Saturday June 23 2007

Drifts
20x24 Oil - by Lynn Thomas

This was an old painting that I recently scanned. The reference photo was from a trip to Cody and through Yellowstone Park one May coming back from Sheridan and the WAA convention years ago. Since everyone is whining about how hot they are right now, thought this would be a Good Painting for a Summer Day.

So far very nice here. Its supposed to be 86 today but probably will not get to that. We have less smoke this morning, hopefully they are getting the forest fire under control. But last night was another spectacular sunset through the smoke. Joslyn said: "Lisa called Howard and I in Casper…she could see the fire from Piney. Jacques went and checked it out…did put the horses in, to move them if he had to…and I’m sure didn’t get much sleep last nite. Told Howard it kicked up again this afternoon. Jac said very smoky at the ranch." Is that scary or what! I thought it would be back further in the forest, but can see it would be very close to them. Their ranch is very near Horse Creek and Cottonwood Creek, west of Daniel toward the mounains. Today pinedaleonline says at the last report the burn has grown to 700 acres but no buildings are in danger, so I breathed a sigh of relief at that, but the wind is also supposed to blow today.

I was always worried what I would do with 50 horses at the lodge if we had to get out because of a fire, but would have just got horseback and driven the bunch in a direction away from the fire hopefully. We only had a couple of nearby fires during the time I was there. One above the lake that they parachuted to - and other times helicopters would land in the yard.

Smoke Jumpers Above Mud Lake

in the early 80's

You can just see the far shore of the lake on the bottom left. And that's Warbonnet Peak. I have several photos of the parachutes, some with two or three at a time, but this one was the best to give a feeling of place and what's happening. This was probably the time that we fed about 80 hungry Forest Service firefighters for 3 days, breakfast lunch and dinner. Making them each 2 sandwiches with fruit and cookies and a candy bar first thing in the morning was the worst and all those sacks! The second worst thing was we didn't have enough plates and had to keep washing dishes in between shifts. One of them told me I was the best cook between there and the Continental Divide. What a compliment!!.... I was kind of starry eyed until I realized I was the ONLY cook between there and the Continental Divide.

Joe got his baler and mower out of the shed this morning, so guess he's ready to go to haying at a moment's notice, but has to wait for the irrigation water to be turned off first. He and Tom may be making some kind of deal between them for one of the old mowers Joe has.

Finally found all of the files Judi has given me through the years about history and her inverviews and maps and trips and got them together into one big pile instead of stuffed in lots of obscure places. If I ever want to take a trip into the neverland there is a map for that. Judi makes the neatest maps of their treks and explorations with illustrations and miles to gates or forks in the road, over hills and dales. I need to put it all into a file box so I can find them.

I've been trying to get things a little more organized and have to get the Barn Show going. I've sure been procrastinating about everything, especially "spring" cleaning. Need to really do some deep cleaning and do not want to. This morning I renewed the domain name for my website which is due soon - lynnthomasart.com - at godaddy so will have it again for another 3 years. Irritating .....they are trying to get me to take other domain names which I certainly don't need.

4 p.m. 80 degrees in the shade, got my glass of ice tea. Joe mowed the back yard. My flower potting job is finished, unless I can find some more plants to replace all the ones that froze. Next am going on to getting the yard civilized looking. Will get the weedeater out soon and fire it up and have started digging some beds in front to begin the big plant transfer project. I'm thinking about ordering one of those flatbed garden wagons to haul the loads of stuff around with, rocks and boxes of paintings and flower pots and 50 pound bags of dog food etc. Its getting hard to carry loads back and forth in this yard.

Metal Mesh Garden Cart was $150 for $90. What do you think?