have you planted a bowling ball today?

what are you waiting for?...they don't whine for water or pester for food...never need pruning and subside well in any soil.

My garden is a sulky thing...despite my loving care, it keeps its fists clenched, refusing to thrive, invites rowdy friends in...keeps bad company...disappears with the flimsiest of excuses....so I'll happily take care of anyone who wants to stay and behave themselves.

a little trip down memory lane....and a lizard

This is Laura Marlow today....a new high school graduate...ranch girl....barrel racer from Eastern Oregon....once a neighbor of mine.  I haven't seen her nor been in contact since she was in the second grade.  Her mom sent me her picture and graduation notice. 

.... here are pictures I did of her  ...a colored pencil of her feeding a chicken, and a watercolor of her wearing Jack's hat.

This is a watercolor of chaps her grandfather made for her.  They were adorable...for trim, he cut pieces from a basket ball, so they had a pebbled design.

These are some pictures of Laura wearing the chaps. posing in our chicken house door.

and below she is eating lunch on a cattle drive break...the subject of a poem I wrote, but won't bore you with.

Now, I'm getting nostalgic and am going to add another picture or two.

The printing under the picture came from a calendar the family had made of one of their brandings.  Laura is tending the Rocky Mountain oysters....the first, and last time I ever tasted them.  They're ok if you're on your fifth day of no food.  These came straight from the cow to the fire...tended by a 7 year old with suspect fingers....maybe that's how you're supposed to savor them...I just figured the temperature would do any sterilizing.

This was during the branding...She was all over any horse left standing by himself....she'd shinny up somehow.  One of my favorite pictures of  her.

I was fascinated by Laura's life, because it's exactly what I asked God for, and he dumped me in the mean streets of Detroit.  What on earth was that all about?....I'd have made an amazing cowgirl.

Ok...change of subject.

Out on the left hand corner of my fishpond...northwest corner if you have a directional gene, there is a little gray lizard.  He lives down under the rocks....has been there for a number of years, so I imagine it's pretty nice by now.  Anyway, you aren't going to believe this since you are so well grounded, but I think he's an evolving lizard.  He's not afraid of me, or my voice, or my shadow crossing over him......he sits on his roof and tips his head and looks me straight in the eye.  Obviously I'm supposed to say something, but I become tongue tied.  It's embarrassing, .....I feel like I'm letting humans down, or something.  I wind up stuttering...H..H..Hi, there...it's a nice morning, isn't it?...when I'm sure I'm supposed to say something important enough to be written on the moon.  Well, I just thought I'd mention it.

Mr. Avacado awaits ripening in style....(never make friends with what you will eat...it's so sad)

wow...I've accessed my blog!  amazing...After a year, and a change of passwords, I luckily found where I'd written the new password down.  Blogger was no help...wouldn't just verify me...or better yet, let me make a new password, they simply kept sending info I didn't understand.  They don't seem to realize some people don't speak Blogger.  Finally, when I reached the last step of their tango, they insisted I have "another" email they could use for verification...aaggghhh
moral of this dilemma....keep track of your passwords.  OK...I'm through venting..and anyway, it really was all my fault.

It's been a year since I played around with this blog, and I was struck by how much my great granddaughter has grown....some of her baby pix run down the right hand side of the blog....I'll have to add some current ones.

Here's What I Read

Watermark by Vanitha Sankaran A novel of the middle ages....interesting in the way people lived...touches of the Inquisition. The father in the story is a papermaker in the days when paper was considered, maybe not an evil exactly, but certainly un-necessary.

The Worst Hard Times by Timothy Egan...non-fiction...about the dust storms of the '30s. Unlike Steinbeck's book centered in Oklahoma, this is more to the heart of where these storms did their worst...the Texas area. The devestation was so horrific it's hard to believe I hadn't heard about it before. I started skimming toward the end...enuf is enuf...but the beginning was fascinating.

The duo...The Glass Castle and Half Broke Horses, both by Jeannette Walls Bios of her family....and what a family! Guarnteed to keep you reading.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot non-fiction...gives you something to think about....the ethics of what's yours and what's not. Almost positive you'll learn something you didn't know.

The Kings of the Earth by Jon Clinch story of up state New York....poor, bleak hardluck farm with three bachelor brothers....good reading

Little Bee by Chris Cleeve story of a young Nigerian girl in danger of her life, escaping to London. Again, I learned things and that always makes it a good story for me.

It's perfect spring weather...blue sky, puffy white clouds...cool breeze...sprinkles...no sprinkles...and lots of yellow flowers.

I started this blog two years ago...then took a year off last year....When I tuned in just now...(barely remembering its name) I discovered a written but unpublished post...the one just before this....can't imagine why I didn't publish it. I finished it up just now, adding a picture of the gray squirrel.

I can't stand killing spiders. I just hate breaking their delicate legs, but we both can't live in this house, and we pay the bills.

Some one sent me a list of cute things making the rounds on the internet. One of my favorites is

Dear Noah, We could have sworn you said the ark wasn't leaving until 6. Sincerely, Unicorns

Now doesn't that just break your heart?

Kingdom: Animalia

Class: Mammalia

Order: Rodentia

Family: Sciuridae ....is that not the perfect name for a little squirrel?...scurri-day...well, close enough

walk out back of the dog kennels, down the wooded incline to the path....

make your way through the umkempt, overgrown woods to the tree where the turkeys roost....

turn left, make your way over and around the downed pine...through the marshy spot and on to the big sugar pines.

Look waaaaay up at the top of the one closest to the path and you'll see a large, loosely knit ball of sticks and brush ....looks about three foot across.

It's a gray squirrel nest....many years old. This one has a domed roof and is used to raise babies....although I've seen simpler stick platforms...probably not to raise babies in

When our rain pours down and the chill winds blow I like to think of the little scurri-days all curled up together in their roofted home lined with soft mosses and hair and lichen.

their nests are called dreys....I have no idea why...I'll have to look that up.

We have a scurry of these Western gray tree squirrels... I love to watch them. I've read they are the largest of the tree squrrels, and I think the prettiest....

Their tails are as long or longer than their bodies and banded white, black and gray. The tails on the largest and most furry are beautiful....the mamas use the hair to line their nests.

These squirrels are being displaced in California...our border state some other type of squirrel.....In Washington state grey squirrels are considered "threatened" and in Oregon, "sensitive".....I guess these are warnings on the continuum that leads to endangered.

We have dozens of them in our yard, scurrying around, busily getting food and burying it....chasing each other through the spring sun and the bright yellow forsythia.

spring rainbow in southern oregon

taken by a friend and neighbor, a neighbor if you are a flying crow

FIRST 2010 PICTURES OF MY SPRING GARDEN

TA DAAA!

My new Allium

I want to try drying them for bouquets

yellow rose buds and pinks


new poppy buds with raindrops still on them

Bekka checking out the rhodie newcomer

hostas and pinecones

Sally

come on....let's go in...it's sprinkling again

I woke up with a headache that waxed and waned all day....along with the rain showers...I kept thinking if they would get in sync I would be able to dash out and check out the garden....but nope...ain't happening.
I'm spending too much money on my garden. This isn't something you're going to see on a garden tour....you're not even going to see it if you drive by because I live deep in the woods....You're not even going to see it if you are the occasional visitor unless you go to the back of the house and peer to your extreme right out of a window....so what on earth am I doing!
Not only that but I'm not a garden designer...so someday someone is going to buy this house and look at the garden area and say OMG and yank the whole thing out. But...for right now, it's mine and I love it like my new BFF.
It's the only exercise I keep at for more than two days. I do wish I had started gardening younger when my back was young and strong....I never know if I'm digging my last shovelful or not.
Right now I'm digging up a small plot to plant giant sunflowers and birdhouse gourds....I haven't even shook the seeds out yet but I'm anxious to post pix of the coming wonders.

**************************************************************
I had my 76th birthday this week. The marching song, 76 trombones leads the big parade has been flowing through my head all week....and that's how I feel...like 76 trombones leading a big parade....I feel as good on this birthday as I did bad on my 40th....

(what a waste of time to feel bad on your 40th....haha)

but as the old saying goes youth is wasted on the young
Speaking of sayings...this from my granddaughter.

"If a cop in Arizona says papers and I say scissors, do I win?"

Just a Flutter By
colored pencil on hot press

blow down
The tree is more than twice as long what is shown....a long, tall pine
destroyed by the pine beetle infest killing our beautiful trees.
the two dead trees behind it were taken out as well
Our big Cband dish is showing...I loved to watch it slowly turn, scanning the infinite starry skies, looking for......

my soaps...haha
(It searched for aliens, too, in its spare time)

wild and windy today....Very often our weather is like coast weather....many clouds caught in the hills surrounding the town....sun and wind....we're really not far from the coast, if we were allowed to drive straight through the wilderness area instead of looping down through California.
I've been digging in my garden......and every spadeful turns over earthworms and snails. This wasn't always so.......When we first came here the soil had no humus and was hard as a rock....nothing would grow but trees...not even rhododendrons which thrive in the wild here in the NW. But, after years of spading in whatever mulch I used, the earthworms and snails moved in.
They say snails are a good sign and means the soil has plenty of calcium...it helps build their shells.
Yes, I like healthy snails to come out every morning and chomp on my plants. I can't put out snail bait because of the dogs.
But lately the dogs haven't been allowed in the garden because the blown down tree smashed so much of the fence.
We had the tree hauled away, along with 14 other dead pines, but the fence isn't dog proof yet.

pencil sketch

Bekka

checking to see if the grass is ready to be mowed

if you like casual, we're ok

if you like spiffy, let me know when it's done...I'm busy drawing cats and googling on the side.

Why am I drawing cats? I'm just scratching an itch. I've given up thinking I'm going to do anything with my drawing...now I just indulge.

why am I googling? Well, just go look yourself up on Spokeo.com and be surprised at the most tell all "find a person" site yet...yikes....and yes, our house does have central heating no matter what you read.

Your wants subside as you grow older. I was surprised the other day when I made a list of new goals....The only thing I could think of was.

1. Don't fall again.

No more 1. Write a book. 2. illustrate a book. 3. Get skinny. 4. Be a brain surgeon.........Nope, no more of that pie in the sky fluff...just, dearlorddon't let me fall down again ever. I'm living the simple life now....

just trying to keep my toes turned up.

*****************

Who knew that pretty-in-the-fall burning red bush was going to take off growing like crazy in its fourth year, and shadow the yellow rose on one side and the blue veronica on the other.

Bekka knew....she told me not to move the veronica there....

"Don't move it! she yapped. "In exactly four years time that bush is going to take off like a running turkey."

Bekka is the real gardener...she can hear plants.....She cried....long low wimpers when they cut down our tree, and she laid for hours by the iris I stepped on.

But you know how it is when someone talks ALL the time....all the time yapping at me. Shut Up! I told her....go count your freckles and leave me the heck alone,

and I went right ahead and moved the veronica.

Now I have to move it again....oh, you should see the smirk on that retired, know-it-all-dusty old pointer....aaaggghhh

decorating the woods

pencil on hot press watercolor paper

Spring is Bustin' Out All Over!

Garden time! and my writing juices are flowing right along with the waking buds. I bit the bullet and went on a wading foray into my little fishpond. I hate to ever do it because of damage I may cause but it has to be done at least once...maybe twice a year. I built up the rock sides that the nightly raccoon knocks down in his fishing ventures. I fished out a bucket of pine needles, oak leaves and algae. I trimmed the dead spikes of reeds and yanked out hands full of pond greenery to open up more spaces for the fish.

Lots of fish wintered over well...orange...black....and orange and black....love em!

I have a little less than a million snails and their eggs, and yards of frog eggs.

Then I went to the teeny pond and started fishing out the oak leaves when I noticed they were covered with snail eggs....oh drat....I destroyed them in the larger pond...all those poor little babies I threw away.....one can only hope the mamas laid eggs on the rocks, too.
I've been weeding and raking in the beds and was sure I was keeping up with things when all of a sudden, two days of sunshine caused an explosion of greenery.

Spring is like my granddaughter...far ahead of me....has more energy than I do..... younger than I am..... waaay cool....and pretty,too

This is an amazing picture

(not taken by me)

A butterfly, early in the morning,

covered with dew.

Browsing through the library today, I bought a book of animal photography for $2 just to have this picture.

Poppy Dreaming

water color for a note card

shadows are from scanner but I'm pretending I was clever enough to paint in shadows from surrounding flowers

I have two computers and they both crashed within days of each other...this cannot be!

My laptop's virus protection, (free Avast) downloaded it's latest definitions, rebooted and my laptop expired on the spot....the tech said the OS was destroyed...$120 to fix.

The PC was too slow...almost five minutes to boot up...tech said the hard drive was dying...(seven years old)...

Soooooo....money being paid out for opinions and tech help...and the decision must be made what to do.

You know where all the answers are, my friends...in cherry vanilla ice cream...bet you didn't know that...or maybe you did...

On another subject....continuing from the last post as a movie critic, I went to see Sherlock Holmes and left in the middle. As far as I could tell it was one long, loud bashing fight with a little dialog sprinkled in between bouts....and an implausible plot. On the other hand, my daughter and granddaughter liked it...... go figure. (It's been tested and proven that whatever movie my daughter likes, I don't go see...haha...the movie gene was lost in the crossing)

can't sleep so will blog about Avatar, a science fiction movie set in 2154, which I saw earlier this evening.
I want all of my movies in 3D from now on, thank you. I'm being cheated for accepting less.
An avatar is a personification of an idea...and the people in Avatar, humanoids called the Na'vi, are the embodiment of our higher selves.....and they clash...go to war... with the worst of us...the military who go into foreign countries in real life and bomb the ecology and humanity to smithereens.
I want to be a Na'vi and ride a pteranadon, which they clumsily rename a Banshee.....a giant flying reptile from the dinosaur age. The setting is on Alpha Centauri's moon, Pandora, where the humans want to mine for unobtanium, a precious mineral.
The actors wore skull caps with little cameras in front taking pictures of their facial expressions, which were then digitally transferred to the digitally created characters.
In Avatar, a human's intelligence could be transferred to one of the Na'vi...so a few main characters bounced back and forth between being a human or being a Na'vi. Sigourney Weaver from Aliens played a main role.
I won't tell any more of the plot in case you are going to see the picture....the plot is secondary in a way...the magnificence of the movie is the special effects. Forget the 3D glasses of the 50's.....the audience actually gasped when it began and some things were right in front of your eyes....I thought I might reach out and grasp the little floating jellyfish.
I'm waiting for the industry to make a second screen to fit over the main movie screen so we don't have to wear glasses....and I'm waiting for all movies and tv to be in 3D.....and I'm waiting for humans to evolve into the Na'vi.

If you can dream it, it can be...(or did I just make that up?)

hanging around, getting into mischief

The correct term for a flock is a "rafter" of turkeys

but a gobble of turkeys sound better
I step outside and at the first noise of the door, the wild turkey flock burst into gobbles. It is so instant that it seems automatic. The sound is one sound...every gobble at the same time. I stay quiet for a second and then gobble back. Again the loud gobble from the flock…it interests me how quick the response is so I keep playing the game until I tire of it….easily amused am I.
The only thing I can relate this response to is when you see a flock of birds wheeling in the sky…the turns they make are so together you wonder who the leaders are…the turkey gobble from the whole flock is that quick…..ok….enough I guess…it’s just fascinating how it works.
We are routinely having flocks of 40 to 50 birds gather by the garage door calling for Jack to come out and feed them. He’s really feeding the other birds but the turkeys get their fill too. Sometimes another flock waits on the slope above the driveway, as you see in the picture. There is a hierarchy…a pecking order and woe to the bird who steps out of line, or the flock who wants their share and dares to come too close.
We have far too many turkeys here. They were introduced to this area and have become a nuisance. I think the only enemies they have are the rare wandering dog and the raccoons and they can only hurt the eggs or very young poults.

The flock tear up the ground with their big strong feet…they pick at all the plants even though they don’t want to eat them. They pick my iris blossoms to death before they ever open, and scratch out any sedum I plant.
When we first moved here I liked to see them come around the house because I’d never seen wild turkeys before. I was surprised to see how well they fly, even the babies. At fourteen days the chicks have strong wing and tail feathers and fly up onto the fence around our back yard.

We have two hunting dogs inside the fence and each has caught a wild turkey a couple of times. There is a suspicious amount of large feathers laying out there right now.
Except for their ugly heads, they are beautiful birds…their feathers gleam in bronzes,blues,greens and rust.......shimmering colors like oil on water.

Benjamin Franklin wanted the wild turkey to be the nation’s bird instead of the eagle. In a letter to his daughter he trashed the eagle as a bird of low character while of the turkey he said, “a true original Native of America... He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on."
I can’t imagine a turkey attacking. It’s taken years for me to get within ten feet of them without them running off.
Actually, the gobbler in all his courting glory would make a great patriotic picture because his head is bright red white and blue.

Old Glory

Oregon Junco
watercolor on 140lb hotpress watercolor paper

Redwing Blackbird

watercolor on 140lb hotpress watercolor paper

I found a nest like this once, and wondered in awe how the little mother recognized the reeds that were close enough to use...and how she kept the first grasses in place as she started to weave...and do the fathers know how to weave?

The day before Thanksgiving 2009...and this year it means nothing to me. Relatives aren't around...I'm just over an illness....things are peaceful and that's the way it will be tomorrow...peaceful and turkeyless...by choice. I've had many a year of full sized dinners stuffed with relatives...and mostly my giving. The younger generation works full time and can't cook anyway...haha. I'm afraid if they gave a dinner it would be tv dinners.
My turkeys always had the stuffing inside...which doesn't seem to be the popular thing these days....might get sick or something. Also, turkeys are cooked breast down these days...and have been for a few years but not when I started. Then I heard two more new things, (to me)
The first was a cooking show discussion on the best roasting pan to have...They had four...a $200 one...a$100 one...an $80 one and a cheap one for $50...ahh me. I won't bore you with the discussion and which one won or why....In the beginning I used to use a blue and white speckled roaster that was closer to fifty cents than fifty dollars and the turkey was great. Later, I used just the broiler pan and the little V shaped holder that turkeys rest in. Worked great.
The second new thing discussed the fact that the white meat and the dark meat needed different cooking times...the white meat a lower temp...so the plan was to line a huge bowl with bags of ice and put the turkey in upside down so the breast meat was resting on the ice. Then they put a bag of ice into the turkey cavity and another into the neck cavity. They left the turkey cooling until the white meat was 36 degrees...Then into the oven...and the two types of meat were supposed to come out perfectly. Well.....a lotta trouble unless all this works makes you supremely happy.

Hope your Thanksgiving is/or was just the way you want it...ours will be.

first pencil I could grab...paper out of printer... bird sketches.....
One of an Oregon junco...a little black headed, pink sided, seedeater that lives year round in large parts of Oregon...usually stays in flocks...happy little birdies...at least they make people happy to see them flitting around. I want to do a water color of the bottom sketch tomorrow for a card. I remember my first biology class in college...I was excited to be able to learn the names of all the little birds in my yard....then I discovered the teacher called them all dickey birds. I was flabbergasted...some education...haha.

This is all the art I did today...has not been a blue ribbon day. First, I didn't sleep a wink last night, so I couldn't make it to the computer club meeting this morning.....I guess the social committee went all out and it was decorated in Halloween splendor.....with lots of candy and goodies...dang. The 50/50 was the largest in months...almost 75 dollars which I'm sure I'd have won if I'd been there...haha.
Then Jack comes home from shopping at Costco and he had a $450 dollar ticket because his handicap parking ticket expired 4 days ago....yikes...He can appeal, but not in town. It was another county so he has to go there and only on certain days. In finding that out, he discovered his driving licence had expired too...we didn't get the heads up they usually mail out. Anyway, this time he has to have proof he's not a terrorist or alien so he digs out his birth certificate...which of course they won't accept. It's signed by everybody but the angels and has a huge gold seal of approval....but that's not good enough for them. Nor the fact that he's held a valid licence in this state for over fifty years.
So he contacts...or tries to contact the city and building where they are keeping something better for him....but got lost in the telephone maze when he had to start typing his name...backwards...Hentges, G, John using the key pad. He did learn it would cost $20 to get this copy even though I think no person will be involved....he didn't have anyone on the phone...just numbers. I think they'll accept all the info...then call up the copy from the basement...send it out via email, all electronically......and collect twenty bucks...I don't know....I'm going to do it for him tomorrow on the internet.
So, then I went down to the DMV to find out what I would need although I don't need to renew for five years. They didn't like my birth certificate either....that precious little piece of yellow paper with the seal and the signatures of my oh so young mother and father...the paper I've been guarding for over half a century...nope...ain't worth nuthin' lady. BUT...I have a passport so naah naah naah.
There's more but I'm tired of talking about it....I want to go back to the fifties thank you.....or back to bed might do, too.

colored pencil on 140lb hotpress watercolor paper .

..couldn't get it all on scanner.
Billie Jean
Billie Jean is up for adoption but you have to go to Arkansas to get her.

3 overripe bananas means banana nut bread.
what's not good for you? eggs...bananas...milk...nuts...

I cut a slice into quarters because no one has ever been able to find any calories in such a tiny piece, so it's safe to eat.

come on over

graphite on watercolor hotpress

Perfect day today. Did exactly what I wanted to while it drizzled outside. Messed around...watched my soaps...drew this horse....made a carrot and raisen salad, pea soup, and cornbread for dinner.

They tell you to learn when to quit on a drawing, but on a pencil drawing I don't want to quit. How simple my life would be if I'd rid myself of all my colored pencils and watercolors and simply worked with a pencil...it's my favorite.

I get so irritated with Blogger. So many times I can't access my blog to work on it. They throw me on a page to begin a new blog and they won't take my password. Don't ever ask them what your password is unless you're a whole lot smarter than the average bear. Finally after about the 15th time, using the same password, they let me in. Fie on them! A hex on them! May bleach splash on all their clothes tomorrow.

colored pencil on lordyknowwhat

done many a year ago and never dated

This was done for a children's book I had in mind. Several...many postings ago I talked about some Canadian Geese I was privileged to help raise and I thought it would make a great story....I had tons of pix of the geese...and the story had a great beginning, middle, and end.

I did three illustrations and couldn't do any more.

I've always wanted to illustrate children's books and it was painful to finally realize I just didn't have the stick-to-it-iveness to do a big project. Well...sticking to it wasn't the problem...it was just total lack of interest...it just disappeared.

The babies' nest was ruined and the survivors hatched under a blackberry bush in the rain...after the eggs had rolled down a bank. This picture was to illustrate a bedraggled baby. I look at it now and want to get going on it again.

It's been at least ten years, and if I had finished only one picture a year I'd be almost done.

Like Gilda Radner said, "I base most of my fashion taste on what doesn't itch."..........hmm, naah, that doesn't fit.

How about when she said, "I'd much rather be a woman than a man. Woman get to wear cute clothes and be first rescued off a sinking ship."....nope...still not right.

How about, "Dreams are like paper, they tear so easily".