Sunday August 17 2008

Irish Creek

It's over the hill to the North of us.

Yet another beautiful morning. Sure makes me wish I could be back in the high mountains again. Betty called yesterday and as always I sure enjoyed talking with her. She's going to come back for another visit here in the last half of September and maybe I'll go back to Nevada with her. Then Debbie wants to come back to the ranch in October and she can bring me home. That sounds like a good plan and all the travel arrangements taken care of for me.

All day yesterday I worked on the book. It helps to get other messes out of the way to be productive on something. I reread and edited about half of the Nevada section, and made it more readable. I'm always surprised when I go back and find things not as organized as they should be, as many times as I've been through it already. Part 1 The California Years has 102 pages. I consider it 95% finished, since I'm sure there will be a few additiions and polishing. Part 2 The Nevada Years has 107 pages - it is not finished completely yet. Part 3 The Wyoming Years is the one yet to be written, although all the journals and letters have been typed into the computer. It's going to be mainly editing.

I can't even estimate how much work and how many pages in reference and correspondence and investigation have been written in addition. I bet 25 times that much would be a conservative estimate. It's all organized and all the actual paperwork is sorted and filed, most of that is also copied/typed or scanned. I just need to get to writing the last of it. In fact, the blog will be fuel for the last years. Also many photos need to be scanned yet, and inserted into the proper places in the text. If anyone has any memories they want to share, it would be appreciated.

Gone Fishin' - Irish Canyon

I slept in pretty late today, but am feeling better now after the last chemo. The first few days it feels like I will never feel good again. But then the "sickness" gradually lifts away and I'm better - usually by Saturday. For sure I'm going to spend some time outdoors today, doing one thing or another. Tomorrow I'll go into town to the meeting for the Community and Fine Arts Center. I've missed too many of them. I have to get a couple of prescriptions filled too.

It's the birthday of actress and playwright Mae West, born in Brooklyn, New York (1893). She said, "When women go wrong, men go right after them. "And, "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful."

Saturday August 16 2008

Sacred Dreams of Father Sky

35x45 Oil Painting on Elk Rawhide

by Lynn Thomas

This painting sold yesterday to be placed

in the new Marbleton Clinic.

Thank you!

Shown before, but thought you'd like to see which one it is.
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No snow, although it could have powdered the mountains and we wouldn't have seen it from here. Deb said 108 in Vegas and Gloria said hot and humid in Green Valley. The wind came up strong from the north and nearly tore the back door off the hinges every time we tried to go out. It cleared off by evening and the full golden moon was exquisite shining through the dark remnants of the storm clouds.

Carrie and Lorraine came over late yesterday afternoon to see the art show. They had been interested in the painting on rawhide of the tipis in an aspen grove for the reception area of the new Marbleton Clinic. I'm very pleased to have it go there. It will be interesting to see how it is displayed - we discussed possibilities for framing or how it will be presented. They also took some prints.

Carrie also kindly brought us homemade soup, bread and jam. We had the bread for dinner and it's absolutely delicious. It tastes wonderful to my out of kilter taster, so I really enjoyed it. And so did Joe. Carrie gave me such a caring hug in the yard, it seemed like a special blessing out under our Wyoming sky. I enjoyed seeing her again, and meeting Lorraine.

For dinner I had made chicken and noodles for dinner from a Ridley's roasted chicken with Carrie's bread and Melita's fresh lettuce and Bonnie's greenhouse tomatoes. Nothing tastes as good as home grown tomatoes. The dogs got all the chicken skin and scraps so they had a good dinner too. Puttered around with different chores today, mostly still taking it easy. I got the last pile of scrap reference filed away into the file cabinets. It was tempting just to throw it in the trash, but I went ahead and saved them. The stack had been waiting ever since before I went for surgery. Another thing to scratch off the list. HA!

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Leaves in Late Summer

Cousin Iris called from Houston this morning and it was really nice to talk to her. Clayton is getting braces on his teeth next week. It's already time to go back to school and they have been shopping for new school clothes. Tayler will leave for college in Reno in a few days too. I think they said she wants to be a publisher. I know she's going to do well with her schooling and college years. They are all going up together, and Debbie and Curtis will stay several days until she gets all settled. There are lots of parent meetings and get togethers. She and her high school friend Angela? have a dormitory room together, so they will get that all fixed up too.

Last night I watched Lawrence of Arabia. I just can't imagine what it took to make a movie like that. Where ever did they get all the camels, wonderful horses and Arabians to act in the huge group scenes. It said they thought it would take 5 months and it took two and a half years. How would they feed and house all those people? Tonight it's Casablanca and then Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

On this day in 1977, Elvis Presley died at 42 in Memphis, Tennessee. Elvis Presley said, "Ambition is a dream with a V8 engine."(I didn't admire his kind of ambition, but he had a good voice.)

Friday August 15 2008

Horse Creek - Near Dubois

12x16 Plein Air Oil Painting

by Lynn Thomas

Hmmm, here I am ready to blog with nothing much to say. August is half over. Not feeling the greatest this morning, but hopefully that will improve. Yesterday's blog was long enough for several days. Anyway got it started for today and will come back to write later. Carrie is coming over this afternoon to look at some paintings for the new Marbleton Clinic. We're trying to set up a meeting early next week with the artists and Jo and maybe the architect for the Community and Art Center. It's pretty cloudy, but not really suggesting rain. Cool enough for a sweatshirt to start off with anyway.

Was just thinking it's feeling like fall and then Sally had posted this so I copied it for you. Thanks Sally! This is us. - - -THIS HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK IS FOR WESTERN AND CENTRAL WYOMING..DAY ONE...TODAY AND TONIGHT SNOW SHOWERS ARE EXPECTED IN THE BIG HORN...SOUTHERN ABSAROKA AND WIND RIVER MOUNTAINS TODAY. THE BIG HORN MOUNTAINS WILL BE MOST STRONGLY IMPACTED...ESPECIALLY THE EASTERN SLOPES...WITH THE POTENTIAL FOR 2 TO 6 INCHES OF SNOW ABOVE 8500 FEET BEFORE SNOW TAPERS OFF THIS AFTERNOON. LIGHTER AMOUNTS OF SNOW ARE EXPECTED IN THE ABSAROKA AND WIND RIVER MOUNTAINS WITH 2 TO 3 INCHES POSSIBLE THROUGH THIS EVENING. MORE ISOLATED THUNDER STORMS ARE EXPECTED EAST OF THE DIVIDE THIS AFTERNOON WHICH MAY PRODUCE HEAVY RAIN AND SMALL HAIL. THESE HEAVIER SHOWERS MAY ALSO TEMPORARILY LOWER THE SNOW LEVEL DOWN TO AROUND 8000 FEET IN THE MOUNTAINS..

Thursday August 14 2008

Big Horn Sheep

20x24 Oil Painting

by Lynn Thomas

One of the newly scanned paintings.

The darks are too dark and I haven't figured out how to

just take that out. The scenery is Shadow Lakes.

Yesterday I made Joe the recipe book he has asked for - some of his simple to make favorite dishes. It turned out to be about 50 pages. There are a few empty pages in case we think of something else to go in there. I can think of one of his mother's salad dressing recipes that I had forgotten about. I had bought a special notebook and plastic envelope pages to put them in. He wanted them to have large bold print so he could read them. I printed them off letter sized with size 18 font. That is another thing to cross off the list!

After I cleaned the carpet last week I cleaned my upholstered office chair which was absolutely filthy. It took about an hour going over and over it, and I finally sprayed it with Clorox kitchen cleaner which routed out a lot of the stains. It's so much nicer to sit down in now and looks quite good again. I was ready to trash it and get a new one, but this will do for a while longer. Off the list!

Today I got through a very large pile of paperwork that had been haunting me for months, What a good feeling that is. I have some bills to pay and then can go on to other things without that hanging over. Scratched off the List!

I sorted out all the art magazines that have piled up and will give about 50 away if I can find someone to take them. Guess there's always the Rendezvous Pointe art room. This will be the first time I haven't gone through all the magazines to clip out "scrap" for my reference files. It's hard to leave it alone. That is something I've done and saved since I was a kid but I don't need to do that any more. Scratched it off the list!

I waited until 2:30 for the the TV repair men and then called the TV place since I had to go to town. He hadn't heard from the repairmen recently. They were doing some installation. We will set up another appointment for them to work on the TVs next week. I need to be here when they come.

This afternoon I had to go in to Pinedale Clinic and get the chemo pump taken off. I sure didn't feel like driving in, but it turned out it was a good thing to just get out and take the drive.

While in there I got another long pending chore done, and that was taking all my paperwork on the book collection back to the Museum of the Mountain Man for a small correction in the agreement. I've had the paperwork since January. About 2000 they started putting a phrase into the contract that the museum could sell or dispose of things that aren't of interest to them in order to raise funding. But my wishes for the collection, books, slides and art reference, was that it should all stay intact. So Laurie the director and Peggy? the curator in residence and I discussed what is the best way to word the contracts and also what actually is the best disposition of the collection. That is fixed now to reflect my wishes for it all to stay intact. They were very helpful and agreeable. I'm sure the proper thing will be done. They are also happy to hear that Zane is getting all the slides onto the DVDs. At the same time we straightened out some questions about paintings that I had donated, and that should be in order now. A few more things to cross off the list!

We made a provision that IF the new Community and Art Center has a place for the collection , which is primarily an art reference collection, such as a library - and they want the collection there, that it can go from the Museum of the Mountain Man to the Fine Arts Center Library. By that time, I may no longer be here so I wanted to make sure that the right thing happens with the collection. When we started this process in the '90's I didn't think a Fine Art Center would be built in Pinedale in my lifetime. But of course now it is quite likely to be built and finished within three to five years probably. So my collection will either stay at the MMM or go intact to the Center, depending on currently unknown circumstances that will happen in the future. So far the plans for the new art center don't name a space for a library although the artists have requested one.

I took two paintings in to Melita's so she can keep them for Dawn who called and said she wanted them after they had visited last week. That was nice to have a reason to go see Melita. She gave us some fresh leaf lettuce out of her wonderful garden. I saw her spectacular flowers and the delphiniums on the south side of her house are as high as the roof. I got home about 5:45 and Joe was having cereal for dinner, so that's what I had too. And some strawberries.

Another really lovely day here - cool and some wind. Maybe some chances of rain in the next couple of days. But it sounds like that will be further east and south. Maybe only in the 50s for highs. We recently had a couple of nights below freezing already, and the flowers in the pots wilted a little, but seem to have come back.

Even though feeling very fatigued, I'm not feeling all that "bad". Same things going on that are usual. Food is tasting awful, but I eat it anyway.

Wednesday August 13 2008

What the Flower Bed in Back Used to Look Like
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Joe went to town early for his blood tests. Sure another nice day out there. I got up about 9 - I'm feeling better this morning than I did after the last treatment, although my eyes are still so sore. It's real hard to want to do anything that I have to use them. Even so, Joe has asked me to make him a recipe book with large print of some of his favorite recipes. So I might just work on that. He probably will never really use it, but he wants it so I'll go through all the recipes and pick some out. Otherwise, I will just take it easy today, but come back if anything interesting happens later.

IT'S JUDI'S BIRTHDAY!!

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR JUDI

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU

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We've done lots of hikes and outings together.

Judi

Tuesday August 12 2008

Big Round Bales

Cinnamon Teal Family

on Muddy Creek.

It's mostly a marsh through our place.

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Cattle in the Field in Back of Our House.

House is to the right.

Muddy Canyon in the background.

Click for details - the shadows aren't quite right

but you can see the Muddy Canyon

Mare and Colt rock formation in the center.
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Up early to get ready to go to Jackson for Chemo. Joe got the car out for me and I loaded in the rest of the recycling. Took my juice and yogurt with me for a to-go breakfast. Judi and I met the shuttle at the Pinedale Clinic at 9 a.m. A really beautiful day for the ride, never tire of the scenery, the summer rivers, lots of wildlife. We all had a great time visiting all the way up and back. They are really working on that natural gas pipeline along the highway, lots more equipment, workers and much dirt and rocks moved. Reclaimation on the upper end is looking good and should have vegetation growing back by next summer.

It was just much like other days in the chemo department so this time I'm not going to write all the details. Very nice of Virginia to come in for a few minutes and check on me. The lunch was good - I had a patty melt and Judi had her favorite grilled turkey Ortega. Bob, who has been on the same schedule as me and rides the shuttle doesn't have to go back for a while now - I hope he feels good for some time to come. His cancer is not curable either.

We could clearly see where the New Fork Fire had burned, and in the morning many smokes were rising over a large area, but it was clear this afternoon. The rains must have done a good job putting it out. Al thinks it will smolder until the snow comes though.

I'm not even sure what time we got back to Pinedale, 4-ish, but I recycled and did the grocery shopping. Thought I'd only get a few necessary things, but went ahead and got the whole big list. Enjoyed the evening drive from Boulder to home and took time to get some photos. The ranches are in the midst of haying, looking like they are well more than half finished.

Joe unloaded the groceries and I put them away. Glad that chore is done for a while. I will go back on Thursday to get the pump taken off. Also Ward called and the TV repairmen are coming on Thursday. Perhaps the timing for that will work out so I can be here, maybe they will come early and I can go to Pinedale in the afternoon.

Not feeling too bad this time. The last session I got pretty sick while I was still in the chair so I was kind of dreading it this time, but am doing fine. Paige said it the chemo does build up over time, so it's not unusual to feel worse as time goes by. Anyway am having my usual first night insomnia, so decided to blog. I'll stick in a video and lay down and get cozy and hope to sleep.

Took my laptop along again today, but I didn't use it. The battery was low so Judi charged it up and did some things on it. She rearranged my blog addresses - now they are listed so the ones that have been updated most recently are always on top. Kind of neat because now you can see who has updated with something new and who hasn't for a while will be on the bottom. She also changed the blog listings to read the person's name instead of their blog address. It can be changed back if I don't like it that way. She also taught me how to play soduko, and at least I got the gist of it. That may be a big mistake - I've avoided it so far.

Thanks, Judi. And thanks so much for going along with me again today.