First Snow Fall of 2009-2010 Winter

Wow, I can't believe it's been so long since my last blog. I KNOW some of you have reminded me, but well, time flies. I'll show you the snow fall and then fill you in on October and November later.

It started snowing Friday, December 11 around 10am. It snowed steady with large flakes for quite a while and this is what we got.

That's Oak Mistletoe in the treetops.



My Hillbilly garden art, designed and rendered by my buddy Karen. The one on the left is a fishbowl, and the one on the right is Rosey. Doesn't she remind you of Rosey the maid on The Jetsons?



And this is Romeo and Juliette, loving the snow. That's a miniature pumpkin plant under Juliette. I love that little guy.
Jack Frost hung in here many, many days before the temps warmed enough to allow for snow.

We were seeing 15, 10, 8 degrees in the mornings when we awoke, and temps holding in the 20s all day. We are used to 30 to 40 degree temperature changes from morning til mid afternoon, so this was a real bummer. I never got warm until yesterday afternoon (Saturday).


October

Our daughter Jennie and her Michael came to visit. Here they are in the cedar paneled pump house on our "ranch".


We hiked to the top of the hill and there is the Klamath River flowing along. We love this " view from the top of our world."
I think this is our favorite spot on the property


J & M descending the summit.


Here they are checking out the Horse Creek Bridge before heading for Happy Camp and their coastal journey back to SF.

It was really fun having them for the weekend.

November

My sister and family were here for Thanksgiving. We ate at the Seiad School, a great community endeavor feeds the locals for a donation, and you even get to take leftovers when you leave.

Shanna, Elizabeth (Betty) and Stan.


We left Seiad after dinner and headed for Happy Camp where Big Foot was waiting for us.



This was a fun weekend, but way too short. We will see them again at Christmas time when we go down below.



Happy Winter to all and to all a good night.

luv/joB
(entered 12/12/09)

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Two mysteries solved

Remember the mystery plant from Connie. It's the heart shaped leaves in the middle of the pansies...



The pansies didn't survive my June vacation, but my Connie plant just kept on growin'.




This is what it grew up to be. The flowers are small, and it's not very exotic, but proved to be very hardy with those poppy pods full of seed.


Still don't know the name.

Do you?






Second mystery... the volunteer vining plant. Tasted like a cucumber at the beginning, but had this roundy shape, and the new fruit looked like kiwi; small, dark, and fuzzy.


I decided at some point to not pick any more "cucumbers" and lo and behold, they grew up to be honey dew melons...



well some of them look like honey dew, but - on the same plant, mind you - is this other dark rough skinned melon. Soon we will pick them and see what they really are.







The sunflower heads are drying on the picnic table. The corn husks have been hauled to the burn pile..... and we're still picking patty pans.


The cantaloupes were beautiful. Some perfect specimens... some not so great! But they are ours and we love them.




That's it til we harvest the acorn and butternut squash.

Just as a side note. The temperatures here this week have been 40 degrees when we rise in the AM, and 96 to 100 mid afternoon. We also have a substantial amount of smoke filling the air. We're not seeing flames. The fires are north of us in southern Oregon. Dry and windy, we are told.

Take care.

luv/jo

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Garden Harvests - September

We have been enjoying many goodies from the farm. It has been fun sharing and trading produce with our neighbors and friends.




Patty Pan Squash.








Banana Peppers





Volunteer tomatoes. A variety of Roma, we think.








Butternut... haven't eaten any yet, but soon.






Acorn - soon to be harvested.









A new watermelon just starting. We had only one so far with vines that stretched 6 feet in each direction. It was tasty, and we were disappointed that we had only that one. This little guy has to grow really fast now to beat the frost, right?






We have eaten a couple cantaloupes. Just brought one in yesterday. It's sitting on the counter - mellowing.







The corn crop hasn't been prolific, but the few small ears we've eaten have been tasty.














And in closing.... couldn't resist sharing this little garden critter with you.






Enjoy the rest of your summer.

We are....

luv/jo
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The Veggies Grow in the Hot Sun

The Farm on July 9. George did a good job of fighting the scorching sun while I was down below. All is growing and thriving.


Jim did such a nice job of terracing. Douncha think?

Here's some progress:




Bottom tier on June 25







Same tier on July 9


And look at this corn







Our morning temps have been in the low 40s and we're getting up to 90+ mid day.

Love this Klamath River weather!

luv/jo

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"The Farm"

This is actually my vegetable/fruit garden, but since I have some potted tomatoes planted by the trailer, I call the big garden "the farm".

We have squash of all varieties, a watermelon, a cantaloupe, many cantaloupe seedlings, which aren't doing too well. We also have 2 pepper plants - a banana and a red, an orient cucumber (which has a curled good size cuc on it now), Four string beans. We have three tomatoes, and many cosmos (flowers), and lettuce volunteered from last year.

We are grateful to Jim and Josey for all the work they did on this garden last year to make it such a wonderful place to grow stuff. The soil in heavenly and Jim hauled every rock from the river to build these beautiful terraced gardens. I'll show you a better picture of that next time.

We have corn planted in this circular area as it gets the most sun. Put seeds in June 18. Am watering and fertilizing, hoping for "knee high by the 4th of July". D'ya think they'll make it?


I am not there to protect my plants at all time, so Lilly Lu is on point to fend off the birds. But having an ancestral attachment to Alfred Hitchcock, they are impervious to her flailing arms.


.... also, I don't think she looks menacing enough... too smiley....




Finches love sunflower leaves. I sprayed soap suds and then sprinkled them with cayenne pepper (the leaves that is) and this is how effective that turned out to be. Next time the birds will get the treatment.








These are acorn squash plants given to me by my neighbor Shirley Haynes. They are the healthiest and fastest growing plants on the farm.
Patio tomatoes, Quick Pick. This is an early variety... they are just starting to look a little translucent. It might be awhile before we'll be adding these babies to our salads.



Flowers:

Geraniums and petunias.





Pansies and a mystery plant in the middle. I sprinkled seeds which my friend Connie gave me years ago. Not sure what they will become.



Petunias and Lavender.









Variety. A rooster comb and a pumpkin plant, which is something new my Gardner Barbara passed on to me. We'll see what it does. Another mystery flower coming later in the summer.

The alysum and lobelia are loved by something cause they are dying and disappearing... maybe good nesting material.


As much as the captain is itching for salt air, I am really enjoying being land locked this year. ...love having a chance to have a garden. We have been buying produce in Canada and Alaska the past few summers, so this is really going to be a treat! And we have already been blessed by the neighbors with green onions which measure 36" from root tip to green top tip. That really gives me hopeful anticipation for a Klamath River harvest.


luv/jo

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Painting off Walker Bridge photo - Stage 4

Stage 3

Stage 4

This is it..... the final.

The shadows on the right were not as cool as those on the left. So I added Ultramarine Blue to the under side of the bushes, which not only unifies the two sides of the canvas, also accentuates light hitting the tops of the bushes.

I found trees in the background that were reflecting the diminishing light of dusk. So I put highlights on them.

I put bare branches into the bushes on the left, and broke up the arch of dark blue that was front and center in the water. This emphasizes the last sparkles of evening sunlight reflecting off the water. There are now some small white riffles around the little islands that come in from the right front.

This is a dangerous time for me. I have so much fun with the highlights and details that I can get carried away with the "piddle, play, and putter" and end up with a "blend" rather than distinctive highlights. So I decided to stop here. I will look at this painting over the next few weeks and decide if I still need to do something, or if I can consider it done and ready to sign.

luv/joB

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Painting off Walker Bridge photo - Stage 3

This is Stage 3, and I must specify here that it is actually painted from the photo, rather than the "en plein air" location itself. This DOES affect the final rendition, as the atmosphere is not present in a photo... Susan Sarback says you get only "10% of the real thing" from a photo.



Sooooo what I am doing here is using the photo as a reference and asking it to spark my memory of what was actually happening with the sun and shadows at the time the photo was taken when I was there on the bridge painting.


As I study this stage, I am asking questions to fine tune the next stage.... comparing background, middle ground, foreground, and the actual focal point of this scene (which is the point of the lightest light and the darkest dark). Do you see it? It's where the sun is hitting on that water way in the back. These questions are: lighter/darker?, brighter/duller?, warmer/cooler?

Soooo..... 4th stage ahead.

luv/joB

"All for the love of art."

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Painting off Walker Bridge - Stage 2

This is stage 2.

Here I just define the shapes in a little more detail.



I finished this late in the day. I'll show you tomorrow.

luv/joB
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"Seeing Color" from the Walker Bridge

The art class we are currently taking from Nancy Kilmer is called "Seeing Color". It's the Hawthorne/Hensche style which is a modification of Monet's impressionism.

The first part of this class was the "drawing from the right side of the brain" exercises, and then the blocks still life.... painting the blocks and the shadows they cast. I showed those in previous blogs.

Now we are "en plein air" painting off the Walker Bridge, which is about a mile and a half down river from the community hall where we meet for class.

View down riber from the bridge:










My first attempt:



I am not happy with the way this is working out, as I don't feel I did a good "first stage".

The object of this whole process is to capture the light, color, and atmospheric conditions present at the time scene is being painted. I think I got the greens too bright, and since the oil paint has dried now (2 weeks later) I decided to start over last night.


Stage 1:

I started this last night in class - from the photo, which is not the same as "being there", but I think it's good practice for this first stage, which is the base, and needs to be correct. This is also the part where I have the most difficulty.


So this is where I am this morning.





I'll show you my progress as the day continues.








luv/joB
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