Painting the Arbor Trellis

Since I didn't get it done last year, I really had to paint the arbor trellis this year. Last year before Easter we had a few really nice days and neighbors around me were busy with spring yard work and painting but I decided to put off the work on the trellis till my sons would visit over the Easter weekend. I was sure that we could get the job done then. Surprise! For Easter we had about a foot of snow! There was no yard work of any kind that we could do, --unless you would count shoveling snow off the driveway and sidewalk. My boys went home and the snow lingered on and the weather was cold. By the time the snow melted and the weather was warmer, the trumpet vine was leafing out and the painting didn't get done.

This year the arbor needed painting even more than it had last year. It's not easy to paint an arbor with an established vine growing on it, but I did my best. One day I scraped the flaking paint from it. The next day I painted the first coat. The following morning, I gave it the second coat of paint. It's not a good job, though. There are drips and runs, and a few places where I missed, but when the trumpet vine puts out leaves, it won't matter very much about the paint job. In fact, it doesn't matter now. The arbor looks much better already.

Hidden Daffodil

When I planted the daffodil in front of the currant bush, it had a lot of room to itself. However in the ensuing years, the bush has grown bigger and bigger. Now the daffodil grows in the same place where it was planted, but to many people, it is hidden. I see it there and appreciate it. I think about digging it up and moving it to give it a place to grow in the open where it can be seen and admired. So far, I haven't done that, but still it blooms its best, almost hidden.

Sometimes my life seems like that, hidden from the view of most, and yet, that should not keep me from blooming to the best of my ability.

Pastel Drawing of Buck, Take Two

My mentor, Carolyn V., gave me some advice about what to do to improve my drawing of the buck in the thicket. I took a fresh sheet of paper and started over. I like this second attempt so much better than the first. I think I'll frame it.

Practicing Art

Someone asked me last week if I've been doing any pastel drawings lately. Well, no, I hadn't been. But that question got me to thinking about pastels again. I've been reluctant to get out the oil paints and get set up to attempt a painting, but pastels would be easy to work with. I could get the box of pastels out and get started without any difficulty, and I could lay it aside without cleaning brushes.

This is my first attempt at using pastels for many, many months. Many things about this drawing please me but there are a couple of things, three actually, that jar me as being not quite right. I don't think I'll frame this picture. I think I should probably start over and try to correct the problems when I do the second drawing.

It was fun to work with pastels again. It doesn't have to be perfect to let me feel good about the effort I've made. I think I shall try again. Perhaps I'll do a landscape. Drawing a buck is very ambitious for me.

Pleasant Memories

Recently as I was looking through old pictures I came across this picture of the parsonage where we lived in 1961-1964. It was the third home for my husband and me. Our second son was born during that time, however, none of our children remember this home.

This picture is not from the time when we lived there. It was taken a good many years later when my husband and I were visiting the area again, but much of it looks the same as when we lived there.

We had been pastoring a small congregation in the valley, and living in a rented farmhouse with no indoor bathroom, just a path to the little house at the edge of the property. We were asked to take on a second congregation, on top of the mountain (Laurel Mountains Ridge), and they owned their own parsonage which had indoor plumbing. My husband became a Circuit-Riding Preacher then and we moved to this lovely home. All the woodwork in the house had been painted chocolate brown and though I really love chocolate, I wasn't fond of the darkness it gave the indoor atmosphere. I asked to repaint the woodwork, a lighter color, but was denied because the former pastor's wife had just had the dark color painted before they moved. It was too soon to repaint.

The community was named Skulton. The location was in a very windy place. Those were the days when we used starch in our laundry of white clothes, --shirts, pillowcases, table cloths, etc. Sometimes the wind was so frisky that it blew the starch out of the clothes.

Winters there brought huge snow storms, --much like the ones we have here in the snow belt where I currently live.

Memories of the days in this parsonage are good memories. I wish that somehow my children could share the memories with me, but they were all too young, and the youngest one wasn't born until after we moved away, so it's just me to remember this place now.

You can't tell from this picture, but all around this parsonage the land was used for cow pastures. It was almost like living on a farm. I liked seeing the cows in the pastures.

Pleasant memories, indeed.

More Snow

We are having yet another snow storm. Last weekend we had a foot and a half of snow. Yesterday we had blizzard conditions which made driving on slippery roads in a veil of white a dangerous thing to do but we didn't have as much snow as last weekend. This morning I thought the storm was over and we had escaped having deep snow, but this afternoon, just in the last half hour, it has started snowing in earnest again. Perhaps this will be our last storm of this winter season. On the other hand, it isn't St. Patrick's Day yet and we usually have a snow storm for St. Pat's. Will this storm be close enough to March 17 to count as the St. Pat's Storm? I hope so!

The picture is from my own photo file, taken a few years ago on a snowy day, not as bad as today. It gives an idea of our winter snow scenes.