Sunday Morning Comin' Down...

 O, it's a lovely morning here in my tiny corner of the PNW. Too many fires in the Olympics though: yesterday I woke from a lovely nap to yellow light - smoke filled the western sky and turned everything kind of ominous. Once I tracked down what it was, and where it originated (there's a website that gives you updates on fires around the US!) I felt less Damocles-ish. But the smoke lingered; the fire had been burning since 28 August, but this was the first time the winds had driven the smoke & ask our direction. Once again, the effect of the Olympic Rainshadow clearly demonstrated! (I feel this absurd desire to create links to all these things, when I know there are zero people out there reading and even fewer (ha!) interested in such things. And besides, I don't want any more people up here!

Does that make me a ladder-puller? I read that term the other day - referencing Clarence Thomas I think. I hate to think that I'd have anything in common with that... thing. But the term does seem to fit that all too common phenom of pulling the ladder up after you to keep others from attaining your spot. And that's definitely how I feel about my corner of the planet. There are already too many people moving here.

So yesterday was a weird one: I slept until very late (11 AM) and then spent the entire day flumping around with very little energy and less interest. Even took aforementioned nap! Spent some lounging time on the patio in the sun, which was lovely (despite the group of men outside my fence installing a new community bulletin board). They were putting the finishing touches on their erection; two working on installing an overhang and a couple supervising and commenting. The day before, the 'placement committee' had spent a couple of hours deciding precisely where to  put the thing; much talking and debating, a couple of women giggling and even outright laughing, then the women disappeared and the men began digging the holes. I'm sure they are all rather pleased with their efforts; I'm just astonished at how long it took them to put it up. And then afterwards, the president of the HOA came by to tweak it. 

Why do I care? Well, the thing is in the best place for such a bulletin board: next to the mailboxes. Which is maybe 20 steps from my back gate. People reasonably take their dogs when they come to check their mail, and stop to visit and exchange pleasantries with anybody doing the same. They commonly move away from the mailboxes to allow other space, and all that? Well, the dogs + people + friendly chatter = trigger my dogs' barking. For which I'm already in trouble. I understand the dynamic, but my neighbor - who is unaware of the situation, only hears my dogs and she's the one that complains. Sigh. First World Problems of privilege.

From the Moroccan earthquake to the Libyan floods, to the Chinese floods, the fires and floods in Greece and Turkey... the world is a mess. I sincerely hope the GOP disintegrates into chaos, and especially the Freedom Caucus and their extremist ideology. Ms Bobert can join MTG and Carrie Lake in the lowest circle of hell, along with McConnell, the Freedom Caucus, McCarthy and their adored tyrant Trump. And Putin, yeah he and Kim can join that party. Orban welcome there too. There are so many on the guest list; I just wish the party would start there and they'd all disappear from here ASAP.

We got to paint this past week, and I'm very excited for those to dry. I'm ready to paint some more! I played with the Amsterdam pearl paints, following the videos of Molly's Artistry and Mark Ratcliffe:

The Wet Version 

It's a dark blue base (I think, either that or dark purple), with the pearl paints that only really show up when dry: there's blue, purple, red and green, and the gold is DecorArt's 24K Gold. Once they start moving, the blue and purple begin to show up, but the other two only show when dry. I know there's some green in one or two areas, but the red may have melded into the purple. It doesn't show here but there's a really cool depth to the painting, and when you angle your view or the canvas, there's a gold sheen that seems to float over the colors. I did another with similar colors but a different technique, very different look to it with lots more negative space. then a spring-colored one, with no negative space. That one may be  put into the re-use pile of canvases. Actually I did 4, all of which I thought were keepers. But I can't even remember the 4th...

I also helped Chicago finish her chicken habitat, and was rewarded with this:  Matilda & Me

We worried that one of the other hens was actually a rooster, as s/he'd started crowing and picking on the others. She's been really broody for a while, then the aggression and crowing - we were worried. Chicago told the hen/rooster that if s/he continued to behave like that, s/he couldn't stay. Friend noted that she'd read that some hens could actually turn into roosters... but today? Well, that hen produced her first egg. So I totally get her grumpiness the other day! As she is one of the two youngest (by two weeks), the others may quickly follow in the laying of eggs. The time and money spent on these $2 chickens makes that single egg worth about $5,000 so far. Minimum. But then you consider the joy and laughter they've given? I figure we still owe them; it's so much fun to sit with them and just be.

May your days be filled with such simple pleasures and hours of joy & laughter.