Imagineerium

Time was, like 1986, it was pretty tough to draw on the computer with programs like MacPaint...but I would try, and while at Palomar I transferred some of my old doodles to canvas with paints...sheesh...I beat my self up for poor spelling and grammar, but, but look at 'transferred'!...hmmph...sunny hot hot blue...long drive from Bakersfield to GG...Maya not happy going through LA...pulled off at Griffith Park to find some shade and fill Maya's water bowl for a drink...Griffith Park is nice, what very little I saw of it, and Los Feliz street has fine homes...wiki's take has it the neighborhood is where Disney had his home and early studios...and Colonel Griffith made a nice gift of the Park...

Tuolumne Dreaming

Nupastels on Mi Tientes pastel paper, 9"x12"...sunny blue warm...Happy Birthday Robert Frost!

Garden Dirt

Well, going about things with the little hand mattock, while a laid back way to work, sitting, and pulling out the devil grass, doesn't cut it, so took to the shovel...dug once to get the sod on the shovel, tossed it over on the driveway cement, and then sunk the shovel down as deep as I could, and bent down, and lifted, and turned the whole shovel full over...dirt wasn't too wet now, or dry, and I made good progress...after doing the small section, took the mattock and sifted through the sod, separating the dirt from the devil grass...put the grass in the green trash bin...don't think it would be any use for mulch, and put the dirt back in the garden...and, walaa, if nothing else I can now plant my Juicy Crunch Carrots!...sunny hot blue some clouds...tomorrowmorrow, Maya and I roll up to Bakersfield...second round of puppy shots at the vet...so gardening set aside until I get back...wet the section, thinking the ribosomes of the devil grass will sprout, and I can continue the eradication!...and I need to recover from the bending and lifting!

Pony Path Along The Merced

One of the oil paintings in Ashley's class at Palomar, 11x16, somewhere between the Stables and Happy Isles...moire patterns sometime show up when I post pics of canvas paintings...sunny blue hot...rolled over to Home Depot for a couple things, a hoe, a rake, gloves, and an eyelet maker...thought is to put eyelets along Silver's canvas top zipper in back--zipper broke--tie wrap them, and so have a secure place behind the seats for Maya to ride...secure as in 'not in my lap!'...Maya looked on as I tried to figured out how to plow the side garden...waited for cool of the evening, but still warm...one row, and enough!...studied out on youtube how Garden Tractors are used to plow...there are contests...the turned up dirt from one plowing falls into the trench made by the previous...thought is, on a miniature scale with the hand mattock, to proceed in that manner!...it will take awhile, but I expected that...no other way to manage devil grass (Bermuda Grass) but to be patient and get as much of it out as one can...it can grow from just fragments, so rototilling, which would slice it into little pieces, is kind of  problematic in the long run...

oh...and I've been told the incessant chewing will end when Maya's permanent teeth come in...meanwhile, it's been a daily battle to keep things out of reach...including me!

Dig

Morning on the South side of the Old House isn't the best time for it, to turn the sod, which I've put off...only way for a garden or a flower bed is to dig out the devil grass after soaking the ground...kept waiting for rain to do this last year, and let it go!...helped the bit of rain a couple weeks back by getting a new garden hose from Home Depot and doing a good soaking...even still, turning the dirt with a shovel is a task, especially in the morning sun...bit like rest stepping up trail switchbacks when out of breath...I did a little last evening, and more than I thought I would this morning, putting up the shovel when feeling a bit sun stricken...thing about hiking in the Sierras is that you get a feel for your stamina...mine isn't much compared to most hikers!...but I plod, and nearly finished this turning-the-sod part on the side of the House this evening--Maya looking on...sunny hazy blue hot...there's much more sod to turn, the whole backyard and front yard...the ground has become too compacted for grassy lawn, and both are presently a patch work of weeds and devil grass...there's enough of the devil grass to thwart using a roto tiller, unless it was like a riding tractor with a plow!...that'd be nice to have!...if I can do the side and flower garden strips in front and the north side, that'll be good, for now...Oh!...I've been wondering why I haven't seen any earthworms, and searching 'earthworm decline', I find, in the East, European Earthworms are thriving in the forests, forests that didn't know worms since the last ice age, and have a kind of wormless eco system that now is being altered by invasive European earthworms...and more to my search, I find that earthworms are thriving on golf courses, leaving their castings all over which annoys golfers and maintenance crews, but it seems the very careful maintenance is why they thrive--they eat the grass clippings from the grass mowing...no thick lawn, no grass clippings, no earthworms...not having a lot of detritus in the yards, old leaves and such, makes it tough for the bugs and such, and on up to Birds...did see one Sphinx Moth while weed whacking the backyard...tried to capture for pic, but Moth flew up and away, lucky not to have been whacked!...oh...and a month or so back, while sitting on the back step, Green Canary dropped out of the Tree thereabout...when I was a kid,  Monkey came down out of the Bougainvillea over the garage, and much fun until owner retrieved their pet!...Canary gone before I could get pic...

Puppy Pics

At the vet in Bakersfield, which is about a week and a half back, we wondered about Maya's feet...they weren't as big as one would expect shepard/husky mix might be, then...:)...sunny hazy warm...I'm about the web trying to find how coloration occurs in dogs and animals...Maya has a 'necklace' with two dimples on each side, and a bar across her chest...very fashionable ensamble with four boots!...update: still looking for how coloration happens, but found a whole litter of Mayas!...see link:

https://www.greenfieldpuppies.com/siberian-husky-mix-puppies-for-sale-pa-md-de/boomer_3/

and, and, the Puppy I saw looking down at the Volley Ball courts from Huntington Beach Pier back in September was wearing the same outfit!



and a poem by Hopkins:

Pied Beauty

 

Glory be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise Him.

 

Gerald Manly Hopkins

1877

 

 

http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/hopkins/section3.rhtml

 

oh, and studying out Hopkins, I happen on his poem about a Kestrel...first reading of the poem I didn't know that...and while I knew it was about a bird, was a bit lost without the notes, but on learning it was a Kestrel, I could 'see' it immediately!...Kestrels in England are called Windhovers...one really needs the notes to follow these!...see links...

 

The Windhover

 

To Christ our Lord

I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

 

GMH



 

http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/hopkins/section2.rhtml

hmmph...the first part of the poem stands alone, as everyone can see, but Hopkins, like so many, adds 'notations' of a sort of his own to it...but a tip of the hat to 'morning morning's' !

 

 

 

Waving Serape To Drive Cattle

Airbrush and acrylic on 9x12 board...after Remington...Remington is really good draftsman, and knack for portraits of the wild west...original is black and white...an airbrush class was the last class I took at Palomar, summer 2003...I had to mask the horseman, do the airbrush, then cut away the masking...I did it carefully, but it left an outline...traced the drawing...sunny hot blue...puppy Maya sleeping on the hardwood floor beside me on the bunk...bunk is high, and when she gets less tired, she'll try repeatedly to hop up until I reach down and pick her up...bunk is in the room's corner with two windows, and I make her snug in the corner by the windows, and I block her from falling off...and so arranged we snooze the night away...yesterday's post has an update....

Flute Playing Giraffe

quote

...as reasonable as a flute playing giraffe...

unquote

source of quote is in this book: Baseball, The Early Years, by Harold Seymour, Oxford University Press 1960...and quote is one of the colorful expressions used by old timey sports writers...I've been looking through book for quote, it's in there somewhere, and when I find it I'll update...a fine book, and seeing how pitchers and catchers have reported for the new season, I'll re read it!...at Palomar, I was kind of at a loss what to paint and draw when I was outside...cityscapes don't really interest me, and the Southern California Landscapes require getting out and away from the cityscape!...so, I started to take notice of the images in stories and songs, which have a great many things that can be illustrated, and brought out...like Dana's melancholy Owl!

Maya

after morning visit to vet, and rollabout from Bakersfield to
 Garden Grove, time for nap...



Grapevine reststop selfie...



@%#$@^not my irisis!...

My niece in Bakersfield found me cute pooch Maya, Husky Shepard mix...#$%^not my mouse chord!... tomorrowmorrow, new mouse, and beginning of adventures with Maya..:)