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This is an afternoon walk at Salt Creek earlier this week. No chit-chat, no April fooling, just photos.
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.
Instead of showing you my current art projects or discussing the unending challenges and rewards of being a fulltime artist in Tulare County, today is another bonus peek at spring in Three Rivers.
These photos were taken on Friday morning.
Tomorrow I’ll show you my current odd job.
We took a stroll on Christmas Day,
So many things along the way,
Blue sky was strong,
But slightly wrong,
I thought this was a winter day.
We took a stroll on Christmas Day,
The same familiar route, our way,
The temps were sweet,
The sun a treat,
For rain and snow we all must pray.
We took a stroll on Christmas Day,
We walked an old familiar way,
But down the hill,
A foggy chill,
Three Rivers is above the gray.
We took a stroll on Christmas Day
We didn’t walk far, a shortish stray,
The grass was green,
The air so clean,
Then we strolled home again to stay.
Happy Christmas, and if you are in the fog, please enjoy the Three Rivers sunshine vicariously.
This post is a round-up of random thoughts that I’ve been gathering, thoughts that don’t fit any category, sprinkled with irrelevant and random photos.
If you read this blog through an email subscription on your phone, the photos might not show up. (Some people get them, some do not.) You can see them by going to the blog on the internet. It is called cabinart.net/blog, and the latest post is always on top.
Last week there was such a storm in Tulare County that the marina at Lake Kaweah experienced some real destruction: the docks slammed around, wrecked houseboats, the docks broke apart or sank or both, and five houseboats also sunk. Now they are just in these large jams and people can’t get to them. What a freak of nature storm.
I was down the hill; Trail Guy was up the hill. The evening after the storm, he took these photos in that beautiful glowing light called “the magic hour” by photographers everywhere.
A couple of days later he took these photos out on the trail. This first one is white flowers that I have never seen before. Maybe I saw them and thought, “White, meh”. But I don’t remember.
I wasn’t joking about loving flowers. 
My yard is huge, and these represent little dots of color, scattered all around. It is not like some classic English garden, or as if everything is perfectly placed and professionally landscaped. But oh my goodness, I do love me some flowers.
P.S. This post comes to you after a very full busy weekend. I will tell you a bit about it later this week. Now, hold it down, will ya? I want to take a nap.
Since we are nearing the end of my favorite time of year, I thought I’d give you a break from watching painted flowers develop and show you a bit of the rest of my world at the time I was painting that bouquet.
There are many distractions when one works at home.
First, my neighbor has this incredible plant, and I don’t know the name, but the deer haven’t eaten it yet, so I NEED the name, because I NEED this color.
The mail came, and it contained a package of 2 new yarns. I haven’t talked about knitting for awhile; didn’t want to lose any more readers than I’ve already lost because the emailed subscriptions don’t show photos on people’s phones. (Still unsolved; my web designer is still too busy.)
The pinkish red yarn might exactly match the few remaining flowering quince. As a self-proclaimed color junkie, I had to check, and yeppers, it matches. (Destined to be a baby blanket).
I also needed to know if the lavender matched my blooming lilacs.. Nope, not quite. This one is destined to become another sweater that I don’t need; my knitting is a continual triumph of hope over experience, just like my gardening efforts. Sometimes I get lucky and all the parts work out. Usually the sleeves are too tight or too loose, the buttons keep falling off, the ends don’t stay woven in, I find a dropped stitch after wearing it several times, the collar won’t lie down, it is too short and fat, it is too long and tight. . . you get the idea. (Baby blankets always fit their recipients.)
I really did have some work to do that day. When one is an artist in a small town (the sign for Three Rivers says 2600 but I don’t know if all those people really live here) where one’s life overlaps with friends on many levels, one is often privileged to help out. This was fun, but definitely best viewed from the back of a fast horse. (Would take too long to explain and I’ve already stretched your attention span by going on and on about color and knitting.).
On one of my trips back to the house (a 30 second trip on the Zapato Express*), the light was beautiful on the hillside.
The green and the wildflowers are so fleeting; my daffodils no longer look like this.
So, even though all this distraction and sidetraction (that’s a good word, don’t you agree?) is taking me from my real work, I believe that it is an artist’s obligation to absorb as much beauty as possible whenever it is available. That’s part of the business of art.
*Zapato Express means I walked.
The poppies and other wildflowers were at at their peak on March 11. Three friends and I took the afternoon off to go fill our eyes.
First, we had to empty our wallets to fill the gas tank. Welcome to Three Rivers.
Then we headed down around the lake, and up Dry Creek Road, all within eastern Tulare County.
This last photo shows Terminus Dam in the distance, which creates Kaweah Lake. The flowers weren’t fabulous right there at the Dry Creek Preserve, but it was clear and green, which is pretty fabulous on its own. 
We never did get out amidst the flowers but stayed on the shoulder of the road, and actually did no trespassing whatsoever.
I must be finally growing up.
I accidentally took black and white photos on a day full of beautiful bright natural colors. This became an opportunity to learn how to use the colorize tool on Photoshop Junior (actually Photoshop Elements).
I am not impressed.
Let’s try it with another photo.
Better, but still nothing to get excited about.
Now I will use the tool to adjust color.
This isn’t very good either.
What did I learn? That if I mess up and accidentally take black and white photos, it is a waste of time to try to make them look natural.
How about if I just stop messing up when the pictures are important?
Good idea.