That fallish time of year

The day before fall officially began our weather turned cool and rainy and fall was here.
Not many trees have turned colour yet but even on warm days there is a coolness and as soon as the sun sets, which is earlier every day (at 6:00 pm this evening), there is a chill in the air.
As we're getting ready for winter we look forward to a killing frost, not because we wish an end to the growing season or to the of the flowers in the garden, but we look forward to less wasps. They are a plague this year. Their nests are in every nook and cranny and this weather has them very grumpy. On cool days they are not so evident, but these sunny warm days they are really busy and really cranky.
We have praying mantis this year.
Today we found 5 praying mantis on the side of one of our raised beds.
Praying mantis are new to our area, but if you want something to expand it's territory this is a good candidate as they eat many, many unwanted insects and do no harm. Besides, they are truly wonderful, being up to 4 or more inches in length at maturity.
Here's an article about how they are expanding their territory in British Columbia and a history of how they even came to North America.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4139/is_200712/ai_n21279234

Praying mantis change colour depending on what they are on and we've seen them anywhere from a pale fawn wheat colour, to bright green, to dark green, and to a rich brown. Their egg cases are a pale brown dried bubbly looking affair that can be found stuck on a board or other object. It is sort of oval shaped. If we find one we can photograph I'll add the picture later.

This was a nature weekend. On our way home from town on Saturday afternoon James and I were in separate vehicles and a minute or so apart, and we both saw a badger cross the road going from left to right at the foot of the rise before our gate. We think it was likely two separate animals, but even one is wonderful. They are red listed in our area and they too are a very beneficial sort of wildlife.

Badgers will dig out the burrows of gophers and stay until their job is finished before moving on.

James has seen geese flying south. The white tailed deer who only weeks ago were a lovely red have turned to their grayer fall and winter coat.

It is hunting season. We do not hunt nor do we let anyone hunt on our land and I always am cheering for the wildlife. We know that people poach and we have no interest confronting someone who may well have been drinking, and we know they have a gun. It affects our ability to enjoy our wild land as not all hunters are careful. Soon enough, though, the season will be over.

Afternoon Excursions

James and I took an excursion today to Nelson - a flying one as James was helping paint the tourist kiosk this morning - so we left at 1:00 and were back by 5:45.

Our friends Lyn and Eric Johnson have a daughter Laura who is about Larry's age. She has opened a chocolate desert restaurant in Nelson called the Cocoa Nut Lounge.

We did indulge! I had a great piece of very cinnamon's apple pie - one where the apples are cut very fine and stacked with not a lot of "goo" between and not a lot of sugar - a "best" choice for a diabetic.

James had bitter chocolate cake with about 3 kinds of chocolate and heavy, very chocolaty icing. He felt as if he overdid it. It would have been better shared.

Laura needs some art work for December so we went to see the venue and agreed to "participate."

We also wanted to check out the Craft Connection where I sold many, many birdhouses over the years. The Craft Connection is the best run artist owned co-op I know of - always well run, very professional, and very high quality crafts. They have bought their own building and it has an art gallery in the basement so it was necessary to scope that out too.

We entertained ourselves by noting all the pieces to the "new wardrobe" we saw along the pass. Some poor menopausal woman must have gone before us as first there was a black, quilted jacket, and then a red sweatshirt, and still further on a pink T-shirt, and at the top of the pass all discretion had gone to the wind and there were TWO (you never see two!) gloves on the road!

We also saw about 8 mountain sheep who were so unconcerned I could have reached out the window and patted them. Fortunately everyone slowed down for the silly creatures.

The little red bushes and Mountain Ashe berries at the top of Kootenay Pass are brilliant! There is still Indian Paintbrush blooming at the summit along with Pearly Everlastings and Asters. A very pretty day.

We got back to town in time to call our friend, Betty, and meet her for dinner at DQ.

After our very rich desert at the Cocoa Nut Lounge simple fare seemed quite attractive.

Fall approaches

As you see, James has another show of his new work at the Creston Public Library.
James has 13 new paintings in the meeting room and will have several other pieces of work in the main library.
We had an enjoyable opening Friday night and then all adjourned to the Snoring Sasquatch Hostel and Music Venue for the CD launch of Elena Yeung's CD "The Gravedigger's Daughter." That girl can sing!
Elena has taught herself banjo and the songs on the album are ones she has written herself and are truly great work. She has former Juno nominee, Mark Koenig, accompanying her on guitar, Karl Sommerfeld on fiddle, Gary Snow on standup bass, as well as a number of other very talented musicians. Our neighbour, Peter McLennan, did the cover photography and the photos are of the old house I was raised in.
Earlier, actually in May, our friend Mark Koenig released his CD ," "Livin' this Life," for which James provided the cover (and inside) artwork. James painted a loose portrait of Mark holding a lovely rooster for the cover and Mark used several of James' tractor, and old car pictures inside.
With ArtWalk over for another year this was the day James and I travelled up to Riondel to pick up his paintings from Bob's Bar and Grill. It was a lovely sunny fall day, clear as clear could be. We visited with a couple local artists at Bob's and then thought we'd take a brief detour to Nelson.
No such luck! As we approached the ferry landing the boat was just pulling away. We decided not to wait the hour and a half for the next ferry crossing but to pop into Fairy Treats for a snack (they always have good home style baking) and meander our way back home along the east shore of Kootenay Lake.
Stopping at Lockhart Beach we took our annual end of summer stroll and as it was such a sunny day we wandered longer than many other times. Often this late in the summer there is a cold wind coming down off the mountains across the lake to the west. Not this year. It was just great.
We found 20 or more bright orange little butterflies having a drink in some damp sand and warming their wings. I'm not sure what they are. They are shaped like a Mourning Cloak with dark outer wings but the insides are bright orange and spotted. I will have to look them up.
We also found a number of lovely little miniature villages someone (or ones) had built, some all of tiny stones and one with battlements of tiny 4 or 6 inch driftwood twigs and with rows of "trees" of fir tree cones.
We stopped and talked with several of the folks who were enjoying the sunshine and then continued our way home.
Too soon the nice warm weather will be done.

It's been quite the summer!

It has been a while!!!

The summer has gone briskly by while we seemed to be spinning at times.

After our trip to Calgary and the launches of ArtWalk in Creston and Riondel I took the time to go on a brief Greyhound Bus trip with my sister to Duncan, BC to visit an ailing auntie and my cousins nearby.

Auntie Lorine fell and broke her hip earlier and was hospitalized and then in a seniors facility. First there was the hope she could go home eventually but it became apparent more care was needed. At the time we visited she was in a "transition bed" and, the day we arrived, her family (and many other families) had been informed the facility was closing in a month (an illegal government maneuver which is being appealed) and the 100 residents would either go to the new 50 bed unit that was opening, and already had a 100 person waiting list, or perhaps hover in the air!!!

There has been much brew haw haw since and the BC Ombudsman has just recently said there will be an inquiry into the bed situation and closings of beds and moving around our elderly and separations of families.

At one point, when it was pointed out that moving fragile elderly could cause an attrition (read death rate) of 25% the man in charge had the gall to say he could live with those figures.

Obviously, it wasn't his mother!!!

Fortunately, at this time my aunt is stronger than when we saw her and has been moved to a more permanent situation for her, but it was flash backs to getting my mother into adequate care.

The day after I arrived home, even before I could get a shower!!!, the pump on the well went out. We had a week of hauling water, begging showers, and bucket flushing.

I grew up without a well and my dad hauled water in barrels which was transferred into a barrel by the door and bucketed into the house, but we had an outhouse, and the lack of one was not handy, and James was hauling water for 2 households as our son and his girl friend have spent the summer in the guest house.

So, the pond did not get its liner. The new pump and PVC pipe came to very near $3000.00, but when we remember the former pump lasted for 20 years the cost is not so bad. Also, a very special blessing is that, in getting rid of the old galvanized pipe, we got rid of our rusty water problem!!!

James taught his week long class in acrylic painting at the college again this summer and we helped organize and put on a summer long show of artist's hand pulled prints at the library.

It has been a slow tourist year but nice to see those we have.

James and I got fishing licences for the first time in years and, though I've only made it once, James has gone a few times and brought home a tasty meal.

My computer had serious problems and was in the shop on and off for nearly 2 weeks - not quite as long as Skeeter had to be at the vets. Poor wee tweep, we don't know what she did but she very badly cut the top of a back foot and the inside of that thigh.

The doctor bandaged her foot and stitched her leg and kept her in so she'd be quiet and heal, and a week later when she should have been able to come home she pulled out all her stitches and had to be restitched and more extensively bandaged and didn't get to come home for another 2 weeks!

Skeeter is home now and up to her old tricks, spending some of her nights out, and generally loving "out" so much more than "in." She came home favoring that leg but is improving quickly.

Larry and Lisa are in the process of moving to Victoria where Lisa will work as a nanny to her sister's little ones while her sister writes her master's thesis.

I'm feeling like summer will be over and I haven't done any of the work I had planned. With car sharing, and running too and fro, I haven't worked on any art myself. Also, I absolutely melt in hot weather and end up just sitting in front of the fan. I have great plans for reordering rooms as it is absolute gridlock of my and my mother's stuff since last summer. I want to move the woodworking out of the room it is in and make that room into expanded gallery and a place to work in fabric. That part of the house, the shop, is 4 steps lower than house and on a concrete floor and cooler!!! in the summer.

A friend of ours has just "retired" from pottery. He has for many years been a master potter but felt it "was time."

I have not had such success in "retiring" from birdhouses. I actually finished 3 recently and as one went as a wedding gift, and one sold, I'll need to finish a couple more. I did inform all the businesses that had carried them over the years that I wouldn't be able to supply them but I believe I can still make them for our own gallery and sell a few on line - at least until I've found another medium to work in.

The joy has been not having hand surgery this summer - the first in 3 years - and that is the incentive NOT to build too many birdhouses as it aggravated the condition of my hands.

Wasn't That a Party!!!

Well, we did the Calgary Show in our friends Mark and Lynn's private home and it was a wonderful success and a great time to boot! Mutual friends, Linda and Ed from Creston, travelled up too and of course there were all our hosts' friends and business associates. It was a lovely evening and great hospitality, and then a different group on Saturday morning/early afternoon.

Now we're back in Creston and James is busily painting up another storm for the ArtWalk opening in Creston, on June 13 at 7:00 pm at The Coffee Creek Cafe (formerly Annette's) and in Riondel on Sat June 14 from 2:00 - 4:00 pm at Bob's Bar & Grill. The brochure has been proofed for the last time and is at the printers and we have posters to distribute around town.

On Wed James and I went up the lake putting up posters. Just a moderate number of deer on that trip.

Coming back from Calgary last Sat night there were numbers upon numbers of deer and elk.

Only once did we see the truck, towing a trailer, in front of us have to swerve to miss an elk but we all drove judiciously.

This week we've been trying to untangle the phone company's snafus.

Larry and his girlfriend are here in the mobile home for the summer and the phone company began by disconnecting our phone and connecting his number to our place. Then they disconnected Larry's phone from our place and connected our number to his place.

Are you confused yet?

Then this morning (All of this takes days. It has been going on for a week.) our phone was ringing at Larry's and Larry's phone was ringing at our place.

This was the day we were to see a human. He phoned this morning and I explained everything and he "fixed" it and called me and Larry at our proper numbers and mine does seem to be fixed but Larry's is disconnected again.

Tomorrow is the PaintOut and we are hoping for good weather. It is not what we've been having and it is not what is predicted but we can hope.

The Oriental Poppies are just delighted with themselves and the Irises are in full bloom.

I haven't been back on the hill to see what's blooming there with all the rain and cold.

There was fresh snow on the tops of the mountains this morning. It's an unwelcome sight but not totally unheard of. I took a picture last June with the roses in full bloom and fresh snow way down the Skimmerhorn.

This morning, when opening the old, brittle hummingbird feeder it broke irreparably and I dug around and found the lovely pale green one I bought last year. Last summer they wouldn't even look at it but maybe because I had them well established coming to the red one I broke they are accepting its' replacement. Yippee!

With the success of James' show we plan to bight the bullet and spring for the real pond liner as the tarp has not been successful. I have the flowers for one planter and will get more.

We need a new frost free hydrant as the handles on two of ours have broken. One broke when a tree fell on it during a huge wind storm last summer and one just seized so tight James broke it trying to open it. There is no end of things to spend money on and to fix!

Nearly summer

The first poppy of spring/summer today. I love Oriental Poppies. They look like shiny transparent tissue paper flowers. The irises are beginning to bloom too.

I went up on our little hill and the lovely delicate blue Large Flowered Tritelia or Douglas's brodiaea are blooming - more every year. Somewhere I thought I saw them called "Wild Hyacinth".

They are the clusters of 3 - 6 or so upward facing vase shaped flowers and were "rare" when we were kids. The little hill we live on is healing still from the fires of 1934 and from having cattle pastured on it.

As to plant books, I use mainly "Plants of Southern Interior British Columbia by Parish, Coupe, and Lloyd. It also gives what the aboriginal peoples did with the plants so I now know that some of the peoples of the Okanagan ate the bulbs of these and of the little yellow bell shaped Fritillaria.Please don't start doing this as they are still far too rare and lovely. Onions will have to be a substitute.

We have fritillaria on the larger hill on the back of our property, as do we have penstemon, Indian paintbrush, shooting stars, lupin. wild sunflowers, arum, that either don't grow on this hill or are more rare.

I do believe the fires burned more fiercely here. I have dug up burned black roots in our yard with clay turned the red of brick around them.

Things are a bit late this year.

Usually our Paint Out is the weekend after Blossom Festival and they are nearly done - the wildflowers - and the poppies and irises are going full tilt. This year things are a little late but it's been cold so long I look out and see the poppy and think "Poppies already!" I am so easily pleased.

This year our Paint Out will be June 7. You're all invited. Bring a sack lunch and your painting supplies. We'll serve the coffee.

James and I were to Calgary May 15 & 16 for our son and his girlfriend's Grad Show and graduation from the Alberta College of Art and Design. They both now have their Bachelor of Fine Arts and Lisa was the valedictorian. It was a whirlwind trip but quite enjoyable though we don't like the rush, rush, rush of Calgary.

We are going back this weekend as James has a show of his paintings in a friends home and we hope it does well. Something new for us.

James has been nailing rough boards on the house for what will be board and bat siding. We were laughing as the boards are cut from a bull pine we took down last summer so the neighbour could get reception for the wireless internet from our house - line of sight. James said "The tree wasn't any more than 150 feet from the house. It didn't fall on the house but now it's on the house."

This afternoon Frank and I finished stuffing envelopes for the last of the ArtWalk participants announcing who is in what venue and they are in the mail or to be hand delivered tomorrow. Now all that remains is to proof brochures and posters, distribute posters, order cakes for the ArtWalk/ArtDrive openings.

Creston's opening is June 13 from 7:00 - 9:00 pm at the Coffee Creek Cafe (formerly Annette's) and the Eastshore opening is in Riondel at Bob's Bar & Grill form 2:00 - 4:00 pm on June 14, live music and refreshments at both.

Wonderous things are happening in the yard.

Many years ago we had a pond made of silage plastic and eventually it failed and has sat desolate for 10 or so years. My timing is thinking of which cats we had as these have never known the wonder of a pond and they will love it.
So despiration has set in and prices of the "eternal" type of pond liner will only get worse so we are trying a silver hay tarp, doubled and with the black side out. It's worth the try and the price is right. We think this will at least not tear if the deer step in the pond which they probably will. I used to have Papyrus plants that I set around it and they were forever knocking them into the deep water.
The first time we built the pond we had a front end loader on the tractor to move the large rocks. The second time we were younger than we are now but we are persisting as the pond is such a peaceful lure for wildlife and such a joy.
The waxy leaves are popping and this evening is greener than this morning. The forsythia is a disappointment. It blooms sparsly and way too late and only now do I see one lonely little blossom.

Bunchberries

Another painting by James, this time of bunchberries.
We've had two lovely days. Today the temperature got up to 72 degrees and the wind felt soft and warm. This has been such a winter to break free. A week ago Sunday we woke to 3 inches of snow! in mid-April!!! It is so nearly May and the leaves are just beginning to pop. It's been a long, cold, dry spring and the weather man is saying it may revert to cold again but what we really need is some soaking rain.
BC Arts and Culture week is done and the community art show at the "Blue Awning Gallery", sponsored by the Arts Council finished Sat. It was a great show but a lot of lot of work!
The Sat before we (ArtLink) sponsored a gala evening, "The Big Picture Art Fest" in Crawford Bay with large works of art, great food, Margaret Ross and After Hours playing (and singing) wonderful jazz, and about 9 artists demonstrating their craft in small works we raffled off. It too was a great time but exhausting. We're beginning to long for younger blood to lift the banner.
Now it is nose to the grindstone with ArtWalk lining up artists to venues and getting the brochure ready for the printer.
Sometime I will get to do something creative myself. I am meditating on what will be next as I find building my birdhouses too difficult on my hands.

Hope springs ....

The second really nice sunny day of spring.
Yesterday and Friday night was the Images Art Show, a show begun by a group of watercolourists but it has shifted to include Gunda Stewart, a wonderful potter who does very traditional wood fired - some with salt - pottery in a huge handbuilt kiln, and to have guest artists exhibit with them. This springs guests were Alison Masters who did charcoal and charcoal with water colour pieces, and Maggie Leal -Valais who displayed really great sculptural clay pieces many of which were rakued.
My daffies are beginning to bloom and I was able to take Mommy a bouquet from my garden.
I looked out in the bushes this morning and there was a goldfinch who was really nice and bright yellow again. Goldfinches become drab little brown birds over winter, barely distinguishable from their finchy friends but come spring their wonderful colour returns and they look like bright yellow flowers bouncing in the bushes.
This was the day the library puts on a tea at Morris Flowers and sells cake and garden themed books and magazines. Someone thought it a good idea for some of the local artists to sell work and a portion would go to the library.
James and I brought his cards and my few remaining birdhouses.
People were interested in the coffee and cake but they weren't interested in the art and we artists were clustered by an open door with a bit of shade and a breeze. People were interested in plants. I can't blame them. We've had so little spring.
I would hate to be whiney but it was unbearably hot. Had it been a gray nasty day it would have been more comfortable.According to the weather boys it is going to revert to gray nasty with possible snow flurries starting even by tomorrow so even though it was sooo hot I'll try not to compain. We went to DQ for coffee after and sat with an elderly couple we see as there were no empty seats. We sat inside and watched the cute little blonds outside turn rosy before our eyes.I fear there will be a lot of folks nursing sun burns after today.

I am From

As I wandered the internet reading fabric artists blogs I was challenged to write one of these:
March 11, 2008

I am From


I am from Pacific evaporated milk on hot plum cobbler, from Nabob coffee, and Squirrel peanut butter in the can, and fried bologna.
I am from a house of unpainted boards, water hauled from town in barrels, and the outhouse up the path.
I am from rocky hills covered in penstemon, from Avalanch lilies, cowslips, shooting stars and Indian paintbrush, from the red tailed hawk screaming high above the trees and the fine, fat deer tippy toeing through the garden.
I am from New Year’s dinner with all the cousins, and from intense Monopoly games,
From Henry Good and Hulda Lorentzen, from Harry Peterman and Minnie Barraclough,
From Henry and Bette, who once was Margaret and is again,
I am from quick Irish humour and men who shed tears with great pain.
From “Smarten up!” and “Quiet, don’t frighten Grandpa.”
I am from Protestant Irish from County Cork and Presbyterians from York Mills.
I am from church meetings three times a week and a solid faith; faith as natural and deep as breathing.
I am from the Kootenays by way of the praries, from fresh raison bread fragrant with cardamon and wild mountain huckleberries weighing down the vines.
From a mother cutting out cotton dresses two at a time for two little matching girls and a father who, as little more than a boy, took torture rather than put on the uniform to kill.
I am from the farmer who chose the land with the rock hill, and the mother who nurtured her flowers with dishwater and determination,
From farmers and carpenters, and railway men.
I am from dusty albums stored in a trunk and memories of the heart.

Nora McDowell

Spring will come!

This was taken a few weeks ago and though the snow is mostly gone "they" predict we'll get 4 or so inches tonight and tomorrow. It won't stay and we do wait for springier weather : so do Bandy and Skeeter.

Yesterday, as James went out for firewood, he saw 24 swans winging their way north. A while back there were robins and blackbirds and innumerable joyful lbbs (as in little brown birds), but now the towees are back, bouncing in the bushes. Spring will come. It will wrench itself from the hungry arms of winter and all too soon we'll be sweltering in the summer sun.

Things are moving slowly. There are pussy willows and the snowdrops and species crocuses have been out for a week or so. The farmers must be alert to the cold weather and haven't unwrapped their honey bees yet as we've had very few and normally the crocuses would be alive with them.

I actually saw an earthworm creeping out of the dirt yesterday as we Raku fired pottery at a friend's home. Their yard was full of little mouse holes and trails unearthed by the melting snow. There were many wonderful little plant noses appearing and the bushes were full of Bohemian waxwings and Pine siskins. The waxwings leave the rose hips to the very last but yesterday that was their feast.

We seldom see jays at our place but there in Wynndel the Steller's Jays were riotously happy and Mary said they seem more brilliant than usual. I need more bushes. I can see that!

James and I (mostly James) have been trying to rescue the garden from the grasses and trim back the unruly roses. I think the cats approve. They don't know my plan to shelter a feeder in a particularly thorny bush.

We're moving forward on plans for ArtWalk, and the more imminent Big Picture Show in Crawford Bay. James is making plans for a show in our friends' home in Calgary at the end of May. In mid-May our son and his girlfriend will graduate from the Alberta College of Art And Design (ACAD) so life will continue on busily for a while.

There is a good change in the air

by James McDowell
Spring will come! Spring will come!
What a hard winter this has seemed. We have not had extreme temperatures but it has stayed stubbornly below freezing for very long periods and it has snowed, and snowed, and snowed. Finally about a week ago there was a change. The sun is high enough in the sky to melt a little each day even though it still is freezing at night. The driveway is one long ice rink but we have 4 wheel drive and James likes the challenge of plunging up it in 2 wheel drive.Everything is still covered in hard frozen heaps of snow which the cats can walk on handily, but we live in hope.
Spring will come.
Yesterday morning I stuck my head out the door at 7:00 am and heard the first chickadee singing his spring song. Today my winter bird came. Every January or February a logger head shrike comes and sits on the power line. He's very handsome in his formal attire, but I believe the chickadee. "Springs coming...."
This evening there is a wonderful lunar eclipse and the moon hangs like a ripe peach, suspended over the Skimmerhorn. I keep running out so as not to miss anything, but it is brilliantly clear and just as brilliantly cold; too cold to stay out.

Enough, I say!!!

Today is the warmest in a while. It began spitting bits of Styrofoam this morning but it has been dumping heavy wet snow for some time.
We are so ready for spring this year!!! Everyone is longing for spring!
We haven't had a really deeply cold spell, the kind that kills off the overwintering bugs. Maybe we'll get that next week as it is supposed to get colder.
But it has been consistently cold without warmer breaks and everyone we meet bemoans the winter weather.
I think I saw primroses in Overwaitea the other day and I read they were selling daffy and tulip bouquets. I haven't been out a lot as I'm still getting over the cold.
We have friends leaving for a month in Mexico on January 31. Maybe I could stow away.
I am doing my usual January hibernation. Spring will come.

The time between

It is the time between Christmas and New Years, between fall and spring, between daylight and dark.
It is winter. We seem to get a few inches of fresh snow every day and the roads out our way no longer show any pavement. It would be classed as "compact snow and ice." It is not always so snowy but it is this year.

Yesterday and today as we have driven down the driveway on our way to town there have been pheasants at the side of the drive or sitting on a wooden cross piece on the fence. They appear to be in lovely shape for winter and they are colour (!!!!!) in our black and white (blue and white might be closer) world.

Last night we drove our son to the bus and he has returned to the bustle of the city and his final semester before receiving his bachelor of fine arts.

Here there is no bustle, in fact the streets very firmly rolled up by Dec 24 and are only reopening ever so slowly. Finally there are a couple shops where one can find coffee in town again! Some businesses don't plan to re-open until January 2 and some not until the 7th!

Those who can have flown away to Mexico or Cuba or some place warm. Here we stock the fires to keep the cold from creeping in. I managed to send the Naniamo bars away with Larry, but I should have sent the fudge. I have great intentions of moving furniture and rearranging work spaces but I keep finding myself "en-chaired" in front of the television watching sad reports on the assassination of Benezir Bhutto over and over again.

January will come, and will pass, and gradually the light and warmth will return and spring will cheer us on.

Another year is nearly gone

This has been a busy year but we have weathered it.

My mom went into Swan Valley Lodge in February and we are still sorting and compressing. Our house is an amazing maze at the moment and somewhere under the accumulation is a spare bed for our son who will soon be home for a brief Christmas visit.

James is farming less and painting more these days.
In March James held a one man show, "Gone Tribal", at Kingfisher Used Books, Creston's wonderful used book store which also features great coffee, cushy chairs, and good company.
He has an ongoing show in Creston at Annette’s Delicate Essen Coffee House which has 300 feet of wall space, which is very good when one paints big and James has numbers of works in the 4 X 4 ft range.
In June James taught a week long class in Acrylic painting here at the college and they have asked him to give a class again this coming summer.

Last summer my friend Betty Marzke and I coordinated our 40 year high school reunion here in Creston and found it to be great fun and wonderful to contact so many old friends...
I continue to co-ordinate Creston’s ArtWalk/ArtDrive which lasts from mid-June to Labour Day and runs a distance of 80 miles from Yahk to the ferry landing on Kootenay Lake. As well as the ArtWalk we sponsor a number of evenings of art and music throughout the year.
I have been building unique rustic birdhouses for 14 years and selling them all throughout the Kootenays and North Idaho but am having to cut back drastically as I have Dupuytrens Contracture, a condition affecting the ligaments in my hands and I have had and will continue to need multiple hand surgeries. It has left me without much grip, with very tender palms, and seeking new directions. I may be able to have birdhouses on hand here at our studio/gallery but I won't be able to continue suppying the other stores. I am meditating on what I can do next that is not as physically strenuous.

I've been making cards and calendars of photos of James’ paintings and am developing a line of cards made from copies of old post cards my grandparents exchanged in the 8 years they corresponded before their marriage in 1912.
I’m learning the good the bad and the ugly about printers too.
I’ve been using an Epson Inkjet which is VERY expensive to run as they don’t have the cheaper inks available for it and sadly most less expensive (under $600.00) printers only want to print on typing paper weight paper while I am trying to get them to run a heavier paper.

As I write I am looking at my new Xerox 6180 laser printer that says it will print on up to 80 lb card stock!
We shall see. I still have to get all the tape off and set it up. It came in a 3 X 3 X 4 ft box with 2 delivery men and a larger footprint than I had imagined so I’ve been reshuffling desks to get it in my office. That and finding the bed for Larry.

Wishing all a blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Going, going, gone.......

James caught this little fellow contemplating his breakfast. He (or she) is a Merlin, quite a small hawk but a bit bigger than a kestrel. "Breakfast" is a native sparrow of some sort, as opposed to an English sparrow which isn't.
Fall is truly upon us now. Last week was warm and on the first official day of autumn it turned cold enough we've been having fires in the wood stove in the morning. Driving home today flocks of little birds wheeled overhead on the wind like the scattering leaves. It's amazing how many leaves can be blowing with the trees still full. The dazzling colours aren't here quite yet but they are coming.
The hornets were so plentiful and aggressive this summer that these cooler days are welcome. Many afternoons we spent on the deck enjoying the shade but armed with two of those electric tennis racket zappers. This was not an easy summer.
Tonight the deck is wet and black with rain. After such a hot dry summer rain is welcome. I'd love a good dousing and then a nice "Indian Summer."
James has been painting sunflowers and pumpkins in honour of the season and on Monday we drove to Sirdar on Duck Lake and, with a couple other local artists, scrambled down the little goat trail of a path to the shore where they painted the row boats tied up at the water's edge.
Duck Lake is part of the Creston Valley Wildlife Management Area, a wildlife refuge and jewel of our valley. It is home to many species of nesting birds, water fowl in particular, and a great Bass fishing lake to boot.
This week James has also been starting wine. All summer he got up early to pick the blackberries before the hornets could turn them to mush and before the deer picked them. He picked them a couple cups at a time and stowed them away in the freezer. Now he has a batch of blackberry wine and one of blackcurrant wine on the go. We know more than at his first attempt over 30 years ago. We will be patient.

Time sure flies when you're having fun, or otherwise.....

Oh my, somehow the summer has escaped us!
When last I wrote the ArtWalk was just beginning and now this year's is over and the planning begins.
James' class went very well and he is sure it is something he'd like to repeat in the future. He had a small group, 3 women, but they were keen.
We had my 40 year high school reunion and it is a happy blur. Tomorrow I will mail out the remaining class photos and memory books. We've decided 10 years is too long to wait for the next one and will plan to meet again in 5 years.
I had yet another hand surgery just a week before the reunion so I got out of moving tables and the like! It will be at least another month before I can get back in the shop but there are still things to occupy my time!
We have emptied the living area of my mother's mobile home so we could rent it out to a little family. That was quite the job for James and I and the sorting isn't done yet.
I am hoping to get some sewing done. It is the reward I give myself for finishing things and so little gets finished these days.
The picture is of a fellow artist painting at our mutual friends' garden. In that James was taking the pictures he failed to get one of himself.
Fall is coming. We've had cedar bugs for a while now and the hornets are relentless. I think our little hill is the brownest in all the valley. The leaves on the Ocean Spray turn a wonderful burnt sienna late in summer and their blossoms become panicles of brown tiny star shaped seeds. I understand the native peoples ground them for flour.

Snow & Roses

When the clouds lifted today this is what greeted us. By tomorrow it is supposed to warm up and of course the snow is vanishing off the mountains even as I type.
This has been a particularly good year for roses. My huge pink rose is a mystery. I bought it in a box but it is not the rose pictured on the box - not even remotely. We have decided it may be some sort of climber. I so love it!
The past 3 years, including this, I have been having a series of hand surgeries so have not been in great gardening form. This rose will not be lost in the tall grass.
The Mock Orange is still blooming and the wild Ocean Spray is about to burst forth. Mock Orange is also a native plant.
Yesterday we drove the 50 miles up Kootenay Lake to Crawford Bay for the ArtWalk opening we sponser there. (Friday had been Creston's opening and Saturday a friend was doing a concert so we had quite the busy weekend.) It was a lovely drive with all the bushes in bloom on the hillsides. The Scotch Broom is also blooming and whereas it makes some people happy it is actually a scourge escaping up the hillsides and choking out native species. It also makes me sneeze!
Coming home in the dusk and dark there were numbers of deer to watch for but we managed not to squish any "Bambies" and James only had to brake hard once.
This is the first day of James' week long class at the college. He is teaching a class on experimental approaches to acrylic painting.

Gray Catbird

I held a catbird in my hand today.
It was soft and gray, still warm,
But the heart no longer beat.
The gray cat brought it to me.
A gift.
He meant no harm,
And now it no longer dances in the bushes and flips its tail.
It no longer calls out in its mimic cat voice.
It is still, and gray, and warm, but cooling.
It is smaller than it seemed in life
And with the softest rust coloured patch beneath its tail.
I laid it in the tall grass away from the cats.
The ants and the beetles will have it.
It will go back to the dust.
We all go back to the dust.

Nora McDowell June 16, 2007

Summer's nearly here, but spring's been iffy

It's a l-o-n-g time since I've been on here!

We've had a long cold spring, then blistering heat, now back to cool, windy, splatters of rain and dashes of sunshine. James has planted most of the garden - that which won't interest the deer too intensely. He's planning to plant squash and beans inside a chicken pen we aren't using this year.

We have planted broad beans out along the pea fence as we've been told the deer don't like them. We will see.

May 26th we had our annual spring "Paint-Out" when we invite our friends to come out and paint on our hill. It was a gorgeous day and "a good time was had by all." The Oriental poppies and irises were in full bloom and it was just lovely. The next day it absolutely poured rain!

This year there are a young doe and buck hanging around. I think the little doe thought she would like to taste my pansies this evening but Bandy, the cat, was on the deck and the little doe did not like him. She kept stamping her feet. Bandy just ignored her until she finally gave up and moved away. The other day the little buck was checking out my irises. Deer don't like irises but this little fellow didn't know that yet. He tasted one petal, kind of made a distasteful face, went to sniff another iris and decided if that was all I had to offer he'd just wander off down the drainfield.

The information for this years ArtWalk brochure is at the printers and we are waiting for a copy to proof. The Creston, BC Opening will be Annette's Bistro and Coffee Bar on June 22 and the Crawford Bay, BC Opening will be the evening of June 24 at Newkeys Place.

I am trying to get planters planted and birdhouses built between now and June 29 when I will have yet another hand surgery.