On The Arkansas

Well, it's 1 a.m. and I just got home from a business meeting in Little Rock, Arkansas. Figured what's a few more minutes of no sleep in order to post the journal entry I sketched while I was there.

A couple of my peers recommended the river trails built along the Arkansas River in Little Rock. Drove to Murray Dam and Lock and spent the time until sundown walking this great trail. The city built a HUGE bridge for pedestrians over the river and lock system. As if that wasn't enough to gawk and sketch, a crew was repairing the shoreline rock, right under the bridge! I had a front row seat, as did the dozens and dozens of citizens coming out to walk/bike/run/photograph on a nice full moon evening. This was a jackpot way to spend time away from home. I pulled out my sketch gear and got busy.

Headlamp

Times have changed. In the old days, when a headlight was out, you needed to buy a heavy glass sealed beam. Remove and replace took some time. A bracket around the face of the lens sometimes moved and the headlamp would need to be re-aligned. These days it's a lot easier. Amy's low beam went out on the passenger side. The new halogen beams are a snap to replace. Then I got to lookin' at the old bulb. It was actually a busy piece of equipment with many surfaces interacting, and a very colorful O-ring. The chrome base of the glass bulb even had ornate cut-outs. This thing just called out to be sketched!

Pictures for Winna

At my friend, Winna's, request, here are pictures of our house, with a fresh coat of paint. The pictures don't show the left and right parts of this crooked ranch style house. Didn't paint them and I wanted to show the paint. The siding is Masonite with imitation wood grain. The siding came alive with the new paint. Didn't realize how dull the old paint was.

In the first picture, note the intersection of the porch roof and the house roof. That's where the wasps came out of to sting me.

In the second picture, the eave is 16' above ground where the walkout basement is. That was one tall ladder I had to climb. Glad I don't freak out with height.

I just took these pictures tonight because we have major rain moving in from the Gulf Coast tropical storm. Won't see the sun for a while, and it's the sun that makes the color pop out. Next I'll recondition and refinish the deck and porch woodwork. Never-ending.

Ah-Fresh Paint

Time to paint the house. Mostly done as I post this. Took a while to get started because of rain, heat, and other obligations/fun. It sure looks nice now that it's done. Just wish it lasted a few more years between paintings. These latex paints sure beat the oil-based paints of my youth. Painting buildings around the farm was a protracted effort. Clean-up was a real job. The youth of today that learn how to paint won't know what they missed.
Note: The main color of our house is yellow, not the version of salmon that my scanner chose.

150

Well, here's the primary driving motive for our recent rash of canning jam this year. It's been a great activity for the three of us, for the teamwork needed to pull it off. The canning continues, too, even though we've met our goal number of 150 4-oz. jars of jam. One of our campgrounds (good ol' Clinton Lake, land of criminals singing into the Quiet Hours and felony banjo) has crab apple trees. The're ripe! So, we are trying some crab apple jelly. I think we're going to have a bit of excess inventory. We haven't hit regular apple season yet, either.

Command Central

We're in the thick of it now. Canning jam. It's not every year we can a lot of jam. Just don't go through it as much as an empty nest. However, our son does raid the jam/jelly stock when he's back home on visits. I like having a reason to can, and having a bumper crop of blackberries is one such reason. The next blog post will tell of another reason. I just like the sights and sounds of the kitchen when it's in production. The stove is Command Central. All the counter tops in arms reach are strategically stocked to feed the canner and to take its output. Then the random sound of popping lids as they cool. It's a flashback to childhood years by Mom's side watching. It's an event.

Fruit of the Land

Fruit time! We have plenty of blackberries now. And two trees of peaches. Kansas peaches. Doesn't have the rich sound of Georgia peaches, but they are ours. These are dwarf fruit trees. We didn't need big ones, just smaller ones to give us some fruit to play with. Right now it seems more like work than play. The blackberry bushes are taking over the world. They sprawl a little more every year. Every three days I go out to pick more. It's been over a week of that, and with the red fruit on the vines it looks like another week of picking. Time to start canning and freezing.