paradise

This being Thanksgiving,

 my goal was to post about gratitude,

but it seems the wifi is sometimes what we call

 mudbound.

Well, we'll give 'er a go...

Don Gray is a masterful artist and muralist
now living in Portland, Oregon.

His blog is a delight.

When I once commented to him that I had 

a 50cent bird-of-paradise plant trapped in a tiny pot,

 Don gently suggested that I transplant the poor thing.

That was four years ago. 

Thanks, Don.

And thanks to all of my blogging friends.

Your kind and attentive messages are treasured.

I'm very grateful for all of you.

Bless us all.

swept away

My mind is shot.
I really can't remember how to do anything.

Certainly not post or paint or play.

I'm stunned by how thorough the flood damage 
and its permanence.

The studio and house here in Boulder 
are almost dried out but are still a mess.
The river up at the ranch has lost its way, 
and the power is still out.

Worst of all, 
our dear neighbor Paul's funeral is on Thursday.

Things will never be the same.

Though today is hard,
 I know tomorrow will be better.

looking for meaning

Just a few observations...

I don't doubt that there is a reason, some meaning, 

for everything, big or small, that happens.

The dictionary's third definition of "meaning" is thus:

"have as a consequence or result : the proposals are likely to mean another hundred closures
 heavy rain meant that the ground was waterlogged."

You've got to be kidding.

Exactly one week before the 100-year flood,

 I did the following drawing on Scribbler. 

I had no idea where it came from or its meaning; 

it was just a scribble.

No kidding.

direction

The sun is out, and I am healing. 

At this point, there is nothing to do but

turn the corner. 

flood

Boulder is flooded.

Most of the Front Range is flooded.

People have evacuated and some have died.

It's all overwhelming, 

but nothing matters to me as much as this.

My studio is flooded.

I looked down the basement stairs, 

and all I could think of was Carol Marine's 

burned-out studio in Texas.

treatment

I refused Vicodin for the pain.

This being Boulder,

my doctor suggested cannabis cream or Calamine lotion

 and agreed that 

maybe a little wine would be okay.

Shaken not stirred,

I am the big pink drunk.

shingles

And I ain't talkin' rooftops. Arg! 

Will be off the air for the duration.

Again... Arg!

(Giraffe checking for and finding shingles 

on my rooftop in the doc's office.)

archival laundry

dimension

Scribbler can be a challenge.

Here I'm trying to give a mass some dimension.

Some imagination helps, she said wryly.

fishing camp

I never know what my next painting will look like.

They rarely follow logic.

This is one I keep around to play with.

I think I painted the first layer, 

oh, maybe 20 years ago.

It was very different... abstract, I think.

This fishing camp appeared last spring.

I like its funky bayou-ness. 

ghost peppers

Ghost peppers are so damn hot,
they'll blind you.

All of the best things in life are a trade-off.

P.S. I used Scribbler to produce these peppers,
as well as the drawing further down
on the right-hand column of this blog.
Click on it and do your own.
It's fun!

double dutch

Looks like someone's having fun

in the energy field.

At least they're not fracking.

sam-eating plant

This plant has captured me alive!

It happened last weekend 

at the 50%-off sale at the nursery.

She's a big fuzzy begonia

3 and-a-half feet across

with screwy leaves the size of dinner plates.

For now, she's living like a big ape

 in the tree out back.

lunar odalisque

ineffably sweet

is it just me?

I see a formal cow portrait.  Do you?

  

Never leave home without a camera.

You never know when you'll need proof.

a way of seeing

Here's a gift for all of my blogging buds.

Take a quiet moment and watch this video.
Click on its title.

It'll do you good.

Jim McVicker leads a charmed life.

I say that without envy,

 just a true appreciation for a life so beautifully shared.

Okay, but you'd have to be seriously nuts 

not to be just a little envious.

water on the brain

Water defines where you are.

Will there be enough?

Is there too much? 

These leaked into my sketchbook.

I have no idea what they mean,

but they made a nice page.

refraction

The alleys are full of miraculous treasures.

Early one morning, the dog noticed

this unusual doorway

and paused for a moment to refract.

solstice

What with that supermoon hogging the show,

you might have missed the Solstice last Friday.

It was a nice evening in the garden.

fair weather clouds

When I did this painting in May,

it reminded me of the 4UR, a ranch in southern Colorado
 which belongs to some good friends of ours.

.

It's one of the most beautiful places that I know of.

Anywhere on earth.

Fair weather clouds build most afternoons.
Sadly, they now have become horrible smoke clouds,
created by the West Fork Complex fire.

http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_23527264/west-fork-complex-fire-at-76-000-acres

 Colorado is burning.

eventually

Update.

Not only did the trip home 

from YouCan'tGetHereFromThere last forever,

it made us sick. 

A gnarly bug, incubated for those untold hours on the plane,

gave us weeks of explosive sneezing and rumbling coughs.

Ack.

Just to prove anything at all is moving here,

we've finally gotten the garden in.  Mostly.

  I like to wait until it's at least 90 billion degrees out,

 don't you?

In other news... 

I have this sketch awaiting on a 2' canvas,

and though I've actually put some paint on the beast, 

I think I'll let 'er git along some before the unveiling.

Yeah, yeah.

 Both the garden and the painting will get done.

Eventually.

reflections

While visiting my mother in Maine,

 I took the opportunity to photograph

 some framed pictures of her parents.

Only when I got back to Boulder 

did I realize that I had failed to avoid reflections.

But, in this one of my grandmother,
 I was delighted to see 

that she's wearing the same gold bracelet

she gave to me when I graduated from high school.

The same one I've worn every day since.

By the way, that's Smokey sitting in her lap.

There were always several airedales in the house;

my mother says she remembers the cellar

smelled of wet airedales and bathtub gin during Prohibition.

Smokey ruled.

I come from a long line of dog lovers. 

catch of the day

I'm back.  I think.

Flying back this week from Maine took three days.
The last leg through Chicago took 24 hours,
while the other end of the whip
 thrashed Oklahoma.

There's no place like home.

a good egg

I realized I hadn't posted

 a picture of the actual egg.

And what a good egg it is.

This was taken within minutes of its arrival.

After the initial shock and awe,

mama sat on it,

 and it hasn't been seen much since.

Except for shift changes.

I think it's finally stopped snowing.
*fingers crossed*
Yay!

Hoping to find time this month to go home to see

Colin Page's solo show at Greenhut Gallery
in Portland.

look who's here

I don't know what this
looks like from the outside.

It's a cross-pollinated tweet of the first osprey egg laid.

I don't tweet, so

I probably laid an egg myself.

You should probably look for yourself.

http://www.bouldercounty.org/os/openspace/pages/ospreycamera.aspx

It's all happening now.

clockwork

This is nuts.
Two days ago, it was a blythe 75 out at Coot Lake.

If you're one of the very exclusive few who follow this blog,

you know that five weeks ago, also a Tuesday,

 nearly a foot of snow fell.

And that another foot of snow has fallen

 on every single Tuesday since.

Here we go again.

Due in late tonight, the fifth dump.

If I were an osprey,
I'd be filing a flight plan back to Rio.

artful nesting

Next to nature, we're such pikers.
Sometimes, it's best to just shut up and step aside.

perseverance

Remarkable.

Four weeks and four feet of snow this month 

have not deterred the osprey pair one bit.

Another foot fell like religion every Tuesday.

Every Wednesday, the birds wove

a new layer of sticks on top of the fresh snow.

Like religion.

Then one day, right in the midst of building their fourth taj,

you could see their moonstruck moment.

They sat like this for almost an hour,

sort of taking it all in.

She's on the left. 

They slept in the nest that night.

It got so I felt guilty for watching.

Today, they waited.

He threw some fish at her; 

she threw around some more lumber.

Because she can.

Meanwhile, I have a canvas

 testing my own perseverance.

Every once in a while, I throw something at it.

Because I can. 

 I don't know.

The longer it's on the easel,

the weirder it gets.

That used to be a whole ranch.

Now it's a nothing but a brick shithouse.

No taj there.

april snow

Which came first, 

the eggs or the snowstorm?

Lotsa snow.

The first of a three day storm.

I hope mama can hold on.

sam's salon

Allow me to introduce the latest members of my salon,

a nesting pair of osprey.

Meet the missus...

Being shameless, equal-opportunity hanger-outers,

they'd be happy to hang with you, too.

The Boulder Open Space webcam site is quite informative,
but I should warn you;

watching this slice of life is totally addictive!

It's the dog's absolute favorite channel.

After the past weeks of
 intensive nest-construction and protein-consumption,

it's a race to see who will get here first,

the next snowstorm or the eggs.

My favorite fun fact is that, 

after raising the kids, 

both adults go to South America for the winter season.

Though the pair mates for life,

 they vacation ALONE.

Wait, ladies, it gets better.

Mid-April, himself returns to the same nest.
and spends two weeks fixing up the house
 and rearranging the trash.

Only then does herself return.

Click below the webcam window to see her homecoming.
What a big girl.

She really throws the lumber around, doesn't she?

balls

That old man was agitating me.

Change the channel.

Figure this one out.

Same ball.

Same table.

Same camera.