Cold in Mineral King

Sequoia National Park and Mineral King opened last week. It was a very pleasant weekend down the hill, which meant it was very cold in Mineral King. 28 degrees on Sunday morning, and only 42 degrees in the afternoon!

We didn’t hike, only went on a couple of short walks because it was overcast one day, rained the next, and we had numerous projects around the place in addition to spending time with friends and neighbors.

I don’t know this flower. It is very tiny.
This is a different view of the Honeymoon Cabin, which is a museum of the Mineral King Preservation Society.
This sign used to be about 8 feet up in the air. Someone with some common sense moved it to a more visible location.
That same sign as it appeared in 2017.
Languid Ladies are also known as Sierra Bluebells.
I don’t know this tiny flower. Its foliage is different from the other tiny white one above.
Forget-me-nots.
Crystal Creek is very shallow and very very wide.

 Mineral King Wildflowers: Common Names contains the Forget-Me-Nots but neither of the tiny white flowers. 

100 page paperback, flowers in photos, common names only, lots of chatty commentary, $20 including tax.
Available here
Also available at the Three Rivers Historical Museum, Silver City Store, from me if I put them in my car, or Amazon.

If Life’s Too Short, Then Why Do I. . .

Life is too short for things like drying dishes that will dry themselves. Why do I want to save all that time? So I can do things that don’t make sense to other people but bring me pleasure and satisfaction, things like:

  1. Bake my own bread (What’s wrong with store-bought?)
  2. Make yogurt from scratch (What’s wrong with store-bought?)
  3. Bake cookies every time Trail Guy wants them (What’s wrong with store-bought?)
  4. Bake cookies any time someone asks me to (What’s wrong with store-bought?)
  5. Make hummus from scratch (What’s wrong with store-bought?)
  6. Try to grow food despite the bugs, heat, bad soil, gophers, birds, deer, etc. (the continual triumph of hope over experience keeps me gardening) (What’s wrong with store-bought?)
  7. Garden with friends in their yards (What?? hard physical labor for free? Yeppers.)
  8. Knit my own sweaters and lots of socks
  9. Write real notes and letters
  10. Email instead of text (I do text to people who will otherwise ignore me)
  11. Blog 5 days a week
  12. Refuse to get a microwave or dishwasher or trash compactor

What’s on your list?

Perhaps this post should be titled “What’s wrong with store-bought”? And maybe the real question is “What’s wrong with me?”

Pippin – the color and temperament of honey.

Life’s Too Short To. . .

As an adult, I made some decisions about things that I no longer had to do because I was now the boss of my life, not traditions or shoulds. It evolved into an ever changing list, one that I thought you might enjoy.

Life is too short to:

  1. dry dishes
  2. iron jeans
  3. wait in line at a restaurant when my food at home is just as good and it is quieter there
  4. wait in a doctor’s office for hours. Instead, ask how far behind he is and go for a walk, do an errand, sit in the car and knit or listen to the radio
  5. read boring books
  6. watch movies about war, violence, adultery, or other difficult topics
  7. wash my car before driving to Mineral King all summer
  8. thoroughly clean the house every week – Instead, I just keep it picked up, stay current with the kitchen and bathroom, hang up clothes and make the bed, vacuum the main places often, and get on with living.

What’s on your list?

Proud

Pride goes before a fall. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. So why am I proud? and why is it okay??

I am proud of one of my drawing students!! (I don’t think this is a sin.)

Mae began taking lessons from me over 15 years ago because she was a watercolorist who wanted her work to be more realistic. She quickly graduated from pencil to colored pencil and tried 3 different brands before settling on Faber Castell Polychromos. She meticulously plans out each piece, experimenting with color combinations and working very methodically and slowly.

Meanwhile, Mae continued painting at home and with some friends at the Arts Visalia gallery. (This is the place where I have held drawing workshops, a very well-run non-profit gallery.)

During the ShutDown, Mae and another artist friend answered a Call for Artists from Arts Visalia. They have one big fund raiser each year, an orchid sale. This year, due to The Thing, the orchid sale isn’t happening. Instead, they asked their regular artists to do some orchid paintings.  Mae and Donna quickly responded.

The very day that Mae told me about her paintings, I came home to this flyer in my email inbox.

Mae’s painting on the left is “Three Scoops”. The one on the right is “Out of the Box”. Donna’s paintings are the center ones, equally beautiful, but I don’t know the titles.

OF COURSE I bought a package of these cards.

Will you? Click or tap the link below to Arts Visalia’s orchid sale.

www.artsvisalia.org/support-us/orchid-sale

9 Things Learned in May

“Alta Peak and Moro Rock”, oil painting on wrapped canvas, 10×30″, $500 plus tax
  1. We are having a garlic shortage. Why? Was there a “blight” in Gilroy? Does our garlic come from China? Do people cooking at home use more garlic than restaurants? I’m glad that 4 bulbs I planted survived and are ready to harvest. This is tricky stuff to grow, because the gophers like it and nearby weeds keep it from getting very large.
  2. When someone commissions me to make custom art, even if I show every single step of the process and the customer approves, sometimes there is disappointment. So, I learned to be more involved in the process, offer design opinions and not assume that the customer knows his mind. (Why has it taken me 33 years to learn this? Is it a lesson that I knew, but put on hold for some customers? What’s wrong with me? Can this artist be saved??)
  3. I can live without the library. I don’t like it, but I can do it anyway.
  4. Frederick Russell Burnham was a big deal explorer, adventurer, soldier, miner, and friends with Teddy Roosevelt. Born in 1861, died in 1947, and buried in Three Rivers! I am reading his biography, A Splendid Savage by Steve Kemper. SINCE THE LIBRARY IS CLOSED, I guess you’ll have to buy a copy if you want to read it. (Mine is borrowed from the friend who told me about the guy). Here. Use this link and I might earn a quarter from Amazon. (It opens in a new tab so you won’t lose your place here.)
  5.  I don’t exercise enough. Thought I was in decent shape until we hiked to Timber Gap, when I was sure that someone had both stretched and tilted the trail. Will I exercise more and harder now? I DON’T FEEEEL LIKE IT. (Oh yeah? Do you FEEEEL like hiking without pain?) I think the ongoing battle with the inner lazy fat girl will never cease.
  6. It is vital to print out on paper any book that I am designing. I almost took a shortcut and skipped that step on my current project (a private book that will only be available to the person who hired me.) The better version of myself printed it anyway, and I was appalled by the formatting errors, and 5 typos. FIVE – appalled, I tell you! Big lesson learned – ALWAYS print it to proofread on paper; I will find things that I missed on the screen.
  7. Cars get dirty just parked in garages. Weird.
  8. My nephew can write music and sing! Want to hear him? The link here is to his latest song “Slow”.  Austin Harms (tap or click on his name)
  9. The painting above was included in the last email newsletter I sent out, and several people referred to it as a mural BECAUSE I DIDN’T IDENTIFY IT AS AN OIL PAINTING FOR SALE! This reluctance to appear “sellsy” is NOT helpful to my newsletter subscribers (and you can also become a newsletter subscriber by using the SUBSCRIBE TO ENEWSLETTER thing on the blog, but it doesn’t show up on a “smart” phone so you’ll need to be on a desktop or a laptop). A friend whose business it is to help people with their social media helped me learn this. #Hashtag Hostess Angele Black is BRILLIANT at her business!

What did you learn in May?

Unintended Good Consequences

Some of these I have already mentioned. Just trying to remind us all that there is always a silver lining. Always? Usually. Usually? Often. Often? Sometimes.

While on a walk this week, I stopped to visit with my friend in her yard and ended up working with her there for awhile.
  1. Less traffic.
  2. No mo ro bo (Robot calls have stopped at our house.)
  3. Less rushed with a looser schedule. (No, I didn’t say “loser”.)
  4. More time to pull weeds, both here and with my friends.
  5. Time to redesign my website.
  6. Catching up on To-Be-Read stack of books.
  7. Wearing Crocs exclusively, no matter what the outfit.
  8. More time with my cats, Tucker, Jackson, and Pippin.
  9. Time to make jelly from elderberry juice frozen who knows when.
  10. Can knit during a Zoom meeting, which would not be acceptable if we were meeting in person.

    What have you noticed as a good unintended consequence?

Saturday Thoughts

  1. I went to Visalia for the first time in several weeks and the lack of traffic was nice.
  2. I drove a little over the speed limit, and was passed in a blur by every car that came near me. Fueled by frustration, rebellion, and a desire for adventure, no matter how small?
  3. It troubles me that I was not carded at the grocery store when I was there during the Senior Hours. (And those hours are probably the reason for the light traffic. . . who else goes to Visalia at 5:45 a.m.??)
  4. Many of the bulk bins at Winco are back! These are the ones overhead that require pulling a lever rather than the ones below that provide a scoop so you can reach in the barrel and gather your own food.
  5. The library sent me a notice that I have 2 books due today. Well, yes, indeed, they have been due since March, but the drop-box is locked. But maybe the notice means the library will be reopening soon!
  6. I started a new project that will be on my blog next week.
  7. A drawing student came to my home, set up her own table and chair in my driveway, and we had a lesson. This worked because it wasn’t hot this week. No photos – I often live my life without documenting it, particularly when it involves other people. 
  8. Here is an article that explains how viruses are spread, describing which behaviors are high or lower risk: The Risks
  9. Here is an article (long, helpful) about the unintended consequences of the shut down: SJVSun.com
  10. Farewell-to-Spring wildflowers are thick around Kaweah Lake: beautiful pinky-lavender flowers that make me sad. The green is gone and the heat is on its way.

P.S. The reason it troubled me to not be carded is that I wanted people to say “You couldn’t possibly be a senior!!” Vanity, vanity, all is vanity. . .

Escape

Melvin the marmot

I want my posts to be encouraging, uplifting, enlightening, and a bit of an escape into the healing power of beauty, reminders that there are still plenty of good things to be enjoyed.

(This has nothing to do with anything, but did you notice all the E’s in that sentence?? Encourage. Enlighten. Escape. Enjoy.)

But, I hesitate to post about Mineral King, because it might be like showing off an expensive freezer full of fancy ice cream that you cannot have. 

It is my intention for these photos to encourage you that there are good times ahead. 

Looks the same, except the cottonwood branches may be leaning even lower than previous years, putting “twigs” in the top of the photo.

Everything is still brown and gray.

Plenty of water is flowing.

Monarch Creek
Chihuahua Creek
Crystal Creek

There is some green, but you must look closely to find it.

Dandelion, always first.
Unknown yellow
Unknown yellow – perhaps cinquefoil?
Green + purple = gurple (Will become Languid Ladies/Sierra Bluebells, an early flower.)
I brought my own green.

Are all slide shows supposed to end with a sunset? How about some alpenglow instead.

Take heart, friends. It makes life more pleasant than worrying about things over which we have no control.

Questions

 

  1. Why in a town called Three Rivers do people buy water?
  2. Why do people wear masks when they are alone in their own cars?
  3. Why does IHeartRadio play the same commercials as many as five times in a row?
  4. Why do people only return phone calls after you’ve given up waiting for them and have left the room (or the phone)?
  5. Why do people tailgate?
  6. Why is there so much conflicting information about The Virus?
  7. Why do I knit faster when I think I might run out of yarn?
  8. What happens to worn out batteries on electric cars?
  9. WHAT AM I GOING TO WORK ON NOW THAT MY COMMISSIONS ARE COMPLETED??

I’ll figure out something. Always have.