Poppy Peeping

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.

February is Over

I don’t have a Learned List for you this month. I learned some things, but they don’t belong here. Instead, here is a list of things for which I am grateful in February.

  1. February remains my favorite month, because it truly is the beginning of spring around here. 
  2. We have access to some fantastic oranges, which are very fun to glean and to share.
  3. Sales of my paintings continue.
  4. Our three cats are still alive and well, 4 years for Tucker, 3 years for his nephews Jackson and Pippin.
  5. My catalytic converter hasn’t croaked.
  6. The wildflowers are terrific.
  7. We had some snow and rain.
  8. We have fantastic friends who step up during times of difficulty to help.
  9. The daffodils are steadily blooming and will continue for awhile including in places that I forgot I planted.
  10. Knitting is a great pacifier, a healthy and productive alternative to smoking. I started and finished one sweater, finished another sweater and a baby blanket, and began a new baby blanket. 

Now, let’s just enjoy some spring time in the foothills of Central California.

The poppies are barely visible below Comb Rocks but I know those are poppies and not fiddlenecks. (In case you care about such details).

Not on Purpose

Remember in the olden days when we took photos and didn’t see them until our film got developed?

We have gotten used to looking at them instantly, which is great in theory, but what happens when you are outside in the bright sun and cannot see the screen? Cameras rarely have eyeholes, and the ones that do are small, blurry, inadequate, scratched, or just dirty.

Additionally, if you cannot see the screen, you cannot see the controls on the screen. Sometimes this creates accidents.

A little over a week ago after a storm (not the snowstorm), everything was so beautiful that I laid down my paintbrushes and headed out with Trail Guy to see some natural beauty. The wildflowers!!

THEN, without knowing it, I had a camera accident.

How would I know? I couldn’t see the screen. When I put on some glasses and moved into the shade, I realized that the color was absent, so I randomly pushed the controls until color appeared again.

This flowering pear is the first to bloom in the neighborhood (mid-February) and the last to lose its color in the fall (sometimes late November). This photo might have looked okay in black and white.

It took quite a bit of button pushing when I got home to restore the normal settings. I don’t know how it switched to black and white and doubt if I could make it do that again, at least not on purpose.

Now I am going to experiment with something called “colorize” on Photoshop Junior. This is an opportunity to learn.

Schizophrenic Weather

Recently I have been enjoying the green, wildflowers, and daffodils, sharing them with you all.

Wednesday morning, February 23, this was how our yard looked.

I heard a radio announcer say, “The Sierra is celebrating much needed snow”. I’m unsure how a mountain range “celebrates”, but I know we are very very thankful for any and all precipitation here in Three Rivers. Probably in all of California other than the upper north end of our bizarrely diverse state.

It is too dark to photograph snow around here. It only looks great when the sun comes out, but the snow disappears almost immediately.

Trail Guy has such a soft spot for Pippin.

My flowering pear is in bloom at the same time we get snow? THIS is why I love February!

The yard doesn’t look quite as sittable as usual. I’ll just stand—thanks for asking.

Twelve Reasons to Write Notes

Do you write notes to people?

Do you get notes from people?

Writing notes is now a rarity; people switched to phone calls, then email, and finally texting, where punctuation, complete sentences, and spelled out words are an oddity. (“The word is ‘before’, not B4. Around here we speak English, not Bingo.”)

Consider these reasons for writing:

  1. It makes people feel good.
  2. No one has ever cherished an email or a text.
  3. Mail is fun.
  4. You can practice your writing skills.
  5. You can practice your penmanship.
  6. It gives our wonderful postal carriers purpose.
  7. It makes gratitude tangible.
  8. You can use my notecards. 
  9. Sometimes people will email a response or even write a note back to you. 
  10. It acknowledges the fact that someone did something for you that wasn’t required.
  11. It keeps manners alive.
  12. It will set you apart from others.

Notecards available here: Cabinart/Store/Notecards

 

Lazy Listicle Two

This Central California artist has recovered her writing voice, although we (the royal “we”–ain’t no one here ‘cept me) are still waiting for an order of canvases to show up so that I can start painting poppies. Two are commissions, and the rest are just for general inventory.

  1. Poppies are in bloom and have been for a couple of weeks. It isn’t a “superbloom” or anything that will knock your socks off; the thrill is that they began blooming in January. This is helpful so that the new poppy paintings won’t look exactly like ones previously painted and sold.
  2. These chairs are made of something called “Polywood”, a long-lasting material fabricated out of recycled milk cartons. Polywood is American ingenuity combined with capitalistic sensibility, along with a bit of earth-huggery, and a good dose of practicality. (Maybe they can hire me to write ads for them.) The chairs cost a small fortune, but since we have spent several small fortunes on wooden ones that collapse, this almost feels like an investment rather than just a purchase. We have a very sittable yard.
  3. I have finally grown some food. Check out the broccoli! Too bad it is ready all at the same time.
  4. Mailboxes are situated all over our giant yard, an excellent method of storing tools. This is the latest one. Maybe someday I will give you a tour.In hindsight, I can see by these last 2 posts that I have spent a good deal of time outside in the past few weeks. We always need and want more rain, but if it isn’t here, I will just soak up some greenery and rays, and be thankful for the precipitation received in December.

Lazy Listicle One

Since I am not making art that translates well into blog posts, here is a list of random topics, unrelated to anything in particular. Lists are the lazy way to write.

  1. Three new stepping stones: they look so much better with grout than without. You can see that I acquired some yellow tiles. Want any? I have a box that is almost too heavy to lift, full of these 4×4″ pieces of ceramic sunshine.
  2. The narcissus (mini daffodils?) and/or paperwhites bloom in January around here. (I don’t know what they are officially called.)
  3. We have the sittingest yard!
  4. This will be a sweater. The yarn matches a skirt I found, which was a big thrill to this color junkie, especially since I took a chance by ordering them off the internet. They are the color of sequoia trees, which is a thrill to this simple-minded Central California artist.Tomorrow: Listicle Two.

Irrelevant

“Irrelevant“?

Yeppers, irrelevant.

What is irrelevant?

The things currently occupying the Central California artist’s days are irrelevant to the topics of this blog.

Why does this matter?

You probably don’t care about the things occupying her days right now, so the blog is going to be quiet for a short time.

How short?

Until your Central California artist is able to return to her easels.

When will that be?

She isn’t sure, but if she thinks of something that might interest you, she will post again whether or not she has returned to her easels or drawing table. (Nothing is wrong—fret not!)

But we will miss her!

It is her hope that absence will make your heart grow fonder, rather than out of sight, out of mind.

Can we have a photograph as a little temporary good-bye gift?

Sure.

We saw that one just last week!

Don’t you think it is so very cute?

But we want something else. . .

Okay, how about this one.

I will be back soon—thank you for your patience!

Nothing to See Here

Because  I have been hard at work editing 2 books, and also formatting one of them, there isn’t much to show you.

Here, have a look inside my studio where I am parked with my laptop for hours at a time. It is nice to be surrounded by art that I like.

Jackson stopped by for a visit, but he would not stay still. He just pretends to like me in case I might feed him.

Sometimes I get distracted by light and shadow.

The mug says, “. . . and thou shalt have dominion over all the beasts, except, of course, for CATS.”

 

A Birthday Walk

On Trail Guy’s birthday, we went to Hospital Rock in Sequoia National Park, which is as far as people are allowed to go right now. It has been about 2-1/2 weeks since the last storm, but the road isn’t cleared because the equipment is broken and there aren’t enough operators or mechanics. At least that’s what they say. When Trail Guy was Road Guy, there were no excuses—the road was kept open, no matter what. Period. No time-off. Sigh.

Fretting over the present is not why we are here today. We are here because there are sights to see, such as this ugly burned area.

Moro Rock as seen from Hospital Rock; steps go up the side you cannot see from here. Advertisement: I have a pencil drawing of this, available as a reproduction. Might even still have the original buried deep in a file.

This elderberry shrub survived the fire.

Castle Rocks: if you look across the middle fork of the Kaweah River from atop Moro Rock, you will see these distinctive rocks. Or you can skip the climb and take the Moro Creek Road to see them, as we did, especially when the Park is mostly unavailable. 

California bay laurel trees make bay leaves, the kind used in cooking.

We walked up the Moro Creek Road, which takes you to the Middle Fork Trailhead.

I love me some green.

That footbridge down there is called the Buckeye bridge because you get to it through the Buckeye campground. A long time ago, Trail Guy was part of the crew who rebuilt the bridge. A big flood took it out the following winter and it had to be rebuilt yet again. (He wasn’t part of that rebuild.)

Alta Peak’s elephant is at a more oblique angle than the way we see it from Three Rivers.

The green arrow points toward Alta Peak; the blue oval is around Triple Divide Peak (separating 3 drainages: Kings to the left/north, Kaweah to the west/toward us, Kern to the right/south); the red oval is around Mt. Stewart.

Heading back, looking down toward the valley.

In addition to loving green, I love me a good stone wall.

And thus we conclude our birthday walk of 3.3 miles in the foothills of Sequoia National Park, just above the little town of Three Rivers, in Tulare County, California’s flyover country.

Sincerely,

Your Central California artist who takes walks instead of painting or drawing these days but plans on getting back to work eventually.