Spring into Summer

Is the year really almost half over? Well, a little bit of what I've been up to. The garden is planted. This has been the coolest spring that I can remember and we had a freeze on the 9th. I harvested a good crop of spinach and arugula under my a-frame before the slugs got too much of them and I have big pots of lettuce on the porch, safe from the pests. I've set out the cabbages and broccoli and the seeds that I planted are coming up, though slowly with the colder weather and also not much rain. But it is raining now so maybe things will look like summer soon. The wild flowers are late and my favorite little lady slipper at the beach got nipped in the freeze. The lupines though are spectacular right now.

My grand daughter, Alyssa, visited for a week the end of last month which was too much fun. Made a couple of fun trips with friends to Excursion Inlet. Haven't gotten my kayak in the water yet but plan a little camping trip to P. Island this weekend. I'm hoping the wild flowers in the meadows will be late there too.

Van has been fishing Kings in Sitka beginning last month and is threatening not to fish Cohos this year with the price of diesel approaching $5.00 a gallon. If he quits it will be the first time since we've been married he's been home for any length of time in July. I keep telling him he should retire or at least slow down.

I coordinated a print exchange for Baren which took quite a bit of time in May. For the exchange, 30 printmakers plus more on a wait list signed up online in January to make 31 prints and send to me. The 31st print is for archiving. Some dropped out and people on the wait list came on; some didn't get their prints in on when promised which was rather frustrating. I collated them and sent everyone back 30 different prints. It was a relief to finally get the prints mailed out the beginning of this month. I enjoyed the project and made a little colophon booklet for it using Apple Works, a fun learning experience. The prints can be seen here. I did a post on the print I made for the exchange earlier this year.

I opened my little gallery weekend before last. Its a little cabin that Van and Lee built when Lee was in high-school. It was behind our house, but got moved to the end of our road just before our house. I used it for a gallery for several years in the 90's then closed it when the coop gallery started. Now that the coop no longer exists, I decided to open again this year. For now its just open by appointment. I have several new watercolor paintings, plus lots of older ones, some handmade books, my woodcuts and even an old etching or 2. For the first time I'm showing some of my little collages. Its all my stuff but for the bird flags that Aimee made. Here are some pictures:



I didn't say it was very large. Those are some of Aimee's flags hanging on the left but you can't see them very good in the photo.





I painted the floor in a tile design after coming back from a trip to Mexico. It looks more like linoleum though.






I forgot how I sized my pictures before. I guess that is why they are different sizes.

This is one of my newer paintings, done from photos I took on a kayak camping trip last summer. I think I'll do a woodcut from it.





A view from the hydro road. Might have already posted this one. I really like the sky in it. I have some more paintings I've done in the last couple of months, but I loaded the photos on the other computer.

As mid-year approaches, it time for some new resolutions and one is to start blogging more. I've been working in a new media which I will elaborate on next time.