savin' the broccoli

Several days ago, the kids built a scarecrow for our garden. The deer have been helping themselves to our broccoli. They ate the tops off all my broccoli last year too. I'm sure they have low cholesterol and cancer rates as a result, but I was kinda hoping we could benefit from those veggies, rather than the deer. The kids have done a great job on the 'crow', now we will wait and see if it makes a difference. Watch for my photo of the deer right next to the scarecrow... I'm sure it will come!

I purchased art by Opie Oppenheim

The Native Art Gallery that I once managed has announced that it is closing its doors. I was sad to hear this after all the work I did there. Well, as most closing businesses do, the gallery is having a 50% off sale. I went in to get a little momento and came back with this print by Opie Oppenheim. Opie came in the gallery last spring and it was a pleasure meeting him. He is very funny and that is reflected in his work. This piece has a set of numbers in the top, left hand corner. Many people have speculated on what those numbers represent. It was suggested that they are a salmon count from the year the print was made. So I asked Opie what the numbers were for. "Oh, that's my bowling average." he says. Apparently this piece was never intended for reproduction, it was a scrap, a 'work in progress', but he loved the way the drawing and the casual 'chicken scratch' interacted so he had prints made. I now have this unintentional art hanging in my house. I am sad that there will no longer be a place where memories like this can be made.

it all started with a leak

And I don't mean the slang term for leak, although the two are somewhat related. The toilet that is right above my art studio in the house has had a very slow leak. The dad-guy has spent many hours replacing seals and flooring only to have the leak increase. And again my artwork has been baptized in am amonia-smelling liquid. So, the dad-guy lifted up the porcelain throne and began to replace the flooring. This time, however, we no long have extra linoleum to redo the floor. So we (innocently) went to a local flooring place to look at some small roll end stuff. But then, we thought, if we replace the bathroom flooring, the kitchen won't match it, and we might as well do the hallway too as the carpet is a bad idea there... and while we are on the topic of carpet, the livingroom carpet will not match the new lino...

I know Sirdar and wife of Sirdar can relate!

The dad-guy's day

It is a special day for all of you who are a father to some one. They look up to you, they model on your behavior, and they love you. Above are two drawings of Kevin, the dad-guy in this family. I did the top drawing in 1997 and the bottom drawing today. He wasn't very cooperative today. He kept sticking out his tongue and making faces, so the chin area is not as accurate as I would have liked. None the less, here is my tribute to the man who spends so much time parenting our kids with love.

published...at last!

No, not me, my daughter. Here is her version of a violent storm over a castle. It appeared in the PG Citizen daily newspaper. It's never too early to start your career in art!

you wouldn't!

Friday turned out to be very interesting. I was relieved to know that I did not embarrass my 13 year old at his school on Career Day. Right after breakfast he gave me a serious look and said, "I hope you'll be good today." Of course I couldn't resist going through a mock presentation that started with a badly sung song and some pathetic footwork,

"hi, I'm Alec's mom,
I'm a designer,
I can do it...."

"How's that?" I asked. "YOU WOULDN'T!" he said. There were 30 presenters and the 750 students could choose 4 sessions to attend. Although I wasn't as popular as the Coroner, the room was full for all 4 sessions. Not bad for someone who can't sing.

the words have stopped

I haven't written anything deep or thoughtful for a while. I just haven't been into it. It seems that when the imagery comes out on pages and canvases in bright splatters of colour, the words stop flowing. Perhaps they come out of the same tap. Funny how they don't mix. Physics says they should, after all, hot and cold water mix. Maybe it's like our water system at home, if the filter needs changing then everything else gets messed up.

extreme ironing

more of this sport which I am really starting to enjoy. There is a shot of me doing a lamb's tale and one of the splits. It looks easy, but don't try this at home!

who am I?

trying to keep up with all the login information and passwords for my 'online presence' is making me crazy! Someone needs to come up with a better way. It is almost as bad as having a plastic card in your wallet for every store you shop at!

smokin' in the boys room?

I used to put it off as long as I could; going to relieve myself in the high school girls washroom. Most of the time it was a cancer pit of second hand smoke and the last place I ever wanted to be. I've been told the boys room was also a location where young men could participate in unapproved activities. Just as some things continue to change, so others never do. My son came home with an interesting tale about the boys room at the middle school where he attends. Apparently there was an empty box of liquor chocolates on the back of a toilet seat around Christmas time, and I imagined several young boys wandering around the school "feelin' real naughty". It struck a humorous cord for me. How much liquor is in one of those boxes anyway? I would think the most you could come out with would be a stomach ache.

quarter moon

This was the view out my truck window as we sped down the highway. When this couple on a bike passed us, we were in for a surprise! The things you see when you don't have a camera!

rattling around

One day the 'Dad-guy' came to me and said that he heard something rattling around in his head. It seemed to be a real source of distress for him. Several days later he came home with ear-waxing candles and asked me to light him up like a birthday cake. If you have ever used these, you know what I am talking about. The pointy end of the hollow 'candle' slides into your ear. You lay on your side with the candle upright and your helper lights it. As it burns, it creates a suction in your ear which pulls the wax out of said ear, and into the hollow chamber of the candle. For those who like to 'see' what came out, you just cut the candle open, as I did in the photo on the left and have a look. Yes indeed, there has been no more complaining about the rattling sound in this house.

well, well

Water, well, pump it up, clear, cold, useful.
Suddenly without, no doubt a hardship that strains the most patient one.
Count the days, when will he raise that precious cold fluid from the ground.
If I'm not around, I've gone to town to fetch it, pail, by pail.

You guessed it, we've been without water, off and on for over a week. It began with silt coming through our lines, blocking every screen on every hose, on every appliance. The big kid and I went out to our snow-infested front yard and began to dig out the well access. It took Kevin several days of replacing hardware, replumbing, reorganizing, repressurizing, but finally yesterday we had a reliable flow of water to the house again. It would seem though that the well is a wee bit short on water. Not entirely unusual right before the thaw, but this is lower than usual. After several heartfelt prayers, it began to rain last night and rained until about 3am. Yep, the well level is up for now. Hopefully that will be enough to hold us over until water flows free once again.

the size of it all

Here are a couple of photos to show you how much snow we have. The bottom right hand corner is the shed that collapsed. The shots of the dad-guy and the big-kid are taken in the front yard where dad-guy moved all the snow away with a bobcat.

too much of a good thing

I am feeling a slight twing of guilt as I sit here composing this post. The dad-guy is currently outside digging snow off of our shed which collapsed 2 days ago. We have had an incredible amount of snow! 2 days ago a small amount of white precipitation floated, lazily from the sky. It was that last flake, it caused the feat of engineering which formed our tent shed to finally collapse. Dad-guy has spent most of his weekends moving snow around, trying to prevent such a tragedy, even to the point of renting a bobcat to push the 8 feet high mounds of snow away from our house. Should spring come in like a lion, he reasoned, we could be floating away. How disappointing to now have to rescue and perform triage on the various pieces of equipment that were stored is the collapsed shed. Weather is a force that cannot be predicted or controlled, perhaps that is why it has been a popular topic of conversation for as far back as humans go.