Wildlife in my yard

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This buck was in my yard this morning. I have seen him several times this summer. Earlier, I thought he was a five point. As his antlers grew, I decided he was a six point. Now it is clear he has 6 on one side and 7 on the other, plus funny looking little knobs growing at the base of his antlers.

This baby moose and his mom were sleeping on the ditchbank in my back yard today. There were too many trees to photograph his mother, but I managed to get a shot of him laying down behind some grass - at least his head. He's not very little any more, and his legs look six feet long!

I did not photograph the other wild animal that was in my yard. I looked out on the front porch yesterday afternoon and there was a skunk on the porch, helping himself to the cat food. If he keeps coming back, it might complicate my trapping cats.

August 4

Finished a watercolor yesterday.

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I started this some time ago, and just finished it yesterday. It could use some work on the values, but in general, I was pleased with it. I think I loosened up a bit with this one, which is something I need to do.

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Another Old Dog

This is Hobo. I found him eating road-killed gophers on the highway near Warren Bridge. I was unable to find his owner (his collar was gone), so of course I kept him. He was a wonderful little dog, really devoted. I was at a barbeque at Pete and Sally's and saw that Sally had two little dogs who looked just like him. When I mentioned it, I found that Susan had raised these pups, and had given one to a family who lived up by Warren Bridge. Hobo did not like kids, and I know the family had a boy about 4 years old - probably not a good match. Susan was so glad to hear that he was in a good home. He lived to be about 13 or 14 years old.

It turns out he was a Bichon Frise, a breed I was not familiar with. I had a little girl in my kindergarten class who had a tshirt with a Bichon on it (and she said Sally gave it to her) but it was called a "Bitchen' Frizzy" on the shirt. I loved it!

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It was extremely smoky again this morning, but has cleared up a bit. Seems like the smoke just settles down on us every night. With all the beetle-killed trees, I realize this fire will probably be good for the forest in the long run. But the recovery will take longer than I've got years left!

I didn't take this picture. It was sent to me by a friend, and I have no idea who took it.

Have a Happy Day!

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Another photo from the past. This is Tracy and Natalie at Tracy's wedding.

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Another smoky day. There have been so many tremendous photos posted of the smoke from the New Fork Lake fire. From my upstairs window, it looks like beautiful puffy cloud formations, but when you look more carefully, you see that yellowish-gray smoke color lower down.

For some reason, I seem to have more hummingbirds today. There are at least three, maybe four, fighting at the feeder on the front porch. It looks empty, so I just mixed up some fresh sugar water.

I will get the cat traps from Julie tomorrow and start trapping cats again. Lynn T. sent me her journal entries from when she was trapping cats and taking them to the vet to be fixed. Her story makes my experience sound pretty tame. She was trapping cats in the winter and had to haul them out on a snow machine! It was entertaining to read.

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A Visit from Kasey

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Gary brought Kasey over yesterday afternoon for a couple of hours. I don't have many toys, but she loves the rain stick I have on the table in the living room. And I have a couple of little soft birds that sing when you squeeze them. She's not used to having so much room to explore, and she enjoys just walking around my house.

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My poppies are all dried up and ugly now, but they were sure pretty when they were blooming. I thought I might attempt to paint them, but I am not very good with flowers.

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Tracy called this morning. They plan on leaving for Pinedale sometime Friday. They have a campsite reserved at the lake for the week. I hope we don't have to wear masks to breathe while they are here.

I have been woken up by the smell of smoke in the middle of night several times. Before I am really awake, I think I have a house fire - and then remember how the smoke seems to settle in town every night. I think the forest service personnel would be put to good use by patrolling around the forest and taking people's matches away from them.

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Old Dog

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This is Boomer, without a doubt the most unique dog there ever was. He was a St. Bernard mix. He was known to rip the coat sleeves of people whom he thought walked too close to his pickup when he was in the back. He tolerated cats, more or less, but this one he claimed as HIS kitten. They adored each other. He used to pull Barrie around town in a little red wagon. And he loved to help pack in fire wood. He expected treats when we were eating, and would pick up his treat dish and put it up on the table and wait for you to put something in it. Then he would put it on the floor, eat his treat, and put the dish back up on the table.

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A pen and ink I did about a year ago.

Another watercolor

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Click on this to open a larger view so you can read it.

My favorite cartoon is Calvin and Hobbs. Tracy got me hooked on it several years ago. At that time, I didn't "get it". I had never figured out that Hobbes was a stuffed toy who only became a real tiger when he and Calvin were alone. Calvin's idea about life in this cartoon fits me perfectly!

July is Gone

Tomorrow will be the last day of July! This summer has gone by so fast. I wonder why?

After I complained about the haze and smoke yesterday, I found that there is a forest fire up by New Fork Lake, and there was a lot of smoke billowing up. The air actually looks better today, I think the wind is taking it east of us. There are so many beetle-killed trees in the forests this year, I guess we have to expect this.

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Here are two more of my favorite "clean air" landscape photos, the first is Fremont Lake, and the other is Newfork Lake.

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It was nice to meet with the art group at Rendezvous Pointe this morning. Missed Vicky, though. Terry is working on a beautiful painting of purple iris. Can't wait to see the finished product.

Pam is volunteering to help with the art exhibit at the county fair, and Conley offered to help her. I feel guilty - Pam is getting three of my pieces ready to enter in the fair, and I didn't even offer to help.

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clear skies?

An Old Watercolor

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I came across this slide not long ago, and scanned it. I have no idea when I painted it, but it inspires me! I like this better than anything I am doing now.

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I considered going for a drive yesterday and taking some pictures. But when I looked across the mesa and saw the dirty air, dust, smoke or whatever, I knew it would be frustrating. It's not much fun to photograph our beautiful mountains with that hanging over them.

I went through some of my pictures I had taken in the last year or two, and remember how beautiful it can be here. I wonder if we will ever have clean air again?

Meet Kasey

This is Kasey, my grandaughter. She is 14 months old. I just met her for the first time last week when her father brought her to introduce us. She is such a cutie! We had a picnic in the park together today.

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She looked so nice when she and her dad arrived. Shoes and everything!

Bad, bad dad!! We found a depression in the lawn that was filled with water, and Gary took her shoes off and encouraged her to wade it.

And it didn't take much encouragement for her to get in and start to experiment with the water and mud.

Does she look like she is having fun? I had a jug of water with me, and poured a stream of it over her head while Gary washed her off. She was ready for a nap by the time we left. So was I!

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Domestic Goddess

In The Kitchen:

Chocolate chip cookies and potato salad

I don't spend much time in the kitchen, usually. But I am going on a picnic to the park tomorrow, so made some cookies and potato salad. I even got most of the dishes washed afterward! I need to go out and put a new tank on my little portable grill and just hope it works so we can cook hot dogs.

Hey, Vicky, if you read this, I promise to bring some cookies to our next art meeting!

Vicky is so good to bring treats for all our art classes. Always welcome, and always yummy! I sometimes feel guilty that she does this every week for all of us.

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My computer automatically runs a Norton system scan every Friday night, and every week tells me I have some kind of spyware (forgot which one), so I remove it. And it is always back the next week. For several days now, I have had a pop-up message from Norton that new updates are available, so this morning I decided to go ahead and install them. I should have known better. Three hours later, Norton is still telling me it needs to run another complete system scan, that I am not protected, the spyware is back, and some of the updates could not be installed because the program couldn't find the correct path.

So I guess I'm not fully "protected".

If something destroys my computer, I will just buy a new one, I guess.

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Lazy day today - not much happening and not much planned. I did boil some potatoes and hard boil some eggs for potato salad, but probably won't make it until tomorrow. I watered part of the lawn, fed the cats, and made my bed. Well, in my books, that's enough work for one day!

Now I plan to try some of the activities in the "Art Escapes" book Pam sent home with me.

The cotton is starting to come down from the trees. I have so many butterflies around the house right now, and when the cotton floats down and a butterfly floats by, I see them out of the corner of my eye. It's very distracting!

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I think I will call this pencil drawing a "work in progress", as I can see it needs more work. But it's all I have accomplished this past week, so thought I might as well post it.

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