Saturday May 3 2008

Jack Rabbit In The Yard

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Lynn and Ruth

Joe took our picture

Ruth came over for a while Friday. She lives about 60 miles away in Big Piney so it was a long drive for her. I really enjoyed seeing her again and getting to visit. We don't get together often enough and should do that more. I stuck some frozen lasagna in the oven for lunch with alpenglow salad and garlic toast. and veggies with ranch dip. Ruth brought homemade brownies were the best ones I have ever had in my life!! I had the two that were left after dinner...... yummy. We did a lot of talking and a little artwork. Finally the fall aspen scene is looking close to being finished. One of Ruth's dogs Ivy is Raven's mom. There were 13 puppies in the litter and she was born on New Year's Eve. So Raven was happy to see grandma Ruth.

Dang, It's just staying cold here most of the time, and the wind has been awful. The picture of the rabbit shows that the grass is turning green now. It really turned fast once it started a week or so ago and perhaps the grass will be good on the desert when the cattle are turned out after branding this year. The snow flurries we are having are helping the grass.

My sister Gloria in Green Valley near Tucson says they are having a measles epidemic there. We're trying to remember 60 years after the fact whether she ever had the measles when she was little, because she might want to get vaccinated if not. She can't remember having them. I can remember when I had them but now am not sure about her.

Excerpt of a paragraph from The Book (my memoirs) - about having The Measles:

We all had the measles on Wren Drive. I came down with them first. In those days during the convalescence you were supposed to stay in a dark room so you wouldn’t go blind. It was believed the measles weakened your eyes and any bright light was forbidden. So I stayed on a couch in the darkened den between the dining room and the kitchen where Mother could keep an eye on me. It was pretty boring to be so confined and it was hard to occupy my time once I got to feeling better. I kept asking, “Can I come out now?” Mother got magazines and gave me a pair of blunt scissors to cut the colored pictures out with. One of the magazines had pictures of Hawaiian cowboys and horses. I sat or lay in the den with the shades drawn and began a pleasurable habit I’ve had all my life, and another important part of being an artist. This simple event began the task of saving, collecting and filing “scrap” as a reference file for painting. I still enjoy cutting up magazines for that purpose today and have a huge reference file. Some of those photos I’ve saved since I was a kid. Another measles memory was a special treat my Mother made for me, amazing awesome purple pudding! She told me it was a secret recipe. I never had it before or since. I guess she just added food color to vanilla or butterscotch pudding, but I thought I was a pretty lucky kid.

A ship with about 150 tourists on a cruise sank off Antarctica after it hit some icebergs. I thought the story was pretty interesting. You can check it out here: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/news/explorer-sinks-antarctica.html

In early May, the International Space Station joins Jupiter and the stars of the Summer Triangle in a glittering pre-dawn sky. Later in the month, increasingly-frequent flybys shift to evening hours and the ISS will be crossing paths with Saturn, the Moon and Mars. Check our Simple Satellite Flybys tool to find out when to look: http://spaceweather.com/flybys .