Sunday September 2 2007

be sure to check back here in a few days -

I'll put in some photos and maybe

a little more story about the show.

I just haven't had a chance to do it yet.

ART SHOW IN THE BARN

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Lynn Thomas, Western Artist
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You Are Invited to View

a Special Showing of Paintings

The Paintings will hang from

July 15 through October 30

Studio at House on Muddy –

105 Richie Road
Boulder WY 82923
307-537-5678 -

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lmthomas@hughes.net

http://www.lynnthomasart.com/

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Saturday September 1 2007

Bobbi and Lynn - by Sally

A skunk or some other animal has been in the cat food and water. Wild animals make an awful filthy mess to be cleaned up. I will have to set a trap because it likely won't just go away now that it's found the free lunch counter. And if it keeps coming back there won't be enough cat food to last until the next shopping trip. If I bait the live trap with an apple or something like that maybe the cats won't go in and get caught.

Betty called twice today, and decided to put off her trip here for about a week, which will be fine. She will miss our Sublette County Artists Guild meeting. I know she would have enjoyed that. But we'll have other things to do while she's here.

Sheral also called this afternoon. She has a lot of her family over there now.

First thing this morning I took down the shower curtains and washed them with the towels and put them back up so they are fresh. I'll probably get a new plastic liner when we go to Rock Springs and I go to Walmart. I don't know where the day went today, but by late afternoon I still had all the things sitting here to be done that I had to do this morning. Ironing Joe some shirts and levis to go to town in has been on the list for two or three months now. He wore the last good shirt he had ironed when we went to town on Thursday. So that's the ultimatum that I HAVE to iron. I HATE IRONING MORE THAN ANYTHING! Actually I only iron once or twice a year. I brushed the dogs and clipped their toenails. There are dog toenails all over the studio floor, so I hope I get that cleaned up before anyone drops by. I got a flea off my head afterwards and I just HATE that. I feel like I'm crawling with them for a couple of hours afterwards. So far that was the only one. It could have come off Smokey when I picked her up too.

Joe let Bobbi out of the corral today and she took Nube and went right down to the furthest corner of the field and will probably stay there for the next month. She doesn't want to be put back in that corral again. The grass is dry enough she will probably be fine now.

I watered all my flower pots and shrubs today. Then worked on my new flower bed area getting the sod out of it. It was in the heat of the day and the sun really blazing down, so I got too hot. Came in and drank a couple of glasses of iced tea and sat a while to cool off. While I was doing that I did some on line shopping that I had been procrastinating. Then I still had to change the sheets that was supposed to be an early morning job, wash them, and empty the dish washer. We had a hamburger for dinner, just wanted to do something fast and easy. We had the same potato salad I had made for lunch because I burned up the french fries. I only turned my back on them for a moment while I sliced tomatoes and onions!! I wouldn't even feed them to the dogs, and they love french fries.

With this blog post I'm all caught up on the backed-up blogs! This is a good feeling of accomplishment.

Friday August 31 2007

Found Antelope Skull

The last day of August, and pretty much the beginning of fall here. Its been decidedly cooler. Leaves are coming off the trees. We've all been seeing clumps of yellow foilage around the country for several weeks now. Joe has finished up his wood pile.

Carol called and said she went home from the lodge yesterday, going as far as Lander the first day. She lives in Nebraska. She said she was just having too much trouble breathing at the high altitude. I know she really hated to go because she loves it up there so much. She was going to cook for hunting season, until about November. She had a nice trip to Germany this spring where a daughter and husband are stationed. They took her to Paris too. It was nice she got to do that.

We were supposed to have heavy rains yesterday which would have been nice, but got some thunder showers. Not enough to even water my flower pots. Joe went out and got the mail and went down to the river look at a big rock pile that our neighbor owns. If they are what he can use in the septic fix-up job, he will call them to see if he can have a pickup load or so. The county ran a big gravel separator there for a summer getting gravel for road maintenance south of there. But they can't put the biggest rocks on the road so that pile has just set there ever since. Once I went a got a truck load years back when the tractor fell through into an old cess pool I didn't know was there in the yard. I filled the hole up with some of those rocks.

I see that pinedaleonline.com has an interesting story with 21 pictures about the BLM gathering 500 horses off the desert south of us. They will be put up for adoption. The pictures look like they are nice looking horses and in good shape. There are supposed to be twice as many as there should be on the range, and that isn't good at all in such a drought year, they might starve to death this winter. Cat Urbigkit took the pictures. She has wildlife pictures in the paper every week and is a wonderful author.

http://www.pinedaleonline.com/news/2007/08/Wildhorseroundup.html

Sandra said that she went up to Irish Canyon, probably staying in her trailer, and heard a wolf howling. My dogs have sure been barking at night, more of a ruckus than they usually do just at coyotes, especially Raven has a fit about what she is hearing. Sparky is the one, he sings a beautiful song, and you can tell how hard he tries to make it sound wonderful. I'm not sure I've heard anything but coyotes, and plenty of those. But I get the dogs in right away when they start to bark out there in the dark.

I paid the bills on line for the first time since I got the computer back. Before this I did it twice on another computer. I ordered printer ink online too by clicking the HP online shopping and that worked well. I'm out of color ink.

Was thinking today that I probably am not the chosen one for the governor's portrait project, as I haven't heard a thing yet and and they said they would choose the artist in late August. I wonder who it is that got it.

Remember the garden wagon I was thinking of buying back before the computer woes? I ordered it Monday and the UPS lady brought it Wednesday. She picked that huge bulky heavy box up and carried it clear across the yard. I thought.....WOAH!! I tried to do that to get it in the garage, but decided to go get the dolly. Well.....I did used to be able to do that kind of thing, but not now. She must have one huge set of muscles carrying all those packages every day. No need for her to go to the gym after work.

Thursday August 30 2007

A walk in the Park and swim in Pine Creek

Today we both had haircuts. Mine at 10 and Joe's at 11, so left about 9-ish and drove to Pinedale. I still had a sack of warm winter gloves and hats to take to the second hand store so did that first. Then Joe dropped me off at the beauty shop. Everyone in Under Wraps, where I had been going for years now, closed up shop and moved to a new large beauty shop and spa, Kattle Kates down on the west end of town. It's all decorated in a western theme. I thought it looks kind of ticky tacky. The old Under Wraps is going to be a business office now. A whole bunch of people work in the new place. Kaidy was still getting moved in, and had 3 ladies, including me, there waiting for haircuts. She is keeping really busy. Kaidy styled my hair just a little different, more "wedgie" so I might have a little more style, but it looks a lot like it always has. I saw Kathryn, a "shirt tail" relative of Joe's by marriage. I really like her and her husband Floyd and we had a short visit. I didn't get in for my appointment until 10:20, so Joe was out there waiting before I was finished, and although he had nearly 15 minutes to drive 1/2 a mile down the street to his "beauty shop" he was telling me he was going to be late.

While he was getting his "do" I took the car to the automatic car wash, and it's so dirty it didn't get clean (it hasn't gotten all the film off for quite a few washes lately. I'm going to have to use some rubbing compound to get it clean. I can just do it in sections so it won't be such as hard job. For the first time had to wait behind four other cars to get in. So Joe was done and standing outside when I got back to pick him up.

We had lunch at the Chinese restaurant. Next took the dogs to the park nature path and let them swim in the creek. They got the lunch leftovers. Then drove out to take my artwork to the framing shop. I had 5 or six small ones that need to be custom framed because they are odd sizes. Also I asked Ruth if Gary would mind cleaning up and repairing 7 clunker/junker frames to see if they were anything worth using, and if not I would throw them out. We will see what he can do with them. I'm tired of them taking up space on my shelves if they should be trashed. They are putting a new sun room on their place that will connect to the garage.

After that was the grocery store. Joe walked the dogs again out in the grassy field behind Falers and then had coffee and doughnuts in the deli until I finished. Next I wanted to check out getting a new stove and dishwasher at Pinedale Lumber to replace my old broken ones, but Joe was ready to go home. I found out later with a phone call that the only local option is to order them from Falers - Pinedale Lumber where we originally got ours isn't selling appliances right now until they can build a new showroom. So maybe while Betty is here we can go in and order the new appliances. OOPS! You didn't know Betty is coming yet did you? She and Amigo will be here on the 6th. Plans have been in the works for some time now.

We had BLT sandwiches for dinner so that was easy after a long day. This evening I purged out my wyoming.com email account and forwarded the keeper messages to hughes.net email, but somehow they never arrived at my computer. The only good thing about that is I don't need to do anything about them. People (are you one?) keep using wyoming.com even though I've told them I have a new address ever since last October. I seldom look at wyoming.com and use it for shopping etc.

Wednesday August 29 2007

Joe's Favorite Chair

This morning it was cold enough that the hose had frozen. Joe always gets up early and has been watering the trees and yard in back. He uses a timer and every 10 minutes he goes out and changes the position of the sprinkler. The trees still looked stressed and the leaves aren't as full as is normal for them. It's from the drought and low water table. The last week or two it has been getting into the low 40s and high 30s at night. My flower pots are showing that some of them have been frosted. Joe is still splitting wood.

The serious emails have gone from 130 to about 90 in the last few days. Of course new ones are coming in all the time. I keep reading, filing and responding if need to. And did several more days for the blog. Tonight I fixed us lobster for dinner. It was pretty tasty.

Tuesday August 28 2007

Cattle Drive along the road. Looking Across the Field in Back.

The white things are antelope.

Fixed Joe ham and biscuits for breakfast and worked on my other usual duties in fits and starts. Another day with not much happening. He's still working on his woodpile in the morning and watching sports in the afternoon. There is a lot of smoke in the sky again to the west.

Betty Pfaff called and I really enjoyed visiting with her. Sounds like she is keeping busy with her family and doing pretty well. I wish we lived closer, but she's clear down in Kemmerer.

Today my cat Smokey let me pick her up and put her up on the feeding "table" where there was a dish of canned fish cat food for her. I've lifted her for an instant a few other times. She lets me pet her while she eats and seems to like it, but never comes to me any other time. She has never hissed at me or anything. None of the other cats will come in while there is any commotion or if the dogs are around. Smokey even walked up to Sparky and kissed him on the nose. Sparky's eyes got kind of wide and he stiffened up like he was surprised but never moved. He is always looking for "cats", but doesn't chase. I think he wants to be friends. Raven's a different story, she wants to chase but is getting very good about restraining herself. I saw the mother Rascal for the first time in months the other day. She was up in the eaves of Joe's shop. I was very glad to know she's o.k.

There have been some cows in the field by our gate all summer, but Doc brought over a bigger herd this morning. It always means summer is about over when the cattle start appearing in the hay fields after they've been mowed. We've noticed that Muddy Creek has about quit running, seems like it's more dry than I've ever seen it. It has sometimes stopped running down toward our property, but there are always springs and ponds. The cows all have black mud up to their bellies where they have had to get in the mud that deep to reach some water. Luckily Doc and Jerry had a well drilled in that field a few years back and can pump the cattle some water. I've never known that they used it yet, but they might need to this year. All the rivers are so low, its very sad looking to see a mighty river with just puddles around the rocks on the bottom. I wonder what will happen to the fish.

Monday August 27 2007

Joe Splitting Wood for the Winter

Joe's working on his woodpile again today. He is doing it in the morning while it is cool and the trees really shade his work space then. The dogs just sit in the cab of the yellow Chevy while he's out there....helping as they usually do.

I worked a long time on catching up the blog today, and read more emails and filed them away. There was laundry to do. I had several phone calls and enjoyed visiting with Jackie. She broke her ankle, the small bone in her leg just above her ankle actually. She always changes the big sprinklers on her hilly horse pasture, and slipped and fell doing that. She skootched all the way home on her butt from up there in order to get her husband and be taken to the hospital. We hadn't been able to email but had talked on the phone a few times since. She is going to a very nice wildlife painting workshop with John Seerey Lester teaching in Canada about 8 hours drive from her home. I hope she has a wonderful and restful time there.

Later Nancy called to let me know that she is hosting the small painting group tomorrow, but I won't go this time. I keep feeling like I have so much to catch up even though I would so enjoy doing that. We had a nice visit, and she told me the recent developments about their new house and how its going. That is a long story. They have a lease right on the shore of Fremont Lake, which had an older cabin on it. They decided to get a new modular home instead of building on to the cabin, and thought everything was in order, had the old building torn down and the foundation all built, all the red tape you go through with the forest service approved, and the new house delivered, etc. etc. Then the forest service "boss" came and told them they couldn't put that house there, and even made her tear out some of her old plantings she loved as well. Its way longer and complicated for them than this. But to make that long story short, they bought another piece of property to put this house on, are having to build that one in another place and all that you go through - permits, well, utilities and so on - and get another house for the lake. And they thought they would be moved in last spring. I would be talking to this guy's boss in Washington if it were me.

Tonight was the full lunar eclipse. I watched a really lovely moonrise, and then the progression off and on through the night. Its not supposed to happen where we can see a full eclipse here again for 17 more years. I hope I'm here to see it then.