Monday

Barrie: "Look What Followed Me Home."

"Hay, water, and no wolves, can I stay?"

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Barrie has been seeing this little horse up the Green every time she runs her dogs up there. It looks like it was abandoned. Today she took the horse trailer up and brought him down to her dad's place. When she was driving down with the horse, she went by a pack of wolves. She said they just stood there and watched her drive by with their meal. She thinks this little guy may have been on their menu.

Barrie thinks there is a chance the wolves will still be in the area tomorrow, so I will try to get up early enough to ride up there with her. Maybe I'll get some pictures.

Sunday

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I got this painting finished yesterday. I'm still undecided about the foreground, whether to add a little more detail or not. Probably NOT, because I would no doubt ruin it.

Yesterday I cut up some ham, onion, and potatoes and put them in the pressure cooker with some frozen green beans. Seven minutes later, I added some milk and flour, cooked and stirred for about one minute, and BAM! We had soup, and it was very good.

Even though I don't cook all that much any more, that electric pressure cooker is a great appliance. You can also use it as a crock pot, or to just keep things warm. It has a rice setting, and it made great rice the one time I tried it. I wish I'd had something like this back in the days when I really did cook.

Saturday

Just another boring day. I have worked a little bit on a watercolor, and might get it finished today. I moved all my November photos off the camara cards into the November folder on the computer and formatted the cards. I finished folding cards and got them put into envelopes for eight more packs.

I spent most of yesterday working on the novel I wrote for the NaNoWriMo project. If you are a winner (write at least 50,000 words), there is a publishing company who will provide you with a free proof copy of your book, cover art in color and all. That sounds like fun! So I did a lot of editing on it.

But you have to format your book before you submit it to them. First, I changed the page size to 6" x 9", then I saved it in PDF format. Next came the page numbering, and I spent all day on that. I finally figured it out this morning, after dreaming about it last night. My problem was tht I wanted the page numbers to begin on the fifth page of the book, not the first. What a hassle!



I am working on a painting of these mountains, and just wasn't getting it. Today, I opened the photograph in my Corel Paint program, and tried different effects on it. This was "oil painting", I believe, and it sure makes it look easier to remove all the little details. Don't know why I have such a hard time with that.

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This is Kimble, my next colored pencil project. She was so pretty sitting on top of her house, but the minute I started to photograph her, she went in her house and peaked out.

Brr

I think the title says it all - "Brr". My thermometer said it got down to 15 below zero early this morning.

I'm sure you all remember Burt and Ruth Reinow. Their license plate said "Brr". My first thought was "cold", but then I realized it was their initials.

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I wasn't very productive at art group yesterday. I didn't feel like starting a painting or even working on one that was already started. I ended up doing a couple of little ones - 3" x 4" and using my little travel paint kit. I think Vicky put me in the mood. She is doing such beautiful small paintings.

I don't know if I mentioned that the washing machine broke down. It was pouring water out onto the bathroom floor. Thank goodness Barrie caught it before there was a real flood. Barrie checked it out, got the book out that came with it, and ordered a new water pump. The pump came yesterday, Barrie put it on, hooked the machine back up, and got caught up on her laundry. She's just too handy!

Her four wheeler broke down, and I'm afraid it won't be that easy to fix. So she is taking her entire team up the Green, and is hooking sixteen dogs up to her pickup for their training runs. Because she will be inside the pickup, she took Kasey with her today. Kasey was so excited to go with Mom.

I never found or smelled the lost mouse. Might find its little dried up skeleton some day.

Tuesday

I'm home, and glad to be here! Poor timing on my part, because I was in the thick of the Jonah Field rush hour traffic.

Got my eyes checked, and was so happy to hear that my cataracts are very minor. I was told at my last appointment that they were beginning, but evidently not growing fast. So when I have my new glasses without the scratches and with the correct prescription, I should see like an eagle!

I really wanted to drive home today by Green River and the White Mountain Road. But it got too late too fast, so I just came home by the highway.

Because I didn't really see anything to photograph yesterday, I'll post some photos I took a couple years ago.




The old stud on the left looks pretty battle scared, and I think he was blind in one eye. The younger stud drove him away when he got too close to the mares. Not a very good picture because it happened so fast and they were moving so fast.

Our mountains are so beautiful, but the desert is beautiful too. I took this to the south from the top of White Mountain. This is two photos merged together.

Here are a few wild horses in front of Pilot Butte.

Ahhhhh

Monday

Ahhh - Love this. I'm cozied up in a motel room in Rock Springs with some new books, magazines, a sack of Fritos and some bean dip.

Tomorrow will be big WalMart day. I'm the only person I know who will get a motel room 100 miles from home just to go shopping.

I took the Wild Horse Tour Road across to Green River, then back to Rock Springs. The horses made themselves very scare today. I did see a good sized bunch off in the distance, but these two studs and a colt were all I saw close enough to photograph. Saw hundreds and hundreds of antelope, and they ran off the minute they saw the pickup.

I wish the news would find something besides the couple who crashed the party at the White House, and Tiger Woods. It's getting very boring. There must be something else going on somewhere in the world!

If you were a cat, where would you hide it?

Happy Birthday to Sally!

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I heard a lot of noise downstairs, and Kat came up with this in her mouth. She was hissing and puffing and growling like a lion in the jungle.

Of course the mouse was still alive and she had to torture and play with it. It got away and went under the chair and up inside it. I tipped the chair up, and it took Kat about an hour to catch it again.

Usually she catches her mice during the night and leaves them in the middle of the floor for me. She had been worried I would take it away from her before she was through playing with it, and I have no idea where she put it. I have looked under the bed with a flashlight and in all the corners and behind things.

They don't stink too long, do they?

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I had the big lens on the camera after taking pictures of deer the other day, and I decided to take a picture of the moon. Our air must be pretty clear right now.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Dinner in about three hours!

Stuffing the bird

Kasey watching the Macy's Thanksgiving parade.

We've had so many deer hanging out here lately. This buck spent some time on the ditchbank today and posed for me.

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I didn't get up until almost 10:00 this morning. Barrie and Kasey were gone. And the turkey was gone!

When Barrie and Kasey got back (they had been out to feed the dogs), Barrie brought the turkey out of the bathroom. It was still frozen, and she couldn't get the kitchen sinks to hold water, so she had put it in the bathtub to finish thawing.

It's in the electric roaster, and smells delicious.

Seven Dwarfs

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I love this Calvin cartoon - one of my favorites.

Judi has got us all scrambling around to prove how "smart" we are by posting pictures of her seven dwarfs collection. For years, I have been challenged to name the seven dwarfs off the top of my head. I still can't.

I did find a photo of the dwarfs with their names and am posting it for the enlightenment of all. By the way, did you know Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was made in 1937 and was re-released in 1944, in order to raise revenue for the Disney studio during the World War II period?

With Google's help, I am just SOOO smart!

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Barrie brought home fixings for dinner yesterday - 12 lb turkey, potatoes, an apple pie, celery, onion, and some canned goods. Yum! I think she plans on fixing the whole dinner tomorrow.

Finished NaNoWriMo

OK, this is it for today. All the news I have, and all that is happening here.

I actually completed putting more than 50,000 words down for the 2009 writing activity. It's been kind of fun, and I might try it again next year. There have been 1,708,584,120 words written collectively around the world by the participants. I'm not sure I can even read that number. Is that over one trillion? Really big number!

Yeah, it's supposed to be a novel, but it is more or less rambling disjointed and unorganized. If a person is really going to attempt something like this, probably should have a detailed plan and outline. That is, if you are serious about it.

Oh well,