“Summer’s Child” – Donald Zolan
DayDayPaint.com
“Little Friends” – Vladimir Volegov
2nd Try
I finished painting this and wasn’t satisfied. It just didn’t turn out the way I had hoped. My husband tactfully agreed. Today I started scraping off a bunch of the paint. I’m going to repaint the two parts with background paint the best I can. Then we decided, as we were discussing what might be done, that I might try to use a used air brush setup I got a long time ago but have never used.
So, I’ll finish scraping paint, redo the background colors with sponge or cloth, and then we’ll see what we can do with the air brush.
Maybe we can do a better job this time.
Filed under Lewis Art, Lewis projects, metal art
The Miracle of Kong Toys
We got one of these for our pit bull, Bambi, years ago. He didn’t think much of it because he couldn’t destroy it, which was his big thing with toys. He wanted to find the weakness, exploit it, and demolish the toy. Even when I put treats in there, he wasn’t interested.
Now that we have our labrador retriever puppy, Amber, we live in a whole new world. She LOVES toys, though her attention span is the length of flea spit. I tried the Kong toy with her, filled with treats and peanut butter soon after we brought her home. She looked at it for a couple of seconds and went on to something else.
My sister-in-law suggested these again. I decided, ‘why not?’ and filled it with peanut butter and biscuits today. Amber went nuts over it this time, avidly trying to get the goodies inside.
When we were on the porch talking to Foy when he had finished brush hogging today, we heard a big noise from the porch. It was Amber, playing with the Kong toy. She was picking it up and throwing it against the screen door. It was bouncing from there to the floor, and she jumped after it. :0)
If you haven’t tried one, it might be something your pet will really enjoy.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
Foy is Still Working
This is Foy Brown driving the tractor up and over the edge of the civilized part of our back yard yesterday. He told us he would be back this morning, and my husband said he would help him air up a low tire on the tractor before starting. He’s out there working in the hot as I type, trying to finish up our fire break today.
Up on top of a ridge line, we don’t have to worry about floods – flash or otherwise. We don’t have hurricanes here, or storm surges from the ocean. We do have to worry about lightning, tornadoes, high wind, and wild fires.
We do all we can to protect ourselves from lightning strikes. One year we lost our whole entertainment center plus a couple of appliances due to a lightning strike nearby. We’ve since built in some better protection.
Wild fires are the next most likely threat. About 7 years ago we hired a nice man to run his bulldozer over things to create a break. He died, and we hadn’t been able to find anyone who had equipment or interest in helping us redo the break until now.
Our view will be opened up, which is a truly enjoyable thing. The peace of mind that we’ve lowered our risks a bit in the event of a wild fire is beyond price. When Foy is finished, I’ll follow up his good efforts with the weed killer we got recently. It’s a concentrate, and we have a good 3 gallon sprayer to use. Foy did mention he saw a copperhead in the rocks – so I’ll be sure to wear boots and pay attention.
Amber has been upset that she lost her good, high grass for taking care of business; but with 8 acres, we think she can probably find several other good spots…
Filed under Arkansas, Greenwood, Mother Nature
Skirmish
In this corner – Amber, yellow labrador retriever, 4-1/2 months old, 41+ pounds, no brain.
vs
Smoke, 1 year old cat who loves to taunt Amber, shown lying on my calendar beside me as I type on the computer.
Amber was warned not to mess with the cat – a couple of times, the second time with fly swatter shown. She seemed to take it seriously, lying down in Molly’s bed under my feet. She oozed out to my left while I was concentrating on other things. I admonished her and got her to lie down beside my chair.
Suddenly Amber’s nose was on my right, attached to bright eyes and lively dog, plus teed off cat. Smoke hissed, jumped up and whacked Amber in the face. Amber got even more excited. I jumped up and tried to pick up the cat, with the idea of putting her on the other side of the office pet gate.
End result:
- Smoke is out
- Amber is on the back porch
- I have new band-aids on both arms from where Smoke dug in her claws.
Lesson –
Either let them fight it out or use something other than my body to try to break up future altercations. Am looking for a whole-body band-aid or body armor…
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
Life is Like That
Zen to Zany via Carol Auclair Daly-Art by Anita Opper
Filed under Attitude, Encouragement, Favorite Quotes
Detente’
I caught this picture of Molly (left) and Amber (right) last night. It didn’t last long, but it shows the sweet doggies are learning to tolerate one another – at least for short periods of time.
Molly would prefer to be on the rug now while Amber is in her “place,” but progress is being made.
Smoke continues to taunt Amber – confident she can leap up or sprint out of range. Abby continues to hiss really loudly, but isn’t frantic to get outside now.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
We’re winning the Battle on the Weed Trees!
Foy Brown brush hogged from the guy-wire on the telephone pole and behind it. He can’t get to the ones further away, since they’re growing up through the really impressive pile of rocks the builders shoved there when our house was built. I received the weed killer I ordered, so when Foy finishes the fire break for us, I’ll spray these trees and see what happens.
- Update – Foy got the tractor going and is out there now, brush hogging away, so the fire break project is back on track!
Filed under Lewis projects
Painting Water is Impossible, But… – Take 3
Fine Art America – Phyllis M. Beiser
Foman – DailyMail
Zaria Forman – Amusing Planet
Filed under Creativity, water paintings
Trees
“Among the Trees” – Paul Militaru Photography
“Liana Tree” – Paul Militaru Photography
“Tree – White Flowers” – Paul Militaru Photography
Filed under Paul Militaru Photography
Paintings of Children – Take 3
Gareth Reid Portraits
Donald Zolan – “Quiet Time”
Donald Zolan
Filed under Creativity, paintings of children
Progress on Ham Radio Tower
I wanted to make sure you saw a picture of THREE 10 foot sections of the tower put together.
Yesterday my husband made a mounting bracket for the rotator controller that will live in the office. He hung the box nicely on the bottom of the shelf in the ham radio corner of the office. It’s now ready to be attached to the tower rotator.
Yesterday we also carried the 4th 10 foot section of the tower, the section that includes the rotator, out to the yard. It had started to rain, and it sure was welcome relief from the heat!
My husband attached the 4th section to the tower yesterday. Today we started trying to lift up the end in preparation for adding the 9 foot square antenna. (We’ll need to get the end up at least 10 feet so we can attach the antenna in preparation for wiring of the rotor and the antenna.
Here’s a view from the rotator end.
And a view from south of the tower so you can get a feeling for how LONG this thing is. Add another 5 feet or so for the antenna and the tower is 45 feet tall. The next step is wiring the rotator and then we’ll bring out a ladder to try to move the end up where we need it. It’s coming along!
Filed under Lewis projects
Progress on the Fire Break?
Our good “man-for-all-sorts-of-difficult-jobs” Foy Brown came over at 8:30 this morning, tractor part in hand. He had to order it from Kansas City and it took all week for it to arrive.
His tractor looks similar to this one. It also has an 8 foot wide brush hog attachment on the back.
At the beginning of last week he brush hogged our side yard, around the greenhouse and over the place we need to construct the ham radio tower. He started brush hogging a fire break for us in the back, but broke a hydraulic part. He and my husband went all over Greenwood, and then Fort Smith, trying to find a replacement, but were unable to. So Foy ordered it.
He’s out in the back now, trying to install the part and get the tractor going.
His wife, Judy, was sitting in the car when I came out. I invited her in for coffee, but she had her little dog, the newspaper, and seemed quite content. She said she would stay until she heard the tractor going – after making sure Foy has his bottle of water, hat, etc.
Hopefully he can get the tractor going and get the fire break done today. It’s too hot to be spending days outside around here. We’ll watch to make sure he takes breaks and is all right.
Fingers crossed he can get the tractor going!
Filed under Arkansas, Greenwood, Lewis projects
Christmas in July
Yesterday morning my husband walked in while I was laboriously cleaning our 2-gallon wheel-shaped fish bowl. I was on one side of the bowl trying to capture the fish with my one cup metal measuring cup. I caught each one, put my hand over the top of the cup, walked around to the other side of the divider, poured the fish and water into a larger bowl and then covered the top of that bowl.
My husband said, “You need a fish net.” He asked why I didn’t move the fish bowl into the kitchen sink. I told him that with the water in it, it was too heavy for me to do that. I needed to get the fish out, use a tall plastic glass to remove about half of the water, then move the bowl into the sink to clean.
He said, that’s a lot of work when you have to do it every few days to keep the water clear. I simply said, “I love fish.” He said, we haven’t had an aquarium in a long time. Why don’t we go get a small one and that’ll save you a lot of work.” Not a stupid lady, I said, “Hooray! I’d love it!”
My husband said later, “I’m antsy. Why don’t we go to town and get the aquarium.” And so I enjoyed Christmas in July. :0)
We got a 5 gallon aquarium, air pump, air filter, gravel, some decorations and greenery, and extra filter pads. By the time we got home, it was 8:00 in the evening and we just piled the boxes in the dining area, fed animals, fed ourselves, and watched a movie.
We just finished putting the aquarium together. It took us awhile to arrange an electrical strip for all the plug-ins and then to clean things up, but the fish are swimming all around exploring their new home. We got a siphon type cleaner to clean debris from the gravel, and I’ll read up on when to change the filter pad, etc., but now that it’s altogether, it looks like it’ll be a lot less work for me and a nicer home for the fish.
They’re already swimming through the holes in the decorations. It has LED lights and a quieter air pump than we had in the bowl. We corralled all the wiring as much as possible.
I keep finding another reason to go back to the kitchen/dining area so I can look at the aquarium again. I love Christmas in July!
Filed under Changes, Delightful Surprises, Family
The Caterpillar Disintegrated
At least, I THINK it was a caterpillar. It came from the exclusive emporium of WalMart. It was bilious pink with knobby things all up and down its length. It had yellow feet, a head sporting a smile with very white teeth, yellow ears, and squeakies in both ends. Amber loved it.
It lived to go through the wash twice. Amber got one squeaky out, but the other one was still in.
Amber was here in the office with me. She moved from one toy to the next and then came through my legs to get to the bed under the counter, and then out again, over and over. She then got quiet.
I should have known that wasn’t good, but I was so happy she had settled for a bit that I didn’t pay enough attention. The next time I looked, the pink caterpillar had lost about half of its length in bits and pieces all over the carpet. I spent the next minutes with the whisk broom, trying to gather the shreds, threads, and balls of pink ‘stuff’ that used to be a toy. I have now disposed of the caterpillar (thank goodness the squeaky is NOT inside Amber!).
Amber won a trip out to the back porch so that I could clean things up. The threads were everywhere. I used a whisk broom, the vacuum cleaner, the whisk broom again, and the vacuum again before things were good again.
I don’t think Amber learned any lessons from this, but “I” did. I’ve learned to pay better attention when the soft toys start getting raggedy.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
If You’re Gonna Get a Tattoo… Take 3
Elegant Animalistic Tattoos by Joanna Swirskaby
Christopher Jobson on July 14, 2017 – Colossal
“Wrocław-based tattoo artist Joanna Swirskaby inks carefully considered depictions of animals tinged with psychedelic splashes of color. Her most common subject is the humble feline which seems to make an appearance in nearly half of her works which run the gamut from graceful to fantastically absurd.
You can follow more of her recent work on Instagram.”
Filed under Creativity, Tattoos!
It’s Impossible to Paint Water, But… – Take 2
Funnyjunk via FunSubstance.com
Wave Art – The Shallows – Artist Unknown
YouTube – Artist Unknown
Filed under Creativity, water paintings
Music Magic
Zen to Zany via Cathy Ruggiero
To my way of thinking, music is magic.
If I’m in the shop working on something and one of our long time favorite songs starts, I’m instantly transported – 14 again and dancing at a party or remembering something I thought I had long forgotten. The years fall off. If the music is slow, I may hum along. If it’s fast, I jump up and shake my parts in time with it, feeling just as I did umpteen years ago, pain gone, creakiness gone, a smile on my face. Isn’t that amazing?
It’s been found that playing favorite music in hospitals makes patients happier and heal more quickly. Music from the big band era played in nursing homes brings smiles, tapping feet, happy memories.
I don’t understand it, but it’s a miracle we should take advantage of whenever possible. Bop to the beat in your heart to get an instant burst of energy!
Filed under Attitude, Encouragement, music
Paintings of Children – Take 2
Artist Unknown
I want to reach out and stroke this child’s hair. Isn’t the light in this painting wonderful?
Selene Salvi
The girl is beautiful, and I love the pose. The texture of the clothes is amazing, too.
Donald O’Conner
I want to look for shells with this child. The dress is eye-popping and I love the texture of the sand. I can almost hear the water lapping.
Filed under Creativity, paintings of children
Multi-Shampoo Day
Heat index is 110 degrees F. today. UGH.
Amber and I went out to the garden to plant 3 celery plants and take pics of my squash. Then we walked out to the greenhouse so we could take pics of my husband’s ham radio tower which now has THREE sections together. By the time we got back to the house, my head was not only wet, it was dripping. UGH. It’s always hot in Arkansas in the summer ( July and August are the worst). We’re used to that, insulating ourselves from the heat as much as possible. This year, though, we’ve had a lot more humidity than usual. I’m too old for humidity, I find. I refuse to wash my hair more than three times a day, though – so if you’re coming to see us, I might look like an exploded dandelion.
______________
Since I planted my first celery this year, I’ve learned two things:
Thing One – I’m supposed to be giving them a lot more water than the rest of my garden plants. I’ll keep using the irrigation system, but will also arrange to add extra water to the celery a couple of times a day.
Thing Two – I’m supposed to be tying the stalks together tightly as they grow. I’ll give that a try, but I’m not sure that’s a workable thing. I may just continue to come out and cut some stalks when they’re ready and let the plant do its natural thing.
I planted two spaghetti squash plants grown from seed taken from one bought at the store and sprouted in a glass in the kitchen. I now have FIVE spaghetti squash(es)! I’m not sure what the plural of ‘squash’ is. Anyhow, they’re looking great. Pics below.
I spent about an hour in the raised bed square foot garden yesterday trying to catch up on the weeds. I got things pretty much under control. Even with irrigation, the heat is stressing plants out now, so I’m feeling lucky to have anything still alive. I’m concentrating on trying to keep the plants as comfortable as possible, growing where and how they want to.
This grape tomato plant spread out all over one whole 4’x4′ square planter. Since it has blossoms all over it, I’m just letting it take over the planter.
The marigolds are happy. They don’t have very many plants to protect right now. Such happy-looking flowers! (Celery plants are along the back of the marigolds.)
Two of the spaghetti squash. I’m just pulling up the vines that spill over the box, spreading the vine carefully over the dirt and letting them go where they may. I put special plastic melon holders under the squash for support. I guess I’ll harvest these soon, as they’re getting to be the size of some I’ve bought at the store. They have blossoms on the vines, too, so I may get more!
Three new celery plants planted this morning.
Two more spaghetti squash(es). you can see a couple of yellow squash blossoms.
And this is a dog plant……
Amber went with me to plant the celery and take pictures this morning. She loved walking around under the planter boxes, enjoying the new world… she got hot, too, and jumped into her pool on the way back from taking pics of my husband’s tower.
Tomatoes! July 21, 2017
We had a GREAT harvest today. It’s so hot that even though we have an automatic watering system, the plants are pretty stressed. I’m not sure if we’ll have any more or not this year. We mustn’t be TOO greedy, though. We’ve had a truly great year for fresh tomatoes – plenty for us and more for family and friends, plus ones to freeze. YUM!
The next time I go out, I’m planning to weed the raised bed square foot garden. I’ll take pics to post.
Gifts!
I told you yesterday that our thank you to the Taylors for coming and helping us pour all the concrete for the ham radio tower pad was that my husband replaced the rickety arms of the cart the concrete mixer was on with some metal, painted ones that will probably outlive all of us. I also took a bag of our tomatoes.
We didn’t expect that WE would get gifts from the Taylors!
Laufrain is a master with plants of all kinds. I’ve told you about the Taj Mahal of greenhouses that Dave built for Laufrain. I can’t think of anyone who deserves something fabulous like this more. Her whole yard, right on Shadow Lake, is a wonderland of stone paths, garden areas, natural areas, beautiful lush grass, and more.
The picture above shows an elephant ear plant she gave me. Isn’t it wonderful?
If Laufrain told me what the name of this nice plant is, I’ve forgotten it. Not only does it have this beautiful purple and green foliage, it blooms with purple flowers! I can’t wait!!
I went out last evening with the idea of quickly planting these two plants, and ended up calling on my husband for help. We have a wisteria on one end of this planter, and it had big gnarly roots growing all the way to the opposite end of the planter! We used two kinds of shovels, a pick axe and a lopper to finally get holes deep enough to plant.
Laufrain also gave me an avocado plant! It’s on my window sill right now because I want to read up on how to try to take care of it.
We are lucky to have such wonderful friends.
Filed under Friendship, Gardening
Ham Radio Tower Progress Report – July 21, 2017
Last night my husband attached the 1st section of the tower to the base plate on the pad we made. You can see that there is a base plate on the bottom of the section that is now bolted to the base plate on the concrete form. This is so you can lay the whole tower down if needed.
He’s going to put the 4 ten-foot sections together on the ground, add the antenna propped up on a pole, and pound stakes in on three sides for guy wires. Once the whole thing is together and cabled, he can test it to make sure all is working as it should. Then our good friend, Dave, will bring over his equipment to pull the tower up into place and we can tie the guy wires to the stakes.
This is a better picture of the base plate on the bottom of the 1st section. There will be another bolt to hold the base plate to the concrete when the tower goes up. There are four sections of the tower, each 10 feet tall, plus the antenna, which is square – 9 feet on each side. The whole tower is about 45 feet tall.
This will all take some time, and I’m fighting with my husband about trying to do too much at one time in the sun. I’ll take progress pictures as we work.
Filed under Lewis projects
The Gruesome Foursome
I got my newest fish from Petco last Sunday. So far, everyone seems healthy.
When I lost my last fish, I emptied everything out of the bowl, treating the bowl itself with hot water and bleach, and the decorations with hot water and vinegar. Then I used aged water to fill up the bowl. I have no clue why I lost the last ones. I got them from WalMart and I’m beginning to think maybe the fish in that one tank weren’t as healthy as I had hoped. It was either that, or the environment I was providing, so I decided to get everything super clean and then get the fish elsewhere.
I got four small goldfish. They were really swimming fast in the tank at Petco, and even the guy who worked in that department all the time had trouble catching them with his net. I haven’t named them, but they are so much alike that it’s hard – if not impossible – to tell them apart. One may have a little more red that the others.
I’m keeping two gallons of aged water ready for each cleaning now, rather than using water from the tap and putting in the treatment stuff. I’m holding my breath and keeping all appendages crossed that the combination of the new source for the fish and my intense cleaning of everything will do the trick this time.
They are really reacting to my voice when I feed them. They start swimming really fast in anticipation of the food being sprinkled in. :0)
Filed under Uncategorized
Feeling We’re Inside the Crock Pot
With the humidity at 54% right now, the heat index is at 106 degrees F., and due to get hotter as the afternoon wears on. I realize it’s summer, but I’m older than dirt now, and not as able to handle this as I once was.
That said, I’m going to be doing some stuff outside, activity in short bursts with cool down and lots of water in-between, for the rest of the day.
- gather ripe tomatoes
- weed the raised bed square foot garden
- weed whacking around the yard
- pruning the rose bushes,
- weeding the flower planters
This is my list in order of priority. I’ll be lucky if I get ANY of these things done.
Thank goodness we have good air conditioning. If we didn’t, I think all I would do is lie around with wet towels over me…
Blowing Bubbles
onsecrethunt.com via http://www.wallpapersxl.com
Blowing bubbles is one of my favorite things. I loved it all through my childhood, and used our son as an excuse to always have some on hand as he was growing up. Now he’s across the world from us and I still have some on hand.
zen to zany via cathy ruggiero
Now, when my husband and I are cooking outside on the grill, we turn on the rope LED lights that we strung around the top of the deck cover and I bring out my bubbles. My husband looks at me as if I probably have brain damage of some kind. These were never an attraction for him. The only ones he got into was when they came out with a humongous wand that generated HUGE bubbles.
I’m content to use my ‘ordinary’ bubbles and wand – happily remembering wonderful things I can share with him as we enjoy the smell of the charcoal and the sizzling beef.
Filed under Childlike Fun, Family
Poor Amber Wants to Play
Poor Amber tried to get Molly to play with her this morning. She was relatively sweet about it, too, taking one toy after another under my chair to make her way to Molly’s bed in the space beside my feet at the computer desk. She was serially rebuffed by Molly, who had no interest at all in Amber or her toys. I defended Molly, and then played tug of war and fetch the plastic squeaky bone for about 20 minutes. Amber was just getting started!
She switched to the rawhide, taking it to Molly, then to my husband across the room, then to me. I threw it for her several times, but it wasn’t enough. We went through the stuffed caterpillar with the squeaky, the heavy glass paperweight, the teddy bear, the indestructible weird ring with knobs on it, an empty plastic bottle, all getting a small share of time and attention, but it wasn’t enough.
I finally took her for a walk just now. We walked out to where the greenhouse is, and the new ham radio tower will be, all around the edge of the civilized part of the yard in the back, out to the garden and around it, back to the front yard, out to the kiddie pool. She jumped in, splashed all around, drank a bunch of it, and jumped back out. I finally left her on the porch for a while.
We’re heading for Lunch Bunch in a few minutes, and then all of this will start again….
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
Painting Water is Impossible, But…
Painting of Reflection on Water – Ann Ardon Fine Art
Look at these! These are so good they bring tears to my eyes. Painting realistic water and realistic snow are extremely difficult, and yet some people are talented enough to do it.
Gustavo Silva Nunez – DeMiked
Eric Zener
Filed under water paintings
Paintings of Children – Take 1
Artist Unknown
Artist Unknown
Svetlana Cameron 2010
Filed under paintings of children
creativeartworksblog 