Community Life in Mineral King

Mineral King is a place for backpackers, campers, day hikers, day trippers, and cabin folks. Today’s post is about the cabin community. (Last summer I posted regularly about cabin life.)

There are cabin communities all over the mountains in this country, and most likely in other countries too. I’ve written in the past (2018?) about what makes them special: Cabin Thoughts, One; Cabin Thoughts, Two; Cabin Thoughts, Three, A Few More Cabin Thoughts, and Final Final Cabin Thoughts.

Today’s post is what happens on a busy weekend in our cabin community of Mineral King. There are several parts to the community: our immediate neighbors, those across the creek, the settlement one mile down the road (formerly known as “Faculty Flat”, now “West Mineral King” is the preferred name, and no, I didn’t ask for pronouns); Silver City (private property 4 miles down the road); and Cabin Cove (7 cabins about 5 miles down the road from us).

This is what happens on any given weekend—the closer to the end of summer, the more activities. We:

  1. gather at someone’s cabin for “happy hour”, eat fun things, catch up with one another, and then are too full for dinner
  2. eat dinner together
  3. (Trail Guy and The Farmer, not me unless The Farmer isn’t around) help with various repairs. (The cabins are OLD.)
  4. hike together (hike: carrying pack with lunch and water)
  5. walk together (no pack, no lunch)
  6. give one another rides up and down the hill
  7. bring supplies for one another when coming up the hill
  8. share books
  9. lend knitting needles
  10. let people use our telephone (when we had one) and borrow the neighbor’s phone now
  11. clean up the platform for the annual “Music in the Mountains” event
  12. prune in one another’s yards (okay, that’s just me. . .)
  13. use a hav-a-hart trap to catch bushy-tailed woodrats (definitely Trail Guy, NOT me)
  14. explore historic sites
  15. lend tools
  16. repair water line breaks
  17. go through the junk we discover in our respective cabins, sometimes trading items of interest
  18. share missing recipe ingredients

We stay in touch throughout the year, because our friendships are solid, not simply seasonal.

Things I Don’t Understand

My life isn’t only focused on Mineral King and making a living with art. While I am puttering at the cabin or at home, painting, yardening, knitting, splitting wood, listening to something, I think.

Sometimes I think about things that I don’t understand. None of it is very important or life-altering. As a Questioner, I wonder about stuff. Here is a current list:

  • Sun tea: Who cares if it brews in the sun or in the refrigerator?
  • Sun-dried tomatoes: Who cares if they are dried in the sun, in a dehydrator, or on a shelf in the back window of your car?
  • Sea-salt: What difference does it make if the salt comes from the “sea” (don’t they mean “ocean”?), from Death Valley, or from those dreaded salt-mines?
  • Artisanal or hand-crafted: Does this actually improve the flavor?
  • Anti-science: since when is asking questions “anti-science”? I thought questions were how you figure out what is true.
  • Tailgating: it causes accidents, creates tension, and never causes the one in front to drive faster. What is wrong with people??
  • Horror movies: who wants to be scared? Why?? Isn’t life scary enough?
  • Have you noticed that there is a tremendous amount of advertising for beds, mattresses, and linens? Do you think there is some sort of correlation with the explosion of high-energy drinks available? Here, get amped up, and now you can’t sleep? Just buy a new bed!

If you leave comments and don’t hear back from me or see them appear, please be patient. It means I am in the Land of No Electricity, Phones, or Internet, probably thinking of more things that I don’t understand.

And now maybe you don’t understand why I used all these photos of sunflower paintings. Easy—because it is summer!

Seven Things Learned in June

I didn’t learn much in June; is this the result of 2 weeks spent blowing my nose? Here is my monthly list, minus many AHA! moments.

1. The lotion I’ve used on my face for more than 20 years is no longer available. Why do companies stop manufacturing items? Yeah, yeah, because they aren’t profitable enough. Sigh. I looked on eBay and the least expensive is $75. No thanks. I used to balk at paying $13.

Expect more wrinkles yearly.

2. My normal preferred route to Hume Lake was closed due to construction. There is an alternate route, one that involved roads I never knew existed, paved but one-lane. In the past I would have taken the new route without question, excited to learn a new way. However, in his old age. Fernando is only cautiously adventuresome. Sigh. Maybe I learned acceptance of limitations of our advancing ages.

3. A friend needed a room in Newport Beach for a pickleball tournament. Did you know that $120 is considered a bargain??

4. Colds can slam you at any time of year, regardless of how carefully you avoid sick people. Something changed with Covid; I used to go as long as 5 years without catching anything. Or did something change with age, as I moved into the S’s? Never mind. Was it Covid? I don’t care. What have I learned? Never mind. Just complaining a little. (Do colds last two weeks for you too?? They used to last 7 days.)

5. I am skeptical about the claims of many medicines, particularly those for colds. A cold will last as long as it lasts and will do whatever it does, regardless of our attempts to stifle or shorten it. Here is an article that backs up my skepticism: Doctors question value of other cold medicines. . . I realize this is the internet, where opinions and experts abound, and there is much contradiction, but this article backs up my own experiences.

6. Even if I am grounded in Mineral King by the sorry nature of my numb feet, it is still a great place to hang out in the summer.

7. I hired someone to feed the cats and water the yard but she never showed up*. Four different friends have stepped into the void. I learned to accept a (HUGE) gift of help, and unfortunately, to not trust someone.

*It wasn’t a hot weekend and the cats had access to their regular abode, water, and dry food that they usually ignore.

Assorted Photos with Chit-Chat

If you look in the shadows between (and beyond) the 2 chairs, you might be able to discern a doe with 2 fawns, probably born that very day.

While getting gas at the Four-way (local vernacular for an important intersection), I snapped this photo. Barns this classic and oak trees this majestic, quercus lobata, are standard but disappearingTulare County items, and when seen together, they should be painted or drawn or just photographed. (If I paint this, I will edit it severely.)

This is called a vitex tree. Doesn’t that sound like some sort of diet supplement? We tend to refer to these as “lupine trees”.

I finished 2 more Mineral King paintings, both 8×8″, drying quickly in the heat.

My friend with the Hume Lake cabin sent me this photo, which might possibly be the most beautiful one I’ve ever seen. Maybe I shall paint it. . . yes, I KNOW it is in Fresno/Fres-yes County but it is a well-loved place, even among us ignorant, fat, uneducated, poor, diabetic Tulare County hon-yocks.

A Full Day of Variety

What does an artist do all day? For this artist, every day is different. Yeah, it seems as if all I did all winter was paint, paint, paint. That’s different right now.

First, I walked with my neighbor (numb toes, but manageable for 2 miles), then I worked in my herb garden for about an hour.

The deer aren’t messing with these hollyhocks. Haha, deer.

I put together a bank deposit, and then had to make a phone call that ended up taking a full hour. It was a successful attempt to untangle a Word problem. Nope, not a crossword type word problem, the Microsoft type of problem.

This led to about 2.5 hours of proofreading.

Suddenly, the morning was over, and I had to paint a sign. Sometimes I do odd jobs like that.

Suddenly the afternoon was almost over and I hadn’t oil-painted and it was killer hot and the swamp cooler hadn’t been turned on. Yikes! I went into the studio for a bit to scan 2 new paintings in hopes that the swamp would have a chance to get rolling.

Classic Mineral King, 8×10″, $145
Classic Mineral King 2, 10×10″, $200

I had some iced tea (herbal, because caffeine is a bad choice in the afternoon), and then went to the easels. It was too hot to putter or just dink around*, so I dove in fully focused with a game plan. Mike Rowe kept me company interviewing Riley Gaines—no relation to Chip and Joanna as far as I know—about her new book**, Swimming Against the Current. (The link is for ThriftBooks rather than the big A.)

A few hours later, this was almost finished, and I was too.

All it needs is the edges painted. And a few houseboats—I forgot about that part. It also needs a title beyond the working title of “Rachel’s View”. Full Lake? Full Lake at Sunset? Lake Kaweah is Full? Still Waters? (corny. . . nope) Drowned Wildflower Seeds? (My great-uncle used to mourn the drowned wildflowers after the dam was built. . . I guess I have come by my love of wildflowers honestly, eh?)

*Sometimes I am not very focused, just moving from painting to painting, dabbing a bit here, perfecting a bit there.

**Imma wait for the liberry copy. It is because that’s what frugal people do.

Nine Things Learned in May

This month I will publish two Learned posts, this one and a Learned in Texas. I shared several things in my little series on being in Texas but there is still more.

1. If you want to search for a term on a website, on a Mac you can use the command key (clover leaf) with F and you get a search box at the upper right corner of the page.

2. Locks of Love takes hair donations to make wigs for kids and charges the kids. Wigs for Kids takes hair donations and doesn’t charge the kids. Wigs for Kids (I don’t know how they handle gray hair.)

3. Northern Lights! In Washington, Three Rivers, and even in Texas! I didn’t see them anywhere, but CK graciously shared her photo with me.

4. I should have known better than to succumb to the temptation of a Texas souvenir in the form of a fragile item. I wanted to replace a broken favorite mug with one of a similar size (15-16 oz.) and found this on Etsy. I mistakenly thought that this fragile item would be packaged in a manner that it wouldn’t arrive in pieces. Alas, I was disappointed. At least I didn’t have to fight for a refund.

5. I finally learned to recognize the difference between Eastern redbud and Western redbud.

Eastern redbud on the left; Western redbud on the right

6. ALWAYS save your postal receipt with a tracking number if you have to return something for a refund. Companies are so eager to sell to you, offering “full money-back guarantees”, but if you can’t prove that you returned it, they will balk. Never mind the fact that it arrived at their warehouse—PROVE IT, YOU SUCKER CUSTOMER. And if you order something with that guarantee, call the customer service number to see if it actually works while you still have time to cancel the order. Some places don’t answer the phone if they even have a number to call; many don’t reply to emails or to the contact form on their websites.

7. I had never seen a fossil, somehow missing all the elementary and secondary lessons on the topic. My good friend Jee-um (that’s how “Jim” is pronounced in Texas), a retired geology teacher, sent me one after he learned of my educational deficit! This is an echinoid, but it looks like a miniature starfish to me.

8. “Functional medicine” is a new term to me—it is a way of practicing medicine that gets to the root of the problem rather than just prescribing something to mitigate the symptoms. A friend told me about this, so I looked it up, as one does. The friend told me that there are practitioners in the area, so I looked that up too. Alas, it took me to the chiropractor I already saw, the very one who tried to sell me a $3500 package of all sorts of things that might or might not treat my neuropathy. Sigh. The saga continues. . .

Did these shoes wreck my feet back in the ’70s and ’80s?

9. No matter how certain I am that a painting is finished, there is ALWAYS room for improvement.

Tomorrow: Eighteen Things I Learned in Texas (Yes, EIGHTEEN, and that doesn’t include all of the things I told you about in my six Texas travelogue posts.

Central California Artist in Texas, Chapter 5

Oh my stars!

Texas is the Lone Star State, and boy howdy are they proud of that star and that nickname, which actually only became official a few years ago. Texas was a sovereign nation for about 10 years, and they are the only state with the audacity to fly their flag at a height equal to the American flag. This isn’t always done, but I did see it several times.

This was taken through the car window as we were passing on the freeway, so it appears as if the American flag is higher simply because of the perspective.

I started a quest to find all the stars that I could. After awhile, I decided that enough was enough.

Flags were also prevelant.

N said that this town has flags lining the streets on all patriotic holidays.

“Don’t mess with Texas” is a frequently seen motto. This means don’t mess with their flag, their star, or their traditions. The phrase was coined in the mid-’90s to instill pride and get a grip on the excessive litter.

Six New Things Learned in April (plus one re-learn)

I know Easter was last month, but barely. . .
  1. I started reading Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman, a book about accepting the fact that our time is limited and we won’t ever get our to-do lists finished. Alas, it was taking too long (heh-heh), so I went to Bookpecker to read the five bullet points. They are: 1. Accept your limits; 2. Focus on Meaningful Tasks; 3. Prioritize quality over quantity; 4. Live in the Present; 5. Embrace uncertainty. (I summarized the summarized bullet points for you. You’re welcome.)
Vermeer’s Milkmaid. I painted this with the idea of quality over quantity, BEFORE reading the summary of Burkeman’s book.

2. Did you know that you can substitute 1/2 milk with 1/2 yogurt for buttermilk in a recipe? (I haven’t tried it).

3. Slippers: I was sorry to see that mine were wearing through on the soles, and especially sorry to learn that the yarn for a new pair was $40. WHAT? Then I learned that they have faithfully served my feet since 2010. (Life is like a roll of toilet paper—the closer you get to the end, the faster it goes.) Finally, I learned that I cannot stop and restart the agitation segment of the cycle on our fancy washing machine (many of our appliances croaked in 2020). I also (re)learned that I am not very good at following knitting pattern directions, but once again, I got away with it. (notice the 2 new slippers don’t exactly match each other.)

Before felting
partially felted
finished felting

4. Have you ever heard of a yogurt strainer? I hadn’t, and learned of this item on The Frugal Girl blog. It is a convenient way to drain the whey from yogurt so that you have “Greek” yogurt. (I just pour mine off as it accumulates in the pan I made it in and save it for making bread.) I am tempted by this item but my policy of no unifunction items in my kitchen keeps me from succumbing. The woman who told me about it also uses it when making lemon curd and almond millk, two items that are not on the menu here. (Here is a list of the various yogurt strainers on Amazon.)

5. Did you know that there is no cure for neuropathy, particularly idiopathic neuropathy, which means the kind for which no reason is known? Sigh. I learned this from a friend who has had it for 30 or 40 years. (I have an appointment in June with a neurologist anyway. So there.) My hands are over my ears chanting, “LA LA LA LA LA LA LA!” as I refuse to accept this information.

6. I found this book in the library in Three Rivers and checked it out because of the title. The characters were too weird for me to relate to, so I quit after the first two chapters. There are too many books that I want to read to bother with those that don’t hold my attention.

The Lemon Cove Woman’s Club asked if they could print my drawing into cards. I said yes, if they could find the original. They couldn’t. Then I remembered that it is hanging on the wall over my dining table!

7. This is a relearn: The women’s club in Lemon Cove has the actual historical name of “Lemon Cove Woman’s Club”. Isn’t that funny? (Exactly which woman did it belong to? Did Nora Pogue Montgomery call it this because she was reluctant to give up her family home?) You can read about it here: Tulare County Treasures.

P.S. By now I’ve probably learned many more things while in Texas. Although it will still be April while I am there, I’ll probably put them in the Learned in May post. Or, in Texan, “I’m fixin’ to put them in May’s post”.

Eight New Things Learned in March

For some reasons, I couldn’t scrape up appropriate photos for this month’s Learned List. So, let’s enjoy a few photos that Trail Guy took on a recent walk.

  1. John Bray Estates is a website for luxury coastal property in Cornwall, England. If you like to look at homes, both inside and outside, this site is like See’s Candy to a sugar addict.
  2. Skills Millennials Won’t Use is quite entertaining. There are things I’ve thought about for awhile, such as the ability to drive a three pedal car, reading a face clock, dialing a telephone, reading a map. There are other things that I agree with—not liking meatloaf or jello, not using paper napkins. There are things that surprised me—not wearing Crocs was the largest. Enjoy this list! It is very long—almost 200 items!
  3. I read this quote in the memoir Driving Hungry by Layne Mosler: “A rich man isn’t the one who has the most; he is the one who needs the least”. By that definition, I am very wealthy!
  4. The two most common reasons for neuropathy are unmanaged diabetes and back trouble. I have neither, so the mystery and saga of my feet continues. . . (what I learned is that my back is fine).
  5. Surgery is very stressful; I had the privilege of sitting with a dear friend while waiting for a delicate surgery on her husband. We simply chatted about this and that, nothing too heavy or scary or formal. She hadn’t asked me to be with her, but I insisted, because I knew in my gut that this was scarier than they made it out to be. We both learned that the presence of a friend is a valuable comfort even when it wasn’t requested. I also learned how much I truly care about these friends.
  6. A thymoma is a tumor on the thymus gland; it is better than thymic carcinoma. I would like to not know this, but a dear friend is now experiencing it, so here we are, learning about unwelcome health troubles.
  7. Have you ever had rutabaga? We got a couple and didn’t know what they were. A friend enlightened us, and I cooked them without any idea of how they would be, figuring anything is good if you add enough butter. Turns out they are actually quite good for you, sort of a mashed potato substitute with fewer carbohydrates and lots of good nutrients.
  8. There is a website which summarizes non-fiction books in 5 bullet points. It is free, because they make their money by people ordering off Amazon through their site. It has the weird name of BookPecker. My hope is that it will speed up my journey through my To-Be-Read towers of book.

Goodbye, March! You are the Most Beautiful Month, and we will miss your weather and your colors.

A Day of Many Moving Parts

One day I had a bunch of things to juggle, beginning with a “telehealth” appointment. I stared at the landline off and on for 2 hours before giving up.* Rural clinics run by large corporations are bastions of bureaucratic inefficiency and incompetence.

I called a friend who knows people and how to get stuff done. Within an hour, I was at another doctor’s office, and within another hour, I had the promise of a referral that I was seeking. (my feet. . . sigh.) It was a quaint old building with interesting details.

Then I raced to a place where I could get cuttings of myoporum, an easy-to-transplant groundcover. Next, I met the piano tuner at church, and planted some greenery while I waited for Mr. Tuner to do his magic. The two redbud trees that Trail Guy and I planted last fall are in bloom now!

I also fielded a few phone calls and texts. FOUR close friends are dealing with difficult situations right now, and it is good to check in with them (a newly deceased parent, a husband with delicate surgery, a friend with a disruptive cancer diagnosis, a husband with a substance problem). I didn’t talk to all of them, but was alert for any incoming requests for a listening ear or a praying heart. At the same time, I was coordinating with Kaweah Arts Nancy, to deliver merchandise for her opening at the new location. PLUS, I was helping her connect with the piano tuner, because she is also responsible for the Remorial** Building here in town and has an event coming soon that requires a tuned instrument.

The piano got tuned, the calls made, the paintings delivered, and I came home. There was time to admire this dragon arum calla lily. (It seems early this year.)

Too jeezled up to paint any serious details, I sat with lists, canvases, hanging hardware, tools, and stacks of photos, making decisions about what to paint for the Silver City Store in the summer. This is how that process looks. (The jar contains those little moisture absorbing packets that come with each canvas, saved because someone told me they are handy if a cell phone gets wet—may I never need to know this experientially.)

I had made a list of subjects and sizes and ordered canvases for the missing sizes. I pulled out the canvases that were available, and began choosing the right photos, adding hardware and inventory numbers. It was a rough-ish day, so I didn’t trust myself with titles other than the obvious, such as “Sawtooth #49”. I had no idea if that is the right number of times I’ve painted Sawtooth, so I made it up; later I went through my list of Sawtooth paintings and learned there have been 57 other paintings of this iconic Mineral King landmark. (Yes, I changed this one to “Sawtooth #58”.)

I thought the decisions were good ones, but then started doubting some of the sizes and some of the subjects. How many people actually hike to White Chief and then patronize the Silver City Store? Not as many as those who walk on the Nature Trail! So why was I planning two paintings of White Chief and none of the Nature Trail? Recalculating. . .

The next day without time wasted staring at the phone waiting for a phone call that never comes, racing down the hill to a clinic, meeting a piano tuner, transplanting, or coordinating merchandise drop off (but not a day where I don’t check in with dear friends who are on the struggle bus), I hope to finish the details on 3 paintings for the fall show at CACHE, and then begin the first layer on nine new paintings of Mineral King.

Lord willing, the creek, etc. (Read James 4:13-15, if you are so inclined. . .)

*The doc NEVER CALLED, and then the clinic had the audacity to send me a reprimanding letter titled “Missed Appointment Letter”. Believe me, they will be receiving a reply, and I had better not receive a bill!!

**The way our neighbor taught us to say “Memorial” when she was about 9 years old.