Last One In

We forced ourselves to make reservations this year for Memorial Day to start camping. Always comes too soon, but if you don't make plans, things don't happen. The mud daubers were at it again (see last Sept.7 "Camping Time"), causing mischief and mayhem with their nests. Very enjoyable time, though. Forgot salt, pepper, cinnamon, bug spray, and forgot to check charcoal (but we had enough). Thought we had water and electric services but only had electric (had half tank freshwater and it was enough). Not bad for first camp of the year. But we got labeled as "Last one in".

PS: I'm taking Kate Johnson's Watercolor Pencil class for the next 6-8 weeks so my posts here will be less frequent. But they'll continue.

More Business Travel

Spent a couple days in Tulsa on business, in the downtown area. They were getting ready for their MayFest celebration, but it wasn't going yet. From a travelers perspective, downtown is dead after 5 p.m. I walked around for supper and found nothing. Not many people, few cars. So I walked back to the hotel to eat. The misty overcast funk didn't inspire me to sketch anything, either. On the drive home, though, I found a little oasis in Chanute, KS. I love small towns that are putting some effort into staying viable. Their downtown development efforts were visible. Made a nice place for a supper break . . . and a sketch. For dessert I had their yogurt shake (Tornado) with crushed Captain Crunch cereal. New combo to me. Mmmm! They even have a web presence at www.grandmasubs.com. I sketched as some storms blew by, then headed home.

Garage Shopping

It's not every day you can go garage shopping instead of garage sale shopping. In a couple years we'd like to have one built. Time to get up to speed on what the options are and how much we need to budget for. A local dealer is based in a small town 20 miles north of here. I've wanted to spend an afternoon in the town, anyway. Holton has the traditional town square in the middle with retailers around it. A few places to eat. A quilt shop for Wilma. My only regret is that they DID have a nice coffee shop. Not anymore. We ate lunch there, too. We like local non-chain restaurants, where the locals eat and talk to each other. This place didn't disappoint us, either.

Just One More

I make no apologies . . . I'm an outdoor gear nut. A recent mail order sale, mixed with an already fairly new tent being too small for all needs, caused me to buy another tent. They are my little castle in the wild. A touch of security that really isn't that secure. But I think this one will do the trick. We'll see. It can hold my duffle bag and my banjo along with me, so that makes it close to perfect already. I set it up in the living room to check it out and decided to do my first sketch of it before I took it down.

A Gardener's View

This post is for Wilma. I'm not the green thumb . . . she is. I enable her hobby, and gladly. That means roto-tilling and eating, and maybe some help picking and processing. I like to watch the whole process. We had some weather problems yesterday. As a result, I was out this afternoon, sitting on a 5-gallon bucket, sketching the withered remains of a tomato plant while another storm was blowing in over my head. When it started raining again, I came in to finish the sketching as it stormed outside. Hook cloud seen just southwest and headed for here, but will probably miss us. Needed to wait for the lightning to move on to upload this blog. And through the process I learn something from Wilma's perspective . . . a gardener's view.

First Crop

Love this time of year. The air warms up, rain storms begin, everything greens up. Our first produce this year is the asparagus and it's growing well. Wilma has been picking enough this week that we can freeze some for later, too. Rhubarb won't be far behind.

We had our first tornado watch and warning this afternoon. Tonganoxie, northeast of here, had one touch down. Kansas Speedway had to shut down the NASCAR truck race and had a few vehicles blown over and farm building damaged. It begins. Wilma just planted tomatoes (grown from seeds inside over several weeks), tomatillos, peppers, cabbage, etc. Sad to say the rain, wind and hail did a lot of damage. We'll know more when it dries out some.

Killin' Weeds

I can't help it there's been a lot of stuff to sketch lately. It's been a dry spell lately, but I figure I sketch when I see stuff, and I cool it when I don't. We finally had a calm dry evening so the wife and I jumped at the chance to spread weed killer for the dandelions. It's an annual ritual. I question the results, but we have piece of mind knowing that we did all we could to keep the weeds under control. Done 'till next year.