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.
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.
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.
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.
The Horse Creek Fire from the Mineral King Road at night on July 21, 2018.
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.
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.
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.
Last week in Mineral King, Trail Guy, 2 friends and I took a hike to a special place that I am choosing to keep secret. (You can ask me in private, but I’m not posting any details on the World Wide Web.) On our hiking day, we experienced fabulous wildflowers, tremendous views, hail, thunder, lightning and rain.
This will be a long post – might want to refill your coffee cup.
View back down toward Mineral King about 2.5 miles up the Franklin Lakes/Farewell Gap trail.
My favorite flower was out in abundance.
Explorer’s Gentian
It was a bit of a challenge to keep marching forward while surrounded by this.
Franklin Lakes – You can see one of them here, and sort of see the shelf where the upper smaller lake is above (if you know what to look for).
We got back home to great light, rain, and news that lightning had sparked a wildfire about 14 miles down the road (but on the other side of the canyon), called the Horse Creek Fire.
Big puffy clouds made for good photos at the end of the day.
The next day we only managed an easy sort of walk. Limp. Shuffle. (Me, not Trail Guy, so that would be the “royal we”.)
The East Fork of the Kaweah, near Cold Springs Campground.Penstemon, possibly “showy penstemon”, but I haven’t learned the varieties yet. This is a close second to Explorer’s Gentian in my hierarchy of favorite wildflowers.
The annual Mineral King Preservation Society (MKPS) “Picnic in the Park” happened for the 33rd time. Our speaker was the wife of a former packer who worked for a private pack station, as a contractor, and later for Sequoia. She was outstanding!
The picnic was held by the Honeymoon Cabin, a little museum put together by the MKPS, and painted and drawn by me more times than I can remember.
The door is almost always open on the Honeymoon Cabin, AKA the “Point Cabin”, although I’ve never noticed any point, other than a museum is a nice thing.‘Splaining things to the folks.‘Splaining things to the ranger.Listening, ‘splaining, knitting, chest beating? and watching the knitter
It was a day of much weather variety, sometimes in pounding sun, ending in large raindrops.
I drove down after dark that night, a different way to experience the road.
The Horse Creek fire as seen on Saturday, July 21, around 9:30 p.m. Doesn’t look very threatening, but one never knows. The Park has chosen suppression as the best method for this fire, and I am very glad they have.
July is a busy month in Mineral King. One could just sit on the porch, knitting and reading, or one could get out and see and do. I am one of the latter types, sometimes. These photos represent the activities in about a three day stretch of time in Mineral King.
Flowers along the trail to Eagle meadow (below the Eagle/Mosquito junction)The flowers were beautiful; the biting bugs were horrible.Scary scary tree situation along the trail; I wonder how many people look up.We climbed up and up and up, including over this boulder field, “just over that rise” to White Chief.This is looking back down toward Eagle Lake, which we did not go to because it was supposed to be a pleasant walk to see some wildflowers. (fall down laughing)Weird, weird, weird (and an excuse to stand still and catch my breath)YES!! We found our slippy slopey way down to White Chief!Another scary tree situation above the trail on the way down from White Chief.
The next day, my friend and I strolled down the Nature Trail. I stood in the middle of the creek to get this photo of water with Sawtooth in the distance. If I draw or paint this, I will exaggerate the size and contrast of Sawtooth.
Next, Trail Guy worked on tightening up the railing on the bridge that he helped build in 2011. That’s a pretty strong work ethic–improving one’s work 6 years after retiring, off the clock, no supervision, just wanting his work to hold up. I’m proud to be married to this man!
We had the privilege of guiding a group of students from Western Michigan University Lee Honors College who are on a trek, following in the steps of Walt Disney. They call themselves “Waltineers”, and are a delightful group of folks who all have a great love for Uncle Wally and all things Disney.
Not a whole lot of sitting around at the cabin. Mineral King is a busy busy place in July.
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.
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.
Mock Orange, as pilfered picked from the lower end of the Mineral King Road in early June.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Thirty-three years ago some friends and I tried rock climbing, that rappelling thing with ropes and harnesses. My friend was suspended over space and she looked up at the guy (with barely contained fear) who was supposedly teaching us and said quite calmly, “Instruct me, please!”
Today I want to instruct you a bit about subscribing to my blog, except I can’t!
News Flash: at 7:36 a.m. the Blog Subscription button reappeared! You may now subscribe (or resubscribe) to the blog!
For some reason, the dealio to subscribe to the blog has vanished. This means that you can no longer subscribe to the blog, until and unless I figure out what went wrong. You know that the word “update” is a euphemism for “complication”, yes? Well, something got “updated”, and in the process, the blog subscription dealio went away.
All I know to do is to advise you to go to the World Wide Web (might be Safari, might be Chrome–I hope you know what it is on your own computer or device), look up my website, and when you get to cabinart.net, then click on the word blog in the menu bar at the top.
All I wanted was to draw, paint, tell you about it, and sell some art. But, my life got updated.
So, to make up for my ignorance, confusion, chaos, and general ambiguity, please enjoy a picture of quiet and calm, something that I could use right about now.
No Mineral King today – I haven’t been for a couple of weeks because I went to Hume Lake.
I love to read. Do you?
Some of my favorite podcasts are about books and reading: What Should I Read Next, By the Book (the one with all the cussing), Just the Right Book, From the Front Porch. While listening to several podcasts recently, I learned of a PBS thing called The Great American Read. It is a book popularity contest, seeking America’s favorite novel. You can watch the 2 hours of the program about the books, and if you love books and reading, you will enjoy this program. Then you can vote for your favorite novel, which any reader knows is an impossible task. No problem – you get to vote once a day until the contest ends in the fall.
I didn’t vote because it requires a sign-up, either through FaceBook (not happening for this little gray duck) or via email, and I don’t want to put myself on another list. However, you might. Or maybe you want to do what I did after watching the program: read the list and count how many of the books you have read. I have read 36 of the 100, and a few of them are on my To-Be-Read list.
What does this have to do with being an artist in the Central Valley of California?
Nothing.
Will you tell me 2 things? 1. Which ones you would vote for and 2. how many you have read off the list. Inquiring minds need to know. (I am an Enneagram #5 and a Questioner in Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies – you may need to do some reading to understand this stuff.)
Here is today’s painting: Reading Rabbit, AKA “Salt & Light”, an oil painting on board. It isn’t for sale, because I like it too much to sell.
Salt & Light, or Reading Rabbit, oil on board, 11×14″, Not for sale
Sometimes I have a head full of random facts to tell you that don’t want to wait for the end of the month round-up of things learned in the month.
The Oak Grove Bridge, my favorite subject for drawing and painting, will be “retrofitted”, a fancy term that means reinforced to make it safe while keeping it as its same beautiful self. This is a huge relief to me; I was picturing myself chained to the bridge to prevent its destruction, wondering if anyone would bring me dinner or mosquito repellent, and wondering how much it would cost to be bailed out of jail.
I visited Hume Lake for a few days with a friend from childhood at her cabin. Still the Sierra Nevada, but very very different from Mineral King.
Hume Lake, from on the water
There were wild iris blooming there – what?? They bloom in early May along the lower part of the Mineral King Road in the shady drainages. Hume is around 5000′ in elevation and they were in hot dry places. My friend thought it was a bit odd to keep photographing them. Perhaps it was. . .
Her cabin kitchen was retro and charming.
The dam on the lake is historic and impressive.
Dam creating Hume Lake.
I missed my kitties and continue to wonder how I will tell Piper from Tucker when Tucker is grown.
Piper is tired from rolling in the dirt, and Tucker thinks his tail is a toy.
Before I left, I began a new pencil drawing.
Pencil drawing with a touch of color for the upcoming 2019 calendar.
I love to row a boat and was tickled that neither of my friends wanted to take over the oars.
These are kayaks; my friends and I were the oldest people on the lake and the only ones in a rowboat. We were also the only ones singing.
The painting studio is a mess, but a recovered couch and chair will happen soon.
Is this mess a place??
And thus we conclude a list of random information.
Today’s painting for sale:
Sunflower, oil on 8×8″ wrapped canvas ready for hanging without a frame, $108 includes sales tax
Have you heard that thing “Sitting is the new smoking”?
Hogwash.
Been thinking about chairs recently. My cabin neighbors are replacing some living room furniture, and it would be awful if their old pieces went to the dump. My couch needs recovering, so why not cover theirs from the ’40s and dump mine from the ’80s? And if I move a chair from the living room to the studio, I can put theirs in the living room. . .
The neighbor’s old chairMy newly recovered chair
This blue chair from the living room could replace this red one in the studio. The red one is very hard for people to get out of, so this makes sense.
Studio chairs
The red chair is outdoor furniture. (What kind of dork puts outdoor furniture inside? This kind of dork, that’s who.) Sorry, the wooden chair isn’t for sale. I could draw it for you. . .
Today’s art is of chairs, all pencil or colored pencil drawings:
Favorite Parking Place, colored pencil, framed to 14×18″, $300, available hereCabin Kitchen Corner, pencil, framed to 11×14″, $150, available hereCabin Retreat, colored pencil, 11×14″ unframed, $150, available hereWillow Window, pencil, approximately 11×14″, unframed, $75, available hereHidden in the Leaves, pencil, unframed, approximately 8×10″, $100, available hereRock On, pencil, framed to approximately 11×14″, $200, email or use the contact button to buy because it isn’t on my websiteCabin Chair, pencil, framed to 11×14″, $150 (also available as cards here)
I could keep on going, but this is just getting embarrassing. What is the deal? Am I a closet sitter??
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.
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.
Roundworm makes kittens have round bellies. (You are welcome.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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”?
Sometimes Piper just needs to park on my briefcase and join me as we contemplate matters of consequence.
P.S. I forgot my resolution to show my paintings regularly, so I’ll start again now.
Moro and Alta, 6×18, $160 with the sales tax in California.
