Have you ever walked along a quiet frozen creek in dead of winter? I have and it is amazing. The crunch of the frozen snow under your feet warns of your advance keeping the animals and birds v-e-r-y still. Stop for a few minutes and the forest comes alive with bird calls and squirrel chatter. The air is crisp and Jack Frost bites at your cheeks and fingertips. You feel alive, really alive and it is good.
Memories of scenes like this live in my mind from days of my youth in North Dakota and adult hunting outings in Wyoming, Idaho, & Montana. I remember a time when I was a Boy Scout in Cavalier, ND when in the dead of winter I and a couple of my buddies decided to try winter camping in the woods of my friend Bill Well's uncle's farm. I had to borrow a sleeping bag and the zipper didn't work. It was a really cold night and I would get up every hour to re-start the fire to warm up. I was elected to sleep with the canteen to keep it from freezing but guess what? It was frozen solid in the morning. We were only a mile outside the town limits but we had to hike back in a blizzard and temps about 10 deg below zero which was common in those days. That memory is as clear as if it were yesterday.
As usual I've been re-miss in keeping up with this blog. I've have another painting just completed which I will post next and I've been working hard on a portrait I was commissioned to do of a granddaughter for her grandmother. It is a present for Christmas so it has to be completed in time to dry. I'm almost finished with it. Right now I'm nitpicking it finding little corrections to make. I'll post that on a future blog.
Normally Nancy & I would be preparing to leave for Arizona for the winter months but we have decided to stay in Loomis, CA through the winter this year. The winters here are mild anyway, just a little wet in normal years. In fact it is raining as I write this. It has been 12 years in a row that we have travelled to Quartzsite, Yuma, & Wickenburg during the winter months so this will be quite a change for us. I expect to be working the Census beginning in March through June or so. I did Census work in 2000 and it was fun with a little adventure added here and there as some individuals feel they don't have to give census information. I have news for them.
Well that's it for this time. Oh yes remember the paintings I posted for auction on eBay? One was shipped to upstate New York and the other to Virginia. You missed a great buy if you didn't bid on those two. It's customery to leave a comment, positive or negative, about the transaction and I was please to receive this from the last one, " Painting is a real gem! I feel lucky to have won it!" Thank you so much.
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