gummi bears

It's bear season again.

They're out of their dens and in a mood to party.

They're scarfing bird food, licking grills, raiding refrigerators

and bagging jelly donuts.

Yeah? So?

upslope

When the wind comes in from the northeast,

the skies darken, it turns cold

and the unmistakable stench of crowded cows

drifts in from the feedlots in Greeley.

While the people from away wonder, "Eeew, what's that?",

we put on our jackets and expect moisture.

Clouds smack up against the mountains,

cool and then fall down,

either as lots of rain and/or snow.

We call it upslope.

Casey Klahn has appropriately asked for clarification...

Continental features like the abrupt rise

of the Rocky Mountains out of the Great Plains

make the weather here very dynamic.

I painted this view looking from our house

across Boulder to Flagstaff Mountain

a little more than a mile to the southwest.

The dark blue is the side of that mountain, shadowed by

thick rain clouds hanging like a fog bank.

Above that is an even denser cloud layer

which can boil up into a thunderstorm.

Although it all looks quite still,

shown in time-lapse, it's one of the greatest shows on earth.

This is an amazing place.

spring-loaded

For the past month, our weather has been spring-loaded.

Temperatures have ranged from below 30 to over 80

and enough snow, rain and hail has fallen

to take us from drought to flood.

Through it all, a robin built her nest next to the house

and laid her eggs.

She carefully rolls them every 40 minutes,

while fending off marauding squirrels and jays.

The eggs have begun to hatch.

Thunder and lightning crash, and the wind rocks the cradle.

Hail hurls stones at her until, to my amazement,

her mate swoops in, lands on her and

spreads his wings to protect her and the nest.

It's brutal out there, and the drama is wrenching.

It's just one family of robins,

but they're playing out the game of life.

The rule is:

robins live to make baby robins.

devil dog

It's gloomy and dark and rainy today.

Not so great for painting.

Good time for another iPhone Pollock app.

One that'll warm your soul.

getting there

Posting art is frustrating.

The colors are inaccurate and the values are off.

Objects appear larger in the mirror.

People from Down East don't like to waste words,

so they say it best.

"You can't get there from here."

message in a bottle

I'm the last person to understand any of this, so I'm asking this question to anyone who reads this and has ANY information. Yesterday, Blogger appears to have crashed. Unfortunately, the crash took all of last week's samartdog blog with it. As you can see here, the last post that's showing is from May 5th.

I spent several hours (grrrrr) talking to the Great God Google. You know... the one who has no human representative, i.e., no one to talk to. All I could find online was a repeated "We're sorry, but this Blogger service is unavailable", or some such malarkey. Really? You're SORRY??? There was also some no-doubt relevant talk about how this is a Google-wide problem, meaning that it is not just me. Why does that not make me feel any better? Anyway, I did due diligence, filled in the comment box, including the UFO secret code, and sent it off into the blowzone. Someone named (I am not making this up) "ioana.dunea" sent back an email wherein she(?) repeated said secret code OUT LOUD but failed to include any rhyme or reason. Or help.

I am not a patient person. I also have not a shred of tech in me. I am a whale on the beach. The beach is on the infamous Desert Island. I hope you all continue to swim in smooth seas and that one of you can throw me a life line.

HALP!

P.S. I suppose I should be grateful that this post is successfully published. Ironically, the last lost one was titled, "lost dog". Do you think this has anything to do with that Akashic stuff?

lost dog

There might not be anything sadder than a lost dog.

On her usually hilarious blog, Bye Bye Pie, June Garden recounted the heart-breaking loss of her dog, Tallulah, on May 5, 2011. The extensive readership of BBP suffered the loss, and June received hundreds of concerned comments.

Refresh buttons the world over were worn down to a nub as the faithful awaited the return of the prodigal dog. We all had our own ways of dealing with this potential tragedy. Prayers were offered and tears were shed. For all I know, popcorn was scarfed and vodka was quaffed. Was the poor dog injured and alone, or was the bitch on a bender? Having escaped at bath-time, she was naked! She wasn't wearing her collar, let alone a doggie-cam. Dog knows, Talu is not talking.

Late at night on May 6th, I used my Pollock app to do this painting of her as an offering. I'd like to think it worked. Though no one knew it at the time, Talu was out on a junket. She sauntered back home a few hours later at 4:46 AM, on May 7th.

The upside to this totally traumatic episode is,

now you have the link to Bye Bye Pie.

Enjoy.

akashic clouds

In March, these clouds appeared

at an extremely high altitude

and filled the entire sky.

I had never seen anything like them before.

Then William Cook posted "Simulated Akashics"

on his excellent blog .

Hmmm...

harrowing

Ranch life is tough.

Even the harrow eventually gives up.