Reading

Well then ... it is late and I'm tired. Nothing new. I gave myself permission to take enough time to finish the book I was reading. Started somewhere between 9:00 p.m. and 10:00 and just finished a while ago. Enjoyed the session. I was reading "Alone," by Lisa Gardner. It was a good book, and finally came together, but it was hard to get into and stay with at first. Don't know why for sure. I don't think I "took" to her characters this time. The next one of her's is "Gone," and this one has my favorite character of hers. Just my type of guy! Quincey. Looking forward to reading that one, but have other things to do first.

The whole time I was reading tonight, and still, the wind has been howling relentlessly. I think the wind is all we here on the great plains of Colorado are going to get out of this latest storm. It is snowing in the mountains, and there was some talk about tornado warnings in the very north east corner of the state. Haven't heard any more about that.

The only other thing I had to do today was get dog food and blueberries. Done. I guess I'm going to have to buy a battery for my Taurus. Have tried for several days now and the one in there now will not take a charge. During the fall, the battery was dying over night. Did not think it was the battery, but maybe a problem with the ground. Will have to find out. It is my fun car to drive during the "no snow on the ground" season.

Rain

The rain is over. I'd say finally, but any moisture is welcomed here in this parched area. Friday, right at 6:00 p.m. The skies got dark fast, and there was the beginnings of thunder. As it wound up, lightening began dancing around in the sky soon followed by the much closer peels of thunder. The wind was blowing furiously and at the height of this activity the rain started, but as it got going it turned into hail. The hail was small, pea sized or smaller, but it blustered in as if to show me that this was only the beginning. "Soon I'll catch my stride and there will be glorious storms." I watched from my place on the porch wrapped in one of my husbands large flannel jackshirts, sipping a cup of hot coffee. It was the first spring storm.

The storm settled down into a very nice steady rain. This nice steady rain did not stop until Saturday afternoon around 2:00 in the afternoon. I can't even tell you how long it has been since we had a real soaker like that. The rainbow was taken during another spring, years ago.

Today, Sunday, the 25th of March has dawned a beautiful day. The sun is bright, the shadows long and the thermometer reads 62 degrees. Yesterday I treated myself to reading a book. Novel by Lisa Gardner. Have enjoyed her work so far. Also rereading some of the samples of work by artist J.D. Hillberry, "Drawing Realistic Textures in Pencil" His drawing techniques are supurb, and I want to refresh my thoughts for a part of the illustration I'm working on. He uses charcoal pencils along with the graphite pencils, and I find that hard to do. Am using it sometimes though, and it can be quite effective.

Will be working on one of the current illustrations for the Adoption Series today. Need to hustle. But that is normal. I am also typing up all the poems for our Poetry Club Chap Book. There is no rush on that, but it doesn't take long. There are five submitted poems for each club member, and one member at a time goes pretty quickly. A break from drawing when needed. I need to get enough time to do at least another page on a website I'm working on. The fun is never done!

Make yourself a wonderful day!

Today's Poem

The Guest

We had a guest my Gizmo and me,

We met on a midnight walk.

He was small and had a fluffy tail,

so Gizmo went to talk.

Tomato juice and baths til' 3 -

We had a guest, my Gizmo and me.

~*~

It is Officially Porch!

It's official. It is time for porch! That might sound a little odd, but it is a tradition in our household. We have this huge porch that wraps around the house. All our friends have always stopped by for some porch when they needed some solitude, or our particular brand of therapy and humor. On the corner we have a large round whiskey barrel table, and the chairs were also made from whiskey barrels. These are showing great wear now days. We bought them, if I remember correctly in 1973/4. They are too large to move, so they sit there during the winters as well.

The porch is sided to look like a vacation cabin somewhere in the Rockies, and it gives you that flavor. In actuality, it is part of an old mansion that was purchsed for the one room that this porch wraps around.

This first picture is the east side of the porch, and my husband restored this buggy in the late '70's. The plaque on it says it was made by Case Buggy, which became Case Tractors.

This next photo is also the east side, but now shows you the barrel table/chairs on the corner. Well, almost. These were all taken in the fall about 4/5 years ago, but it would photo exactly the same today. Right to your right of the green lawn chair, which is right at the corner, is a door that goes into the room. The mansion was built in the late 1800's and belonged to the bank owner at the time. During that time also, banks "made" their own money. Meaning that I have a $20 bill that has a picture and the name of the bank, and the bill is signed by the treasurer who was the bank owner and the man who lived in the mansion.

This last one shows the side of the porch facing south. You can better see the barrels and you can still see the buggy. The strings you see are distracting, but in the summer they have morning glories growing on them, and when they are thick and full they add extra privacy and cool to the porch. It is a wonderful place. The dog sitting there belongs to the neighbor. His name was Wizzer, and he was a bear to keep on his side of the fence. But the cat is mine. A wild barn cat. Can you find him? He is peeking around the corner of the closest barrel, but all you can see is a bit of his black head, and the glow from his eyes. Well I tell you. It is lunch time here, and the porch is calling. Bye for today.

Abused Daisy - And her new home!

Okay ... this is another in the "Think Adoption First" canine series. This is a story of a sweet dog who belonged to the daughter of the man of the house, and when she moved off to California and she couldn't take Daisy with her, her father was supposed to take care of her. A couple of men rescued her and took her to the shelter.
~
She had a bad cut on her hind foot, and her collar was embedded into her neck. She had no water and was seldom fed.
~
The gal who came to the shelter and rescued her, named her Krasny which is a Czech name for "beautiful." They were a perfect match.
~
Many times the pairing of a rescue dog and a new owner is more rewarding than raising a dog from a pup.
~
And this, then, is Daisy and her new owner!


And by the way, the models for this drawing are my own daugher, and her dog Spunky.
~
Today was another beautiful day. Perfect except for the wind kept trying to take hold of the afternoon and run away with it.

~

Enter, Naomi

Okay, I have been promising to post a picture of my new great grand baby. So here she is. Red hair, blue eyes, and probably freckles when the time comes. Her name is Naomi, and she is a little charmer. Grandpa is pretty proud of her too. She is very active and didn't get into smiling until she was put on the floor to wiggle around to suit herself. She is going to be on the go all the time.

Okay, this is all for now. Not much, but I was lucky to get this far! I hope you all had a fun St. Patrick's Day, and enjoy your Sunday ...

And I'm still not in bed!

A fun night this turned out to be! When I left you before it was time to go to bed, and the routine is to let my little dog Gizmo out for a quick watering of the bushes. So I am waiting for him at the door, and he takes off into the driveway. I go right out behind him, and just as I cleared the car, there it was. He had taken off after a skunk. When I got out there, it was pawing at the ground and threatening me. I spotted Gizmo by the front of the car, and as soon as I picked him up I knew he had been sprayed. We went the long way back into the house so as not to run into the skunk again.
~
I put Gizmo right into the bath tub and told him to stay there while I looked for something tomato. I knew there wasn't any tomato juice, but found a can of tomato sause. I put it in a pot and diluted it with warm water and headed back for the bathroom. Scrubbing that tomato into his thick fur took quite a while, but really needed to be sure to get it clear to his skin. After he shook tomato all over the bath tub and near walls, I rinsed him off and started the shampo bath. Now he is running around the house to dry off while I'm here to tell you the tale.
~
This is the stinker dog I'm talking about!
I have all the towels and all my clothes in the washmachine, and rinsed down the walls.
~


Now maybe I can get some rest. Hey, it's only 2:23 a.m. ... lots of time.

Can't believe a whole week has gone by!
Well, and here a week has gone by. So much for staying the course! But most of my time has been spent in updating a website that I am working on. It is for a restaurant, and you can't believe how fun it is to match pictures to descriptions, and keeping prices current. But I really like the family I'm working for, so I enjoy what I am doing. You cannot believe, though, how fast the time goes when I'm working on website construction!
~
I am going to use an older painting for "show and tell" today. This is one of my favorite watercolors. So far I have only shown you my graphite work, so now here is a watercolor. The Title is "Peeper's Ponies".
~

The painting was inspired while attending a Mountain Man rendezvous in Cheyenne Wells, Colorado. It was one of the best gatherings because so many of us brought horses. Sometimes that just isn't feasible. On this trip we had the whole family with us which made it a lot of fun.We had a friend who got herself a new mountain name when she started slicing carrots in my husbands fried potatoes and onions. He started picking them out as fast as she was slicing them in. Since then he called her "Carrot Woman" and every time he got the chance, he would dump a truck load on carronts on her driveway or doorstep.
~
These two horses were tethered at this low tree in the shade, and the thing that attracted me to paint it was that the spotted shade with the spotted coloring on the horses made for a neat camoflage pattern. And they are pretty too!
~
Tomorrow is a big day for me. I have a Dr. appointment. I have been putting my medical needs on hold until I had the help with medical expenses from Medicare. Now to work through the long list of things that need to be checked or done. And, I suppose that if I'm going to make a 9:00 a.m. appointment, I'd best go to bed. See you all tomorrow

Adoption Series

I have been involved in illustrating several books since last year. The series is "Think Adoption First" and there is a Canine Series, a Feline Series, and now starting a small furry critter series. The idea was to illustrate a dog that was down on his luck, and then give him a new home and show how happy the dog and his new owner can be without having to buy an expensive pure bred dog. This is the happy picture of Sal, and one of my previous posts show the very sad Sal after his first family died.

.

So little by little I'll either illustrate my post with these drawings, or just display a sad and happy dog or cat. I hope you enjoy that.

.

Today here was glorious. We almost hit 60°, there was no wind, and there are only a few puddles left here and there where the drifts were the deepest. And there is nothing quite a blue as a Colorado sky! Unless it might be a Wyoming sky!

.

I finally got to meet my first great granddaughter Sunday. She is three months old, and a charmer. She is also a very red headed little girl, so I"m sure she will live up to her heritage.

.

I have to go and layout another furry little critter now. See you tomorrow.

Searchers

I think a lot of us learned to insulate ourselves from the pain of 911. I know I did. It was too large to encompass all at once. And as I learned more and more I took on more and more. But beyond the first day when I sat motionless for 24 hours watching the horror unfold before my eyes, I never really cried. But yesterday was different.

.

I heard a story where a poet read in the New York Times about the dogs who were trained to find a missing person by smelling a small article of scent. The dogs were tireless and worked and worked to please their master and satisfy their training. Which was to follow a scent, find the missing person, and bring him to his master to bask in earned praise.

The poet, D. Nurkse , wrote a poem about the story he read.

.

"Searchers"

.

We gave our dogs a button to sniff,

or a tissue, and they bounded off

confident in their training,

in the power of their senses

to re-create the body.

~

but after eighteen hours in rubble

where even steel was pulverized

they curled on themselves

and stared up at us

and in their soft huge eyes

we saw mirrored the longing for death:

~

then we had to beg a stranger

to be a victim and crouch

behind a girder, and let the dogs

discover him and tug him

proudly, with suppressed yaps.

Back to Command and the rows

of empty triage tables.

~

But who will hide from us?

Who will keep digging for us

here in the cloud of ashes?

.

Yesterday, I cried.

Poetry Club Today

I had to race yesterday to get a post here before midnight when I turn into a frog. Figured that if I only wrote one quick line, posted it, then went back and edited it, I would have a post for March 2nd. HA ... I turned into a frog. (And didn't even find a Prince.) So here I am today, still rushing the deadline.

Poetry Club is held on every first Saturday of the month from September through June. As secretary/treasurer I had minutes and stuff to do, and barely got it all done before 2:00 p.m. Saturday. I'm bad. Just too many things on my plate right now, and don't seem to organize like I would want to.

Anyway. The theme for this months poetry was to write from memory. We are using Ted Kooser's lessons this year. What is important, Kooser says, "when you write a memory poem pour all the details into your first draft and then go back and stroll through that room, like walking between overloaded tables at an estate sale. Carry a little basket of your poem and pick up only those details that you really want to use. The rest of the room is in your notebook, and still somewhere in your memory, and you can enjoy sitting there eating that hot cinnamon roll at another time."

By the way, Te Kooser was Poet Laureate appointed by the Librarian of Congress for the 2004/2005 year.

My poem for the day:

Of an October

Today when I woke up, the world was enshrouded in fog.

Gray, and thick, and cold.

Coffee warms the soul enough to get on the road.

It's a hunting morning.

~

Settling in, I hunker down,

back resting against a tree,

gun loaded and at the ready.

Sipping the last of the coffee the sun begins to come up.

~

Slowly, the fog begins to illuminate,

taking on a glow from within.

Here and there ghost trees are beginning to show.

The sun comes up farther.

~

Intensely bright the fog takes on a gold hue.

Burning off a little, the rays reflect at a frantic rate

off the moisture creating fanciful illusions.

My mind floats into the dream as it evelves before me.

~

Watching from the edge of the fog

as I sit spinning memories;

memories of past hunts,

I become aware of the game for which I wait,

but as I dream;

this day;

I forget to shoot.

~

Copyright by Judith Angell Meyer, 2007

"Buster"

Good morning all. Today is sunshiney and the wind is beginning to pick up. It is 36 degrees and is going to feel colder. But at least the pump at the horse trough is unfrozen. Yeah! No more running the hose across an acre and back. So okay, I'm exagerating, but that is what it feels like when I have to run it out there, drain out the water when I'm finished, and carry/drag it back to the mud porch so it doesn't freeze over night.

Last night I didn't get to sleep until sometime after 4 a.m. so am definately going to be looking for a nap this after noon. Arthritic hip did not want to settle down.

Saturday is Poetry Club, and I don't even have the minutes started from the last meeting a month ago, much less have taken the time to think through the poem I'm writing, about the wind gathering speed to joyfully race over the country side, faster and faster, laughing at itself all the way. I'll post it when I have it done.

Todays drawing is Buster. I did not do it today, but it was finished 2/25/2007 and sent off to my friend Lynn Thomas on this Monday. As of today, I'll officially start being anxious that it has arrived okay. She lives where the snow has drifted as high as the corral fences and on a bad day the mail carrier doesn't get through. They are a hardy bunch out there and usually figure it out.

Time to get the day underway. Should have been started four hours ago. Sigh ....

"Bad Hair Day"

This is a graphite drawing. A study for a commissioned painting, finished 2/7/2007. When my customer saw the drawing, the comment was that, "He looks so happy! He never looks happy." The commission will be a full portrait of Pepper, and will be done in watercolor. Pepper is a wild horse breed.