Wednesday February 28 2007

Bobbi and Nube in the Corral

Showing the size of the drift in the front corral.

Last day of February and that much closer to spring. Beautiful morning. Cold but no wind. The last few nights its still been daylight at dinner time. I’m so grateful for the longer days and more sunshine. The moonlight was very bright on the landscape last night.

Joe's going to town for his blood test, so will just enjoy the quiet for a while. I'm having him get a few groceries today. He asked me to bring in the firewood for him. I can do that alright, but he has a "tent" (plastic tarp) supported by posts over the pile and at first the wood was up to the front of it. Now toward the end of winter the wood is way at the back of it and you have to crawl about 20 feet in there under the sagging tarp and hope the pile doesn't fall on you when you pull wood out of the stack. The crawling is not easy for me. Easier is pulling the wood across the yard on my little red sled, rather than carry it. Joe makes several trips carrying wood in his arms.

Judy Meyer my artist friend from Greeley has surprised me with a beautiful pencil drawing of Buster (my Australian Shepherd who died a while back). It is awesome. I loved it the minute I saw it. I will be very proud to have it for my own. Its beautiful and perfectly like him. Coming in the mail any day now. I'm really looking forward to getting it, like a kid anticipating Christmas.
Last night I worked and learned some more on the blog. I lost Sunday and Monday off fooling around in there, so did them over. As usual working with the images is not easy, its the sizing. The blog will make them fit.....by cropping off the subject into the size of the template. So I've got to figure that out.

Tuesday Afternoon: Joe came home from town quite early and I didn't have the wood hauled yet, so he is doing it. He ate lunch early in town so I didn't have to feed him. I spent some time outside doing more photography. I called the girls (horses) into the corral for oats and they came through the drift. It is nearly belly deep on them for 30 or so? yards. Then even though she was standing right next to the water trough Bobbi still didn't drink, so I guess she is getting enough from eating snow. They seem to like it.

A Beautiful Day. Now there is a small flock of blackbirds. The finches have to work a lot harder getting seeds out of the feeder as everything that falls on the ground the blackbirds get. They are still mostly silent. I'm waiting for the day they burst into spring time song.

Tuesday February 27 2007

Joe Feeding the Horses

More snow and wind this morning. We have a winter storm warning. Its sunny and nice east of us right now but I looked at the highway cams and anything to the west is stormy. The dogs, and us as well, are hunkering down ‘til its over. Such a white out - cannot see very far out of the yard. Its good to get some moisture finally. Each of the last several days we've had 2 or 3 inches of new snow. The sagebrush is now covered for the first time this winter so maybe up to 18 inches on the level. The back half of the yard and both corrals are really filling with snow and drifts well over my head. I keep digging out the cat's "door" and its about 3 or 4 feet down now. I think they are mostly holed up and nestling in their tent/bed staying in the shed. I can't imagine what they think when they try to come outside with huge mountains of snow to navigate.

Joe tries to put the horse's hay somewhere it won't blow away. They are weird about going into the corral where they have a very nice shed and manger to be sheltered and eat out of the weather, but they won't stay in there. They would rather stand out in the middle of the field in all the worst weather. The drift in front of the corral they have to go through to get to their water trough is getting quite deep and they don't want to go through it. I may try to lure them in with some oats. >P>When I went to pinedaleonline.com this morning there was a headline that a cement truck has rolled over and was blocking the road to Rock Springs. It sure would be possible for someone to plow into it in the wind we are having. It happened about 9 a.m. and they didn‘t get it off the road until 4:30. This is so neat - I never would have known about any cement truck rolling over without the internet- never had to leave my desk to know about it.

In the afternoon the storm settled down a little. Joe took the dogs with the snow machine and went out to get more hay at the haystack. We haven't gotten the mail since Friday.

Today it dawned on me I hadn’t seen my camera bag lately, and finally figured it was the day of the party that I last saw it. Thought I lost it off the snow machine with all the cards somewhere between here and the mailbox the day we had the party. I just felt sick thinking the expensive cards would be ruined or lost. I’ve got 4 now. Got some of the big ones when we went to Alaska because I take so many pictures I knew I would need plenty. I had my wits about me better than I thought though - I had put the camera bag (with the cards) in the back of the snow machine and then promptly forgot all about it for most of a week. I asked Joe to look for it on the trail (would have been buried) and he said it was in the snow machine. I was sure happy.

Today I joined The Equine Art Guild. Probably in about a month one of my horse paintings will appear in their member web pages.

Right down to the deadline, I sent off 3 photos of a few of my paintings for consideration to be put in WAOW publicity. Did manage to get them resized to the dimensions they wanted. We will see. More of those learning curves.

It never takes much to amuse me. Last night I made my usual cup of sleepytime tea before going to bed and sat in the rocker in front of the wood stove sipping, and thinking how delicious it was. I love sleepytime. I looked into the cup and thought it was pretty clear and realized there was no teabag in there. I laughed at myself for 5 minutes. I guess this is part of getting older.

Monday February 26 2007

Big Kahuna from Inside the Corral

Sat here most of two days fussing to get my computer and internet connections working. It was one of those “just do it” things. It was miserable. Spent a long time on hold with two phone calls to the ubiquitous guys in India, neither one of us understanding the other - very frustrating. But we persevered. It seems to be back to normal now.

I don't know what messed it up but hughes.net lost my password apparently, I have no clue why. Anyway it disappeared for email and internet. When I switched to the satellite they said the only time I would have any trouble would be from weather interference. It actually started Saturday with my messages hanging up and then downloading 55 of them over and over. Had to turn off the computer every time to get it to disconnect. I hope the thing about sending more than one message might be fixed too - time will tell. Of course the server blames it on the computer and computer "help?" blames it on the server. Many thanks to Richard in S.F. for all his advice and suggestions as more is gone awry than just the connection.

In going into all the innards of the computer that I went through, I finally found out how to reinstall Quicken which went haywire the 2nd time I used it. The fix was so very very simple, and very obscure. So on my own I was able get the failed Quicken reinstalled! TA DA! Now Quicken wants a password and I don't know what it is so can't get in there anyway. I would swear I never had one before, but it insists whatever I put in there is wrong, so I haven't been able to open the Quicken. Do I care??? Remember this is a new computer. And when I can drive in and out again its going to the computer guy in Pinedale. Hopefully I don’t procrastinate that until the guarantee is up.

Sunday February 25 2007

Snowy Backs

I worked and learned some more on the blog. As usual the images are not easy, its the sizing. The blog will make them fit.....by arbitrarily cropping them off into the size of the template. so I've got to figure that out. I'm receiving very good help and instructions. Thank you Gina, Sally, Jackie and Mary Ann.

Mary Ann in Idaho Falls has invited some of us artists to come over in April and stay with her to visit a couple of the museums there. They have an Exhibition of Old Masters hanging from the BYU Idaho permanent collection. The invitation includes going out to paint plein air. Sounds like a wonderful end to winter. Mary Ann is teaching a pastel workshop later in the year. I might like to do both the museum trip and paint, and Mary Ann's pastel workshop. I'm trying to get going with my pastels and like them pretty well. It wouldn't hurt me to do an "enforced" several days with them.

Saturday February 24 2007

This morning was clear and bright. It was about 5 below, don't know what it got in the night, calm and sunny when I went out to photo the drifts again and fill the bird feeders for the birds right after breakfast. The cold just sucks all the energy out of my camera batteries. As I was out there the breeze started coming up and its blowing a gale off and on again. The piles of snow have increased yet again. The horses aren't going into the corral for water yet its so deep going through the gate now. Not that they couldn't make it. If they don't go I'll try to entice them in with some treats, or else they will have to eat snow. I don't think I'll carry them buckets of water just because they don't want to walk through the drifts. They are pretty roly poly and not suffering. Also their legs are longer than mine.

I keep thinking of the year when Sox was young and we had Ginger. We were feeding 15 horses with the team and sled. They and Sunshine stayed in the corral (team). The drifts were deep like this and packed hard as a rock. Sox would get up on top of that drift I call Big Kahuna - inside the corral - and she could have walked right out, snow clear over the corral, but she never did. I never could decide if she was afraid she would sink in, or if it was the idea or habit of the corral fence having her captured, or some of both. I have pictures of her up there.

I have to keep digging out the kitty door in the shed so they can get in and out. Its at ground level. I saw Rascal, the mother cat, up in the shop eves this morning. She likes it there or on top of the woodpile where she can get down in the logs and hide and be sheltered. I think all the cats have wintered o.k. so far, even though we had the fox around for a while.

Betty called and we had a nice visit. She's getting her yard and surroundings all fixed up just in case she sells the house (Mesquite NV). Over the last few years we discussed so much about what was needed to spiff the place up. Anyway now she's happy its all getting done. She has a favorite worker, Martin, who was gone for some years and he’s back and able to help her on days off from his regular job. I hope to go down and see all the results she's accomplished maybe in April. Some of our other high school friends might get together then, so that will be fun. (Its our 50 year high school reunion year.)

My sister Gloria wrote me during one of our blizzards and said she was mailing us some lemons off her trees. They live in Green Valley south of Tucson. She kept them from freezing down there in their cold spells, so I hope they don't come up here to freeze in the mailbox! I'll do that thing .......when someone gives you lemons, make lemonade. Maybe have a bbq and pretend its summer.

Joe's doing fine. Does his chores and watches the news and sports. Joe's job is to keep the stove going, bring in wood and stuff. He makes a mess of it all though and then its my job to clean it up. He's gone out to bring in the stove wood, and that's when I usually vacuum so he's not sitting in the middle of me working. People liked the emailed picture of him up close and personal with the stove. We named it "Watching the Warm Channel".

Friday February 23 2007

Raven with Dorito Bag

Today I got the last info for a letter to the WAOW membership about the board meeting and finished it up, have been working on it periodically for several days. It will get posted probably tomorrow. WAOW is having a big show in Chicago in November at a very nice gallery.

It started snowing again this morning, sometimes really coming down, but didn't add up to much. Then the wind started and blew all day and into the night. The drifts have grown more than another foot from the wind, not from fallen snow depth. It will be interesting to see them in the morning, because the wind is really howling around the eves right now.

Joe asked for my grandmother's hot German potato salad for dinner with garlic toast. Even the dogs like it. They like almost everything, especially Raven. She eats fruit and vegetables, begs for grapes, bananas and watermelon and nuts. I got more pictures of her licking out the bottom of a Doritos bag. Its the funniest thing to watch. She gets her head in the bag clear up to her ears and then can't breathe in there and the bag puffs in and out. It takes her a while but she gets every crumb. Sparky sticks to cottage cheese cartons or butter tubs and the like, then needs his face washed. They are sure a lot of company.

Thursday February 22 2007

Finch in Snowy Tree

Well I sure enjoyed the meeting with everyone yesterday. Recuperating today somewhat - between getting other things done. We had our usual dang good time. Trying now to catch up on the emails. I didn't do emails at all yesterday and by evening there were over 80. I've been trying to keep them caught up every day, and keep working on the WAOW stuff. I'm getting really tired of emailing lately, they come faster than I can answer.

This morning I saw the first two blackbirds since they left last fall. They are coming to get sunflower seeds with the rosy finches I feed in the back yard - the finches are here all winter. The blackbirds are always the first sign we have of spring being on the way. I don't know how they live out there with snow covering everything, but they stake out their territory down in the slough, and soon will be singing springtime blackbird songs.

Wednesday February 21 2007

Charm, Gina, Sandy, Kay, Ruth, Melita and I had a good Mixed Media meeting. Melita and Gina skied in and the rest we hauled in by snow machine on our little sled. I made it out to where they park on the county road about 9 a.m. They laughed and whooped and hollered so loud on the ride in I thought they were falling off. Frosty drove by right then and I think he was pretty amused. The dogs ran back and forth to the mailbox on every trip. I took three trips out and back and Charm took one. I let the dogs ride part of the time, and the last trip out Raven sat on the sled with Ruth and Charm. She never had stayed there before when I tried to get her to ride there. Sparky rode with me on the seat. Both Raven and Sparky were pretty pooped by night.

We had good weather, dark black clouds to the north and mostly blue skies to the west and south. Not cold or windy. The county did get the road plowed as it had drifted in pretty bad the last time Joe and I went to town. The meeting and lunch went really well. I baked fresh blueberry pecan scones so we had that with coffee after their ski in. We had pineapple frozen salad, turkey noodle soup, hot rolls and a dark chocolate soufflé pudding with whipped cream for lunch. And wine. I did have to make the ladyfingers to line the pudding mold with as they were non-existant in Pinedale. We all had a good time, and most of us painted a still life that Charm set up in the studio. I used pastels. I'll work on it some more and it might be worth framing.

Joe went to town as usual when we have the meeting here. He had lunch in there and visited with some of his friends. He got back about 3 p.m. and had scones and coffee while we did our ferrying back and forth to take everyone out. Hugs all around, and farewell until next time. I'll send some photos in a day or so of the goings on.

This was devastating news from a friend near Cora north of Pinedale and my heart goes out to them: On Wed night, Maryhelen and Bautista's barn burned to the ground. The cause is not clear, but there was a heat lamp on the new lambs which might have been knock into the straw. The fire investigators were out yesterday and could only find limited information. Fortunately, neighbors saw the fire around 11 pm and called it in. Bautista was asleep and had to be wakened by them. The house was not damaged except for a scorch mark on one corner, cosmetic only. The sad thing is they lost all their sheep who were in the barn that night. Bautista is especially upset about them. The rest of the stuff was only furniture, tools, etc. Somethings of sentimental value, but no big things. They are well insured for which I am thankful. As some of you know, Maryhelen had knee replacement surgery on he left knee last week. She is doing well. She is in the Retirement Center in Pinedale recuperating. She is able to do PT twice a day, which I think will speed her recovery. We're all still in semi shock around here. Hopefully, the insurance will cooperate and we can clean up the mess this weekend.

You might remember my friend Melita and Hanks big shop/garage burned last fall. They also lost everything even her new SUV and Hank's irreplaceable old flatbed truck. They about have a new building completed now. I haven't seen it yet. Her skis burned up, so she had new skis and new boots she used to come in here on Wednesday, really nice ones.

Sadly the mechanic Lance K. who usually worked on my car and changed my flat tires died. He was 44 and a real nice guy. He had some kind of machinery accident on his ranch that crushed his chest. I felt really bad to hear that. He raised horses and has a stud horse he bred. He did rodeo and roping with his horses.

Tuesday Febrary 20 2007

12x12 Pastel

by Lynn Thomas

We had a guy walk in here this morning. He was really thirsty. He and a friend had stayed in their truck all night since about 10 p.m. Got stuck in a drift, trying to come down our road! They had called 911 and told the sheriffs office they were on the Boulder Lake road, so they were really lost - that's 25 miles from here. They weren't very stuck but they didn't know that and because it was dark they sat there all night. They ran the truck all night to keep warm. They didn't have any chains, food or water or equipment, or anything with them but what they were wearing. At daylight he cut across the sagebrush i.e. straight in toward the house (difficult terrain, no trail - no gates) and that's really hard walking. His pant legs were wet and frozen to above his knees. We gave them water and got a scoop shovel. Joe took him back out on the snow machine and they got the truck unstuck. His friend had been digging while he walked. I would have taken the digging. Said he worked in the oilfield and when Joe asked him what he was doing out there in the middle of the night, and then asked him if he was hunting, he wouldn't answer. (Hunting is open for a few things.) I always suspect some drug deal or something fishy like poaching. He seemed nice, but they are all a bunch of rough characters. Sandy who works in the post office said she went and took a self defense class because she's afraid someday one of them might rob the P.O. or worse.

Charm said a man and his little boy were driving up her road (not plowed) in a van and got stuck. Its the back country there like here. They didn't have even coats with them, and no boots etc. Jim stopped to help him and kind of asked him what he thought he was doing out like that where the road wasn't open, and the guy told him to shut his mouth. So Jim left him there. Jim and Charm have been snow machining there since end December, as we have. (And there were other fishermen around that Jim asked to check on them but that guy was gone later.)

Very sunny here today. Much warmer the last couple of days. Snow is settling down. Between the wind scouring some places to bare ground and the drifts you don't know what we're going to get. The dogs have stretched out in the sun in the bare spots in the front yard. We were supposed to get 10 inches of snow last night, and got nothing.

Today I had an appointment but cancelled my haircut. I will give her an extra tip when I go in next time because I suspect she went in early before she got my message. Got some housecleaning done. Getting ready for the meeting took me most of 3 days with the other stuff I need to do every day, yesterday nothing else was accomplished. I'm a lot slower now than I used to be.

You probably noticed I keep mentioning the drifts. We've had way deeper snow in the past, but I don't think we've ever had drifts this big, close but these are growing every time the wind blows

Monday February 19 2007

Mule Team

14x17 Pencil Drawing

by Lynn Thomas

It snowed and the wind blew. I went out that afternoon and took the photos of the drifts. This afternoon I worked a while on one of my pastels and its much more finished. Its ended up divided right in half though - horizontally. One of the evenings around this time I got a couple of sketches onto large canvases, now hope I can get the ambition and time to get them painted. I don't know why I keep having visions of getting all these paintings done. I also finally figured out how to make the address labels for Mixed Media roster. Its very weird in that program, but I did it. I finally clicked print preview and it showed the page all perfect. All I needed to do was say "print", even though the document was showing nothing on the screen, as in blank. Wonder how much time I wasted on that. I even got the photo card to download. After several more unsuccessful tries, I scrubbed off the metal contact part (soft cloth) and the next time it worked fine. The card may be about ready to give up the ghost - I've probably taken more than a thousand pictures on it. I learned a bit more about the new Photoshop Elements. Hope I remember it next time. Having a time figuring out how its file system works.

This afternoon I made ladyfingers for Wednesday's dessert . Even though they are quite easy, mine didn't turn out so great, kind of flat. But I'll use them. Its probably one of those things you need to practice to get it right. And being egg whites probably need to work quicker than I did. I made a pastry bag out of a tube tip (where that came from I don't know) and a plastic zip bag. Worked great and threw out the icky bag when it was done. Got a couple loads of laundry done.

Charm invited me to drive with her to Jackson and have lunch and go to the galleries on March 2. She has a med. appt. Turns out its the same day Joe has his next eye checkup to see if he needs laser treatment on his second cataract surgery so I can't go (we've only got the one truck out). I think his eyes are bothering him, he sits with them shut a lot. I'll have to take another rain check. I sure would have enjoyed the day away.