeared. The man I am working with on a project lent me his HP, a clumsy machine that WORKED with Word.
  6. Why do companies discontinue products? Follow the money; maybe they are afraid of getting sued, maybe they can’t find the ingredients, but most likely the product isn’t delivering enough profit.
  7. What will my neighbor name her three black kittens? I vote for Jack, Mac, and Zach Black.
  8. Why am I not doing the Redbud Festival* this year? I have too many other responsibilities on Sundays, festivals make me tired, I haven’t prepared anything to sell outside of a few new cards, and I’d rather be home.
  9. Why do I have to restart my computer for AirDrop to work? It didn’t require this a few days ago; the people and robots and companies controlling our machines seem to delight in confounding us with their perpetual “updating” (which means meddling and complicating, so there).
  10. Why is the food truck for Quesedilla Gorilla in Three Rivers gone? Because they will be building a new non-mobile restaurant.

* Saturday and Sunday of Mother’s Day weekend, 10-4-ish, Three Rivers Memorial Building

Fifteen “Why” Questions

For awhile I had a link in these emails of my daily blog post to take you to the site on the internet so you could see the photos. Now there is some tomfoolery happening with my blog, so I am not putting the link in until it gets sorted out. If you would like to see the pictures, go to jana botkin dot net (written this way to confound the evil robots who are messing things up.)

Today’s post is question after question, interspersed with photos of flowers to take the edge off of all the unsolved mysteries of life.


  1. Why do website hackers use evil robots to mess with my little bitty nothing-burger site??
  2. Why do young people drive fast when (in theory) they have lots of time left?
  3. Why do old people drive slow, when for them the clock is running down quickly?
  4. Why is Microsoft Word so hard to use, with very unhelpful “help”, and the people in the forums to help don’t read the questions but just slam out a non-answer?
  5. Maybe the real question is this: why is Microsoft Word so popular when it is so difficult*?
  6. Why is the food truck for Quesedilla Gorilla in Three Rivers gone?
  7. Why is “gorilla” such a popular word in marketing: Quesedilla Gorilla, gorilla tape, gorilla glue…?
  8. Why is it that the more ways there are to communicate, the harder it is to get answers to questions?
  9. Why do charities waste so much money on printing and mailing solicitations for money to the people who already support them?
  10. Why do people spend so much money on bottled water when we have the cleanest tap water in the world?
  11. Why were we pushed to use plastic bags in grocery stores when paper comes from a renewable resource?
  12. Why do companies discontinue products without having a replacement ready to go or to recommend?
  13. Why am I not doing the Redbud Festival this year?
  14. Why didn’t CACHE get the grant?? No one could possibly have worked harder, done more research, been more careful about how it was worded than our most excellent board president.
  15. Why do I have to restart my computer in order for Airdrop to work? Every day, day after day, restart, restart, restart.

Today I have questions. Tomorrow, I hope to have a few answers, but most likely not for any of these questions.

*I want endnotes to start renumbering with each chapter, not run consecutively throughout the entire book I am working on. . . some Know-it-all on the Microsoft Forum answered my query with this: “The thing is that for many people Roman numerals become a challenge once they get above iii. This does include highly-educated academics.” Excuse me?? 

Eight Non-Art Things Learned in April (plus one art-ish item)

If you receive these posts in email and the pictures in the post don’t show for you, tap here janabotkin.net. It will take you to the blog on the internet.

  1. Dragon Arum is the name of a beautiful black and maroon calla lily in my yard.
  2. I asked my trusty mechanic if he would allow his wife to drive my car to Oregon and back (I wasn’t offering my car; I was looking for advice). The answer was immediate: NO WAY. Phooey. 
  3. Rocky Hill is 5 miles in circumference; the seeds of wild cucumber make a good binder if you plan to mix it with pigment to paint on rocks (but don’t do this on public property, okay?)
  4. Grant applications are crazy hard, and don’t appeal to straight talking commonsense folks like me. However, I had the privilege of helping CACHE do an application, and learned several things, the main one being not wanting to ever apply for a grant on my own. Or possibly at all.*
  5. A friend taught me how to grow sweet potatoes, something I’ve been wanting to learn for awhile. She starts them using a potato from the grocery store, similar to growing an avocado from a seed, EXCEPT you don’t plant the potato—you root the individual shoots, and then plant those. She hasn’t had any great crops, but like me, she never gives up trying to be successful at gardening.(Bonus: the leaves are edible, good added raw to salads and taste like spinach, according to my friend.)
  6. Barbara Kingsolver’s latest book, Demon Copperhead, might be the best one yet. I found her in the 1980s with The Bean Trees, and her work just gets better and better. The story was hard hard hard, the main character fabulous, too much cussing, tons of sad difficult things, but a decent ending. It is patterned after David Copperfield, something I haven’t read and don’t want to.
  7. The one art-related item: There is a new style of drawing, called Zentangle. (The one a friend showed me reminded me of Spirograph designs.) Look it up—very interesting, very different from my style.
  8. I learned how to make a QR code; just put it into the search bar and you will find methods. It was shockingly easy.
  9. There is a new type of laundry detergent; it comes in thin squares in a small box. There are several brands, mostly called “earth something-or-other”; I bought a brand called Ecos. Instead of a giant heavy box of powder or a giant heavy jug of liquid (prolly mostly water), it weighs nothing. You can get it without scent, and it seems to work just fine. I think it is brilliant: lightweight, small, uses few materials, utter simplicity.

Good grief! I thought I was an artist, a Central California artist, a regionalist from Quaintsville**. Instead, I’m going on about all sorts of things. I hope it scratches your itch to learn new things.

*Cache didn’t get the grant. This reinforces my distaste for the process.

**I use pencils, oil paints, and murals to make art that people can understand of places and things they love for prices that won’t scare them (while I am learning all sorts of random life information and skills).

Washing the Mud Out of Our Eyes With Wildflowers

If you receive these posts in email and the pictures in the post don’t show for you, tap here janabotkin.net. It will take you to the blog on the internet.

Yesterday was fascinating and ugly, so today we need to recover from the visual assault of all the gray, brown, silt, mud, and sand. These are photos that I took on April 22, so by now I think most of the wildflowers are about finished in Three Rivers, at least on the bank behind our house. They last quite awhile if you drive further up, not that you can go on the Mineral King Road. But maybe you can explore the North or South Forks. (Just keep looking south so that you only see north-facing slopes.)

First, Tucker wanted to say hello. (I’d rather have my cats visit me in the studio than keep the rug vacuumed, and yes, I have done some work in my studio lately but it isn’t interesting enough to show you any photos or to talk about it.)

I’m done talking now.

Hope you are feeling better now that we washed the mud out of our eyes.