Sunday August 26 2007

This caterpiller and three more like it, have been in my new willow bush for several weeks, I've never see any like it in our yard before. I thought of what could be yellow and black and I'm wondering if it is a swallowtail butterfly. Also I didn't think it took so long for them to become butterflies. And how come birds haven't found them there - the yard is full of birds. Summer is almost over here. Judi told me she had a book and would look up what it might be.

Joe started splitting wood for the winter wood pile today. I took the dogs for a ride on the ATV. We're been doing that more often lately, bugs are gone and the weather is usually really a nice temperature for being out. Raven really wanted to run and went a long ways. Then when we get back both she and Sparky like for me to spray them with the hose to get cooled off.

Joe's cousin Mary Carolyn called and we had a nice visit. She's been very ill for a while, and is doing better right now. She lives in Prineville OR. A lot of her family was able to come at once to visit recently, and her daughter Carol had sent us photos of everyone. There is a whole new younger generation that I had never even seen yet, so was glad to see how the family is growing.

Brad and Sandy came over today. Joe gave Brad one of his big model airplanes, and told him to have some of the other fliers come and get the rest of his stuff - two more planes I think and all the equipment. He wants to give it all away since he isn't going to fly them any more. I never did get any digital pictures of him flying his planes, just a few slides. Anyway it was really nice to seem them, and visit with Sandy for a while. It was funny when they went home, because they had brought their car and the plane nearly filled up all the space, and the 6' long wing going front to back. I don't really know how they even got it in there. But there wasn't much room for Sandy to sit. Wish I'd gotten pictures of them loading it in there.

Saturday August 25 2007

Cloudy Sky Near Pinedale

This day is blank on the calender. I'm sure I spent it doing as little of my normal routine as possible and the rest working on the email job...... So nothing interesting to write about. After I got the computer back there were a lot of photos I've been taking lately to be downloaded, especially had a lot from when the family was here and of our trip. I began gradually uploading the blog posts I had written and filed each day until I could catch them all up. Although I had done the photos along with the text in Word Blog Post, the pictures wouldn't "go", just the text, so I had to reattach all the photos with each one. But they were all sized and ready to go.

Friday August 24 2007

TA-DAA!!

This is the day that Brandon from Best Buy was supposed to bring back the repaired computer and the NEW TV. He got here after lunch and carried them both in, hooked up the computer, then the TV. It is a victory of sorts, especially the TV, and the end of two months of total frustration. At the beginning I had no idea this whole thing wouldn't be over in a few days. Brandon was hardly here 30 minutes and then turned around and went back to Idaho Falls. I felt a little bit bad that he had such a long drive - with my speed of driving time it would have been 8 hours. But if they didn't want to do it they never should have made the promises that they did. At least finally it did work the way it should.

In the morning before he got here I got my housework pretty well done. My neighbor friend Sandra with her dog Tater Brown came over to pay Joe for hay they got and we sat and had coffee in the yard. I really enjoyed visiting with her and getting to know Tater better. He's a little Border terrier, really wire haired and cute. And busy. Sandra says those dogs come from the border between England and Ireland, I think that's what she said.

And after things were running again, I went online and downloaded all the email - about 1800 today; 800 more gone through a while back at the Senior Center computer, and a few days ago 500+ more on wyoming.com which address I don't even use any more. The first day I just sat until 12:30 a.m., then promised myself I wouldn't do THAT again. Several friends said to delete everything and tell people I lost it all, but I couldn't do it. Deleting what I could was the easy part. Most of the rest I've sorted into subject folders so I could read through them in order. Then there's still over 100 in the inbox to do something with. Reading and responding to all of it is probably going to take a couple of weeks. I've been gradually working on the emails more or less every day, and also catching up the blog - which I enjoy much more now than the email. The very first thing I sent off was the master membership structure which I had written for WAOW that they have been waiting for, part of the new bylaws. I am deleting all my newsletters and things I had subscribed to because there's just not time to read it all right now, as much as I enjoy them - like Writer's Almanac and Robert Genn.

Tater Brown

Thursday August 23 2007

Pepper

Thomas Cousins

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Aubrey and Pat's House

The trouble with catching up the blog is that I can't remember what I did a week ago - or more likely even yesterday - if I don't write it down every day. But I did write down the most important thing for today and that is we were invited to go to dinner at Aubrey and Pat's. James and Kathy were coming too. Sparky and Raven rode along. We got ready and got there about 5:30 to have time to visit. They live way at the back of Bargerville, and we go so seldom on those roads that we are never sure we're taking the right turns, but we found it fine.

They have a wonderful house, a summer home, that Aubrey built himself, and even built a lot of the furniture. He brought oak and other materials all the way from Georgia, where they are from, to build it with. They have it decorated great too. He built a garage this year and that is finished. There is a nice second story deck all across the back of the house with a spectacular view of the mountains. Probably if you could stand on the roof you would see Boulder Lake. which sits in a big hole behind a hill straight out from their deck. They have a really nice view of the whole mountain range. Since we were there last, there are quite a lot more homes developed near them though when they used to be nearly alone back there. Pat recently retired from teaching, and I hope she gets to spend more time out here now. She really likes to be with her family. Aubrey likes to hunt and fish. He makes jerky. Back in Georgia he has a very large garden and they do a lot of canning.

Pat has a brave and feisty little dachshund named Pepper. He is very protective of her and really smart. He loves to go in the truck and on the ATV, just like Sparky and Raven. It was the first time we've seen Pepper.

Aubrey cooked steaks on the grill for dinner, and Pat made wonderful accompaniments to go along with them. I especially liked her pineapple pudding. They are good cooks. And Aubrey gave me a bottle of his steak marinade to try. We also enjoyed the good company, with them and James and Kathy. When it was time to go we followed James out to the highway, so didn't have to wonder if we were taking a right turn. Again all the way home Sparky sat, ears up and eyes on the road, helping me watch for deer and the errant pony. We had a nice evening.

Wednesday August 22 2007

Duck Creek Near Pinedale

Carol stopped by this morning on the way in to town from Big Sandy Lodge. She had gotten to the lodge a couple of days ago from Nebraska to cook for hunting season. One of the guests, Steve? from Boston, was riding along with her to Pinedale. They looked at the art show and he bought a print of the laundry lady. Steve thinks he wants to buy the lodge and make it a center to take handicapped kids into the wilderness. He would take them in on travois pulled by llamas. Can you imagine putting a little handicapped kid on something like that and bouncing over a rocky trail, let along hoping the animal doesn't take off with them. In a corral that works, but I'm skeptical of them doing it in the mountains. Sounds far fetched to me, since none of the buildings are properly handicapped accessible, and he knows nothing about horses or llamas. But Oh, Well!! Maybe he just has a lot more money than he needs. Carol had to get a watch battery. It was good to see her. She isn't sure how she will do up there because she had bad bronchitis or something over the winter and her breathing has gotten a lot worse. She was having trouble in the high altitude.

Don't have many notes on the calender for today, but did keep busy with something all day. Had phone calls. And I called Beverly to see how Brent was doing and how Clay was doing in school. There were meals and more laundry done.

We ate dinner a little early because there was a meeting at 7 p.m. at the library in Pinedale with the small committee for the Conference Center. I took the dogs to ride along with me. The architect had made a very preliminary drawing of the building sized approximately for what we will be needing, and we could see how it would sit on the property. All is still pending on whether we do get the property, but we are making progress in the right direction. Everyone is thinking positive and very optimistic. The meeting took less than an hour, and turned right around and went back home.

As usual Sparky sat on the console and watched for deer and rabbits. It was another wonderful sunset and I enjoyed the drive....especially knowing that the brakes were fine. As we came by Hittle's there was a pony out in the road! and I pulled in to the Bousman's place and told them their pony was out. She said it was from across the highway, that their pony was where it should be. She told me they looked a lot alike and were the same color. And that she would go and yell at it to get it to go back into its pasture. I sure was glad not to have hit it and hope no one else does either.

Tuesday August 21 2007

Evening Panorama of the Wind Rivers

Got ready and gone for town by 8:30. It was a beautiful morning. I took all the recycling in to get rid of which amounted to quite a bit this time, and also a bag of stuff for the second hand store. Shoot, didn't get the second hand stuff dropped off so will have to do it another day. Nancy and Lois came to get me at the car repair and we drove on out to Kay's. I must have still been really wound up because I really rambled on there. But was so happy to be with the friends. We all worked on our art. Mine was a hard pastel drawing on pastel paper of horses in a river-side pasture. It was a lightweight medium to haul and didn't make much mess, but I didn't really like either the hard pastels or the paper. This was the first time I'd used this new set of hard pastels, called Conte crayons. The drawing wasn't too bad. Kay had a very nice lunch of chicken tenders with sauteed zucchini and apple Waldorf salad. There was also dessert, wine and raspberry tequila liquor, all very tasty.

Nancy dropped me back off to pick up the car. Imagine my surprise when the mechanic said the brakes were fine, and still had 3/4 of the pad left. He didn't specifically look for a damaged wheel bearing because he doesn't do that kind of work, but said the wheels also looked good to him and were solid. He said he also thought it was rocks in the hubcaps and said to take it to the car wash and use the power wash hose to flush out the hubcaps. I didn't have time for that and figured I could do that at home. So just went to the store and then on home.

Monday August 20 2007

Icky Work For Joe

Not back to normal yet, but getting close. First thing this morning made some phone calls to get the brakes repaired and decided I'd just take the first one that called back giving me an appointment. That was Express Auto where I usually go to get the oil changed. Soon he called back and the time they gave me was 10 a.m. Tuesday tomrrow. I called up Kay and said if they were having it, I could come to the small Tuesday art group and also shop for groceries. Nancy is going to pick me up at Express Auto at 9:30 and take me to Kay's. So that's the plan

Joe worked most of the day getting the drain field dug up and taking out all the old structure to put in new. Then he hauled it off to dispose of it. I know how much he hates this kind of thing. I suggested that he have someone come and put in a new drain field but so far he's not going to do that.

Today I made the beds and cleaned house. Then went out in the garage and found as many frames of the right size for my new artwork as I could. I'll have Ruth frame all the others. Spent several hours working on my new flower bed space. The weather was cooler with thunderstorms all around.