Propagate

Here's my Illustration Friday submission for this week:

This is a Kalanchoe "Mother of Thousands" plant. I have a few and I think it's a really 'fun' plant. The leaves create plantlets that drop off and grow into new plants as they mature. It is an easy plant to share with friends.
I used a Sharpie marker,
Prismacolor Art Stix and Prismacolor watercolor pencils to create this piece.

ADRIFT

I'm joining Illustration Friday - an online community of illustrators that create one illustration a week on a common theme. This week's theme is ADRIFT. So here is my little man adrift in his tiny leaf boat upon tossing waves. Enjoy!
P.S. : This took me about 15 minutes while one of my extra-quiet 3rd grade classes was working on their own art.

Photos Blizzard of 2010

See previous post for the video and story that go with these photos.

Blizzard of 2010

The power finally came back on Sunday night. It started snowing Thursday morning and it didn't stop until the wee hours of Friday. On my way home Thursday afternoon, I started to get excited about the prospect of doing some snowboarding under the I-20/408 interchange. As it turned out, we didn't get to go snowboarding. A fireman stopped me as I was turning into our neighborhood and told me that the road was closed ahead, that a tree had fallen across the road and paramedics were trying to get someone with a broken let to the hospital, but then he let me continue when I told him that I just had to make it to our street, Moneta Lane. I went on and made my way around an ambulance and as I turned on Moneta, I saw another ambulence and another firetruck and a huge tree blocking the road. Driving down our street, the full impact of the storm hit me as I passed house after house with broken limbs and downed trees some of which had fallen on cars. Our yard was a disaster area, with my two favorite trees in shambles. Three limbs from the live oak behind the house had fallen on to the power line to the house. Many more limbs littered the yard and dangled dangerously from the tree tops. The double cedar out front exploded several times as I watched. When Jeff got home we ran around trying to save the trees and shrubs by knocking and shaking the snow from them. Every now and then we had to dodge branches that fell. We threw a rope over the power line and I pulled it out from under the branches as Jeff propped them up. Night fell and we saw brilliant flashes of red in the sky as transformers exploded all over our neighborhood. A tree in the goat pasture behind the house touched the power line and caught fire. We called the firefighters who appeared looking very tired and told us that it would probably just burn itself out and that there was nothing they could do. Eventually we went inside, only to be lured outside when we noticed red and blue lights flashing at the end of our driveway. It was a cop who explained that he was stranded in the snow and that the tow truck that had come for him was now stranded as well and had already called for a larger tow truck. Jeff brought out his snow shovel and dug them both out. We were outside until 11 pm.
School was canceled on Friday. We bought a new chain for the chainsaw and went to play in the snow with Makaela. We built her a big snow fort, pulled her around on the snow shovel and had a snowball fight.
A few people have remarked to me, "You're from a place where it snows. You should be used to this!" I am used to snow but not in a place that isn't used to snow. Back Park City when it snows, the trees and buildings don't collapse, people still know how to drive, we still have electricity, snowplows come out and push snow off the road and all hell does NOT break loose. This snowstorm has been totally different.
On Sunday we decided to get serious about cleaning up from the storm. Aaron and Jennifer came over to help. Jeff put the new chain on the chainsaw and we worked all day cutting limbs and dragging them out to the street. We made so many trips that we trampled the snow in the side yard to mush and the turf began to ripple as we walked back and forth on it. By the time we finished, the pile of branches was the width of our yard and about six feet tall. THANK YOU JENNIFER AND AARON! Without them it would have taken us days to clean up!

Leaving Eden

We spent Saturday night at the Riverside Cottages in Gardiner. Sunday was our last full day in the park and we decided to stretch our hike-weary legs and walk the mile to Boiling River for a soak.

My parents hadn’t been there in years and were pleasantly surprised at the improvements the Park Service had made.

We took our masks and snorkels in hopes of finding Jeff’s ring. Instead we found another mens’ titanium ring! Too bad it was too big for him. This photo was taken just before the man on the right backed up and sat on Jeff. We got a pretty good laugh out of that!

They followed me here...

After breakfast at the Canyon Cafeteria, we were off to the Wapiti Trailhead parking lot to start our adventure.

Not too far into Hayden we found a spot with lots of broken dishes. Could it have been the site of an old hotel? We were relieved to find that my parent’s packs looked heavier than they were. No extra extra flashlights here. Then it was out to the east across the end of Hayden and into the trees. We were in awe of the mushrooms grown from this year’s rains. Fairy rings of cottage cheese – dotted amanitas sprung up along the trail.

Lines of bizarre, sponge like, tangerine-hued fungi gave away the locations of long ago rotted away logs.

I found a really weird fungus that looked like a pink sponge dripping blood.

Best of all, massive boletus sprouted all over the place. The largest were the size of footstools, the smallest, like oversized dinner rolls. Daddy mentioned a French chef he knew of willing to pay $50 an ounce for dried boletus. We marched on past several thousand dollars worth of mushrooms before stopping for lunch at 4M2.
Then it was GPS time. We left the trail  and headed off into the trackless hills toward Joseph’s Coat. Jeff heckled me for my ‘drunken sailor’ style of navigating in which I weave and swerve to avoid deadfall and keep a short-person friendly route.

Finally we popped out in Joseph’s Coat, made our way past the blue green lake and arrived at 4B1. The blue green clock usually keeps these springs submerged, but this year they were on dry land.
Our timing couldn’t have been better; we had just enough time to pitch tents, gather and cover firewood and hang the bear bag before a nasty storm swept up on us. Rain, ice, thunder and lightning pelted us for hours.

We were trapped in the tents for about two hours - long enough for us to realize that neither of our brand new tents were waterproof. Yay wet sleeping bags!

Eventually the rain lessened enough for a bathroom break and I called everyone out to make dinner. The rain started up again before we’d finished boiling the second pot of water. Dinner was a cramped affair eaten in my parents’ tent. As we ate we savored the aromas of everyone’s wet, 12-mile trail feet. Mmmmm!

Then, miracle of miracles, the sun came out and it stopped raining. We climbed out of the tents and made a fire.

The rest of the evening was spent roasting socks over the fire and waterproofing the tents by tying emergency foil blankets over them.

Then we said goodnights and headed off to our sleeping bags. Jeff and I had selected the $20 Ozark Trails Junior Tent for this adventure – a child’s tent. It was absurdly small but that was OK because we had to carry it 24 miles and it only weighed 2 lbs. Changing into our dry sleeping clothes was like a game of Twister with only enough room for one person to move at a time. When we were finally ready to sleep we lay there for about 15 minutes before realizing that we were both gasping for air. The emergency blanket had sealed the tents ventilation fly down and we were slowly suffocating.

Amazingly enough the night was still and rainless. In the morning we awoke to a small hailstorm and made a quick, unanimous decision to skip our second night at 4B1 and head immediately back to the nearest hotel with a hot tub.

Here are some Indian Pipe flowers that feed off fungi and produce no chlorophyll.

Other than the weather, it was a good backpacking trip.

I watched my father running around (literally running) with a huge pack on his back looking at mushrooms.

I realized that as long as she had pretty scenery to enjoy, my mother could forget the weight of her pack too.

When we reached the trailhead we looked back to see the hills we’d come from – blue with rain. On the drive to Gardiner we saw slopes at 9,000 ft freshly dusted with snow. Joseph’s Coat is at about 9,000 ft. Leaving early was a good decision.

Rest stop on the hike out.

Jeff became temporarily fascinated with this tree.

Orange Rock Spring where we rejoined the trail on our hike out.

Victory!!