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If you’re out in the woods and you find a big W painted on a tree, just remember W is for wildlife. When planning and laying out a timber harvest, foresters have to protect the other resources in the forest, … Continue reading
Black oak leaves showing off.
Forestry Friday is a new weekly feature on The Forester Artist. Features will be whatever I want them to be, but related to forestry and forests. As you may have guessed this week’s theme is “Red”.
Pacific dogwood
Poison oak. You can look, but don’t touch!
Red Bud
Blitz, the red dog!
The first Tiger Lilies of the season.
Yesterday, I had a little wink from Heaven. It was Mary and my thirtieth wedding anniversary. We did dueling blogs about how we met at The Blind Date – Her Side and The Blind Date – His Side. The day before that I posted a watercolor called The Tiger Lily, and I talked about how they were my favorite flower and I felt compelled to bring them home for Mary. I also, mentioned that they were late bloomers.
Lovin’ the woods!
I was in the woods yesterday and had the girls with me, Blitz and Teka. I stopped at one of our usual water holes so the girls could drink, swim and air out. We walk over to the creek and lo and behold there were Tiger Lilies, lots of them. I don’t remember seeing them on our anniversary before. They were early this year. I could almost hear the wink! I wish I had bought a lottery ticket.
Lovin’ these Tiger Lilies!
So, of course I picked a bouquet of them as I am compelled by contract to do. Then I threw in a couple of Columbine for good luck.
Columbine for good luck.
I placed them into a lovely silver vase to create the perfect ambiance. Just call me The Florister Artist.
Martha Stewart eat you heart out, The Florister Artist is in the building!
Blitz and Teka helped.
Teka searches for the perfect Tiger Lily, or squirrel.
They celebrated with me and we were ready to go.
Nothing gets a girl to roll in the grass like beautiful flowers.
All that was left to do was deliver the package. For that I used FTD, or Forester’s Dirty Truck. Hey, it gets the job done.
FTD special delivery.
The flowers were delivered along with kisses and hugs. Mission accomplished and Mary was all smiles, although she did pitch the vase. Excuse me, I mean recycled the vase to be precise. Then we enjoyed a beautiful and delicious dinner of stir fry and egg fu yung that she made for us. The stir fry was more colorful than the flowers. It was a lovely and quiet anniversary.
Colorful stir fry. It’s making the flowers look dull.
So, do you think it was pure coincidence or was it divine intervention. I know what I think. I think those Tiger Lilies were my little wink from heaven.
My wounded paw.
That’s my hand with the bandage. If you are thinking that some emotionally motivated gesticulating by the digit wrapped in gauze was the cause for the bandage, then I’m going to disappoint you. No, Mary did not do me bodily harm, nor was it the result of some road rage incident. I had a cyst and bone spur removed. I know, considering which finger it was, I could have come up with a whopper of a story. You are welcome to speculate wildly if you don’t believe me. Now I have two WIP. One is the watercolor in the photo and the other is my hand. It looks pretty swollen in the picture. Fortunately, I am right-handed so progress continues.
Those aren’t my tears from the procedure. I’m a big boy and only cry during tragic dog movies. I took these pictures during the rain storm last week. It helped bring an end to the fires that were burning here.
Manzanita flowers in the rain.
That night after my surgery, when we went to bed it started raining again. It was hot in the house so I opened the window to let the cool air in. My hand ached and it kept me awake. The lightning flashed in the distance and the thunder rumbled through the sky. The sound of the rain falling outside was so peaceful that I finally drifted off.
Battle Creek Meadows
This rain has been a relief and has delayed our oncoming drought. Soon it will be dry again.
In the clouds.
Just the girls and I.
Tim, Teka and Blitz.
The sun through the smoke. Yes, that is the sun and not the moon.
The first big wildfires of the season broke out here yesterday. The Panther and Cedar fires were burn a ways to the South and just a few miles apart. With a strong dry North wind they made a good run. A huge column of smoke stretched over the valley and the sun was obscurred last night when I took these pictures. Hopefully the firefighters made good progress last night when the winds died down.
Sun through the smoke and oaks.
May first and we are already seeing forest fires. Dry down is well underway here. This doesn’t bode well for this Summer’s fire season. Here we go again.
I’ve known Bob for a long time. Bob is a Logging Supervisor or Woods Boss. His operations are a going concern. Bob is all business and his guys make logs in a hurry. When I go out and talk to his crew about log quality Bob gets nervous because I’m slowing down his operation. He isn’t the kind of man that one would think of as going around showing off a piece of art, but that is what he has done for nearly twenty years.
Bob’s landing, whackin’ and stackin’ .
Twenty years ago Bob decided he needed a dog. When he got his new dog he told me, “All of you foresters have dogs in the back of your trucks, so I decided to get one for my truck.” If you have ever seen the back of a logging boss’s truck you would know that his dog would need chemical resistant feet and armor plating. Their trucks are full of hydraulic fluid, oil, truck parts, tractor parts, chokers, cable, tools, and all manner of oily, heavy metal things bouncing around loose in the bed. So Bob’s dog was special….unique even
Meet Would, Bob’s dog.
Bob’s dog is named “Would”, not Wood even though he is wood. If you ask him why “Would”, he will say, “He would bark if he could and he would s–t if he could, therefore he is Would.” Bob recently got a new work truck and when he didn’t put Would in the truck he caught so much hell that he had to load him up again. Would has been Bob’s constant woods companion for the last twenty years. He never whines, growls or barks. He doesn’t need food or water and doesn’t mind all the stuff in the back of Bob’s truck. I think Would has mellowed over the years, even developed a fine patina. He may be the perfect logger’s dog.
The forester’s dog and the logger’s dog.
I had Blitz join Would for a group shot. The two of the got on famously. Blitz is, after all, the consummate stick dog. Fortunately, she didn’t chew on his ear. I tried to get Bob in the picture, but tough old loggers don’t always like having their pictures taken.
This just in. The sun is shining, the trees are green and the snow is fine.
Blitz signing off .
Whoop…..Whoop!
The Misery Whip.
Here it is, the final painting. I hope you like it.
Now that I finally have time to catch my breath, here is what happened since my last post. I left work and rushed home. I had about 20 or 30 minutes of painting left to do. When I finished the painting, we had about an hour and 5 minutes before we had to be at the dinner auction. I cut the mat and framed it. With that complete, we got ourselves ready and ran out the door. We arrived at the dinner, and presented the painting to the master of ceremonies so he could put it on display. After an excellent prime rib dinner the auction began.
This auction is a fund-raiser for the Education Fund of the Sierra Cascade Logging Conference. The money goes for forestry education for local students. The money supports Education Day for local 4th graders to tour the conference, that is where Mary gave her presentation, https://theforesterartist.com/2013/02/08/the-misery-whip-home-stretch/ . They also support the local college logging sports team, scholarships and a Spring woods tour, among other things.
Now back to the auction. The painting was item 30 out of 50. Not a bad place to be. If it is too early, some folks are holding back, keeping their powder dry, so to speak. Too late in the evening and many bidders start to leave. The bidding seemed to be going pretty high during the early portion of the auction. I was encouraged. Finally, The Misery Whip was up. Bidding started at $200. The bidding was short and frantic. Then, “SOLD” to the high bidder for $900. I was very happy to see my effort contribute to bringing in so much to the charity fund. I could not see who the bidder was.
Mary runs our booth at the conference, so on top of everything else we had been preparing for the conference and getting product ready. As a result Mary and I were exhausted and were planning to go home after the painting was auctioned, but I had a ticket for a drawing at the end. Since, we did not want to stay that late, I took the ticket to a friend from work who would be there for the drawing. He was sitting in the area of the high bidder, so I asked him who it was. He said “it was me”! He told me when he saw it on display he was determined to buy it and it was his way of owning a piece of me. I was flattered and humbled. Thank you Ted. I’m really glad he got it.
After weeks of getting to bed after mid-night, last night Mary and I were in bed by 7pm and slept for 12 hours. The truck is unloaded. Now it is time to fall back and regroup. All in all, I would say it was a very successful conference.
I’ve decide the name the painting “The Misery Whip.” I’m not done yet, but closing in. It is almost midnight so I’m packing it in for tonight. Here it is so far.
“The Misery Whip” a work in progress.
I have an impending deadline. I am creating this watercolor painting as a donation to the Sierra Cascade Logging Conference, Education Day live auction. It is a 1930’s era logger bucking logs with a crosscut saw, also known as a “misery whip”. I sketched it the night before last. I stretched my paper yesterday morning. Last night I started putting paint to paper. Tonight I have to finish it. Tomorrow I will need to cut the mat and frame it so that tomorrow night it goes to auction. whewww! I’m ready for a nap, unfortunately that will have to wait until Sunday.
This part is for any Conference attendees. I’m posting this to the Conference facebook page in case there are any attendees going to the Education Day Dinner and happen to look online. We want you to show up with your check books because it’s fundraising time. You can bid on this if you like it, or bid on something else if you don’t, but bid!
It is a WIP. This is where I stopped last night, but now I’m back at it. Updates will be forthcoming.
In the beginning, the line art.
The background washes and starting to find some detail.
Completed intial washes and adding some background detail.
You may be asking, why did he wait so long to start this? An excellent question and one to which I have a good answer. However, I can’t go into that now, because I just don’t have time. That will be another blog. Stay tuned.
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