Sometimes, I just take time off. In spite of the upcoming art show Still Here rescheduled from January 2022 to April 2021, it was too clear and beautiful to just stay indoors to work one afternoon last week.
Trail Guy and I headed to Lake Kaweah on the lower end of Three Rivers or the upper end of Lemon Cove, which is still very low and not very green. However, it is spacious, outdoors, and not crowded. Sometimes I engage in the pointless mental exercise of trying to decide if it is an ugly beauty or a beautiful ugliness down there.
Across the river there were 3 cowboys on horseback with a dog, all trying to convince a big black bull to get out of the river and go back to his home on the range. I was slow on the shutter so you’ll have to take my word for the bull.
This is Slick Rock. 
Mustard in bloom and cockleburs up close; Alta Peak in the distance with new snow.
We often find a peculiar sight or two on the lake bottom.
What? Let’s look a little more closely.
PVC pipes, with holes in them, spray painted with brown and green, with a concrete weight on the bottom. I give up.
If we could tip this upright, you could see it is some sort of a pedestal. There used to be homes and a motel down here, so there are all sorts of leftovers from that era.
Enough! Back to work, Central California Artist.
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P.S. Sue emailed me wondering about those pipes and I replied with this: Maybe it is a fish gym. Quite a few years ago, the lake requested that people bring their Christmas trees to the lake. The lake people dumped them in the lake, probably all tied together, as some sort of fish habitat. They don’t do that anymore, but sometimes we have seen a bundle of old Christmas trees when the lake is really low.
The leftover items in the dry lake bed make me sad. I remember the days before the dam, when the road went right through the middle of where the lake is now. Once upon a time someone raised a baby there, fed a deer, enjoyed an evening of knitting with a cat on her lap, planted a garden, mourned the death of a loved one . . . all lost to a lake.
By the way, is there a date set for Still Here?
My great uncle used to drive past and mumble about “all those drowned wildflower seeds”. You’d think as one who farmed down the hill that he’d have been thankful for the flood control. . . everything has its good side and its bad side.
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