Mishmash morning

Just one of those days, I guess.

As I walked this morning, my mind wandered down a half dozen paths... none of which I seem able to map at the present time. So... a visual checklist for when my brain and fingers conspire to create complete sentences.

We had another brief fog event this morning in the wake of more evening rain. There's a story to be told about a waterlogged bin of potting soil, but it's a stinker... literally...


By the time I got around the first lake, the fog seemed to be wandering in aimless blobs (kinda like me)... time elapsed between Photo One and Photo Two? Eh. 20 minutes, I'm guessing.

The story here is that the trees are starting to turn. Yet another example of incomplete childhood nature education, like "Monsoon = India": "Trees turn in the autumn, autumn starts in September."

Swallows. I have lots of thoughts about swallows. Some I've even articulated before. But not here. And certainly not today.

This here's a cliff swallow. (Photo by Tony Leukering.) Two, maybe three weeks ago the Spiral Drive bridge writhed with them. Today it was silent and still. Erroneous childhood nature knowledge #3: "Birds fly south for the winter, which means they leave in the autumn, which doesn't happen until September." (Tell that to the rufous hummingbirds, whose fall migration brings them through here starting in July. And the Bullock's orioles, which start to clear out about the same time.)

Once I got home I did manage to hold onto a train of thought long enough to put the last color down on the blanketflower lino this morning. I always like seeing the print rack full... makes me think I accomplished something. Maybe.

Oh, wait. Did I say train of thought? My friend Kevin just called. He's on his way to Chama to work on the train.

Chama. That's in New Mexico. I might go to New Mexico myself. Wait, wasn't I talking about walking? It would be a long walk to New Mexico. I wonder if their cliff swallows have left yet?

It's not just me...

Chas Clifton over at Nature Blog: Southern Rockies pointed me to his excellent post on the changing language of weather. Thank goodness I was not hallucinating (this time) about my grade school education. Chas learned the equation "monsoon = India," too.

Of course, we haven't had measurable rain here for 48 hours, and I've been sneezing for 47.

Back from nowhere

It's official, sports fans: The aforementioned July monsoon brought us our wettest month since May 2001. (The start of a desperate drought that went on for a couple of years.) Almost 3.5 inches of precip for the month. For us, outrageous.

And speaking of outrageous, it's been about that length of time since I've checked in here. Still trying to tie up some contract-related loose ends, and who knows what else. Lest you think I'm all work and no... er.... work, here's proof-in-progress that a linocut will be forthcoming. I actually pulled a small black-and-white one last week, but I'm not convinced that it's going to see the light of day. Verdict is still out.

Anyway... this is the half-carved plate for a little image of blanketflowers. Three colors are down, this is the carve for the fourth, but I need to give the prints another day to dry before stacking more ink them. If I get TOO impatient, I'll have a mess on my hands.

In other news, stuff coming up:

"Winging It" show at Cultureclash Gallery in Salida opens this Saturday. Party 5-7. Be there.

"Starting a Nature Journal" booklet goes to press for Audubon Adventures end of next week. (Hoorah!) It's the first time I've been designer, illustrator, AND writer for a project for Audubon, so I'm pretty tickled about it. Usually I just get to draw the pictures and do some design work. :-)

Next week I've got a meeting with Rocky Mountain Land Library folks. Potential secret project getting some air during this meeting. Don't dare say more, but keep your fingers crossed.

Coming up August 17-18 in Our Fair City: The Going Green 100 and Expo. I'll be helping out at the Greater Arkansas River Nature Association table on Saturday and maybe hawking some sketchbooks while I'm at it.

The next Colorado Art Ranch Artposium will be September 7-9 in Durango, Colorado. The line-up looks great. I'm particularly enjoying reading keynote speaker Peter Turchi's book, "Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer." This is another one of those Be There events. It's going to be incredible.

I'm also pleased that Colorado Art Ranch has asked me to be the featured artist at their event in conjunction with the Land Trust Alliance in October. Details as they come available.

So, yeah. I'll be off the street for a while longer. Probably it's best that way.

Monsoon, didja say?

I don't know about you, but the weather-and-climate education of my squandered youth linked the word "monsoon" inexorably with the word "India." I saw myriad images on TV news and classroom films: torrential curtains of water, submerged homes, beleaguered people and animals... year after year after year. Excessive rainfall in an already humid and heady environment.

But that was elsewhere. Monsoons were obviously a completely foreign phenomenon. It was a relief to believe "monsoon=India," and that such frightening weather was definitely NOT going to be on my high desert, 10-inches-of-precipitation-a-year-if-we're-lucky, radar. Tornadoes and hail were enough, thank you very much.

So imagine my surprise when, as a full-fledged (in chronology if not behavior) adult, I heard a parched June gardener wishing aloud for the early arrival of the July monsoon.

Pardon me?

In a land where an inch of rainfall over a 24-hour period is regarded as monumental I found it difficult to parse the idea of a local monsoon, but sure enough, we have one. It's even got a name: the North American Monsoon. (I didn't say it was a clever name.) And it has arrived.

Personally, I'm always glad to get a break in the summer heat and to enjoy the crash and rumble and splatter of our afternoon thunderstorms. (Thunder rumbled in acknowledgment as I typed that sentence.) Yesterday we had a doozy, with rain coming and going well into the evening. This morning there were puddles in the drive and a half inch of sparkling agua in the neighbor's rain gauge.

Yup. That's our monsoon. A half inch of rain.

Laugh if you want, but there are dire consequences in the wake of such weather excess. The Arkansas River "beach" out behind the café is gone! Continued runoff from last night brought the flow level back up and the wide summer-into-winter sandy bank is under water again. Paddlers are happy. Sand castle builders are not.

I'm sure it won't be long before the beach is back, but in the meantime it was nice to take a minute to make a little sketch and to watch the river flow a little more enthusiastically than it has recently. Monsoon? Bring it on!

Happy Birthday, B!

Just think...no matter where we travel and how our lives continue to unfold.... I'll always be younger than you!

Hmmmm....

Well. Another interesting little white flower on my walk yesterday. I pulled a chunk of vine that I thought was the flowering form of our wild cucumber vine, but when I made this little study I discovered I was wrong. Instead it seems to be sweet autumn clematis (Clematis terniflora)... a beauty, but an invasive. (sigh) I guess I don't have to feel guilty about dismembering it anymore.

Trail of tears

Maiden's tears, or bladder campion. Silene vulgaris. It's blooming just now along the trail from Frantz Lake to the top of the mesa. One of the many reasons it's good to be home and taking regular walks again.

Bye-bye, CB...

A week in Crested Butte is now over... a week of great workshop participants and grand vistas, and just a little rain. Well, there was quite a bit of rain, but most of it was NOT during the times I had folks in the field. Thank goodness. Yesterday we had to make a dash indoors when big lightning and hail hit, but otherwise we were lucky, lucky, lucky all week. We even dodged most of the evil black flies.

So now it's back to illustration work, deadlines are looming. Hopefully I'll get to sneak in some studio time, too. My lino tools are lonely, and my linocut drying rack is empty and gathering dust.

Workshop participant and friend Margot sketching at the Pavilion above Mount Crested Butte.

The Golden Compass

I'm not even sure how I stumbled upon this website... but WAH! New Line's making a movie of The Golden Compass...

I've been trying to embed the trailer, but can't seem to get it right... so you'll have to go there on your own.

Another week o' workshops

I'm off today for a week of workshops at the Crested Butte Wildflower Festival. (A little field sketching, a little journal-making.) This is the fourth or fifth summer that I've taught classes for the Festival, but it's the first time the schedule actually gives me a "down day" on site. I'm not entirely sure what I'll do with an actual day off... it's been such a long time since I've had one.

Not sure if I'll have internet access, so full report upon return.

I can see clearly now...

Opening the window blinds this morning sent me dashing out the door so fast that I left without my binoculars! Last night's rain and this morning's sun combined to create a lovely and rare "temporary fog event" in the valley, and I wanted to be out in it.

The binnies were sorely missed, as the morning was far "birdier" than it's been of late, but I did have my little camera in my pocket.

Part of the reason I nearly sprinted down to the lake was that the back of my mind has been occupied for several weeks with images made by my friend Michael. He caught the valley on a fog-bound morning last autumn and took a series of photos that I just love. The thing was, I couldn't quite describe why. Yes, yes... nice atmosphere. Yes, yes, striking compositions. "Something I might paint." But why?

Eureka! This morning the haze made it all clear. (No, really. I'm serious.)

There before me was a familiar landscape transformed and simplified. The fog isolated a single hill in a complex piñon-juniper slope and suddenly I saw the shape of THAT hill for the first time. Those pesky, attention-demanding mountain peaks? Gone! Rubbed out by a cloud. The mind-boggling profusion of leaves? Smeared to a lovely soft green shape.

Of course, the fog also created a charming soft and subtle color palette. The kind I can appreciate but never, ever pull off successfully either in paint or in ink.

I scribbled the words "isolated landforms" on the back of my hand, and later on a little piece of paper I found in my jacket pocket. (Along with the cryptic notes: BUOR FY, choco rio, catalyst, foreign air, stillborn fawn, no bins.) Make of all that what you will, there is something about pared down, stripped down, fogged down, even desolate landscapes that drops me every single time.

But, as with most atmospheric weather events here in the 300-days-of-sunshine-a-year Center of the Universe, the magic was short-lived. A short climb up from the river to the mesa and I was eliminating the middle ground instead of the background, squinting into crystalline light, and wishing I'd eaten some breakfast before I bolted from the house.

In all, a satisfying walk... bins or no bins.