T. C. Steele Paint-out 2013

My Janie painted this little girl last month.  Janie is my favorite artist.

This took place at the T. C. Steele Pain-out event at the museum.

We didn't know her, but she was cute with her weird little hat on.

Perhaps she's a budding artist. 

 

                                                               Water color on paper.

Digging around

I was digging around in my back yard and found a tricycle.

Awesome I thought, so I kept digging wondering what else I may find.

 

Then I came upon a bicycle!  How cool was that?

What else could there be?

 

My next find was this motorcycle and a pattern began to present itself.

 

 

Over a little to the left I found this car and it was in fair shape too.

 

 

Not long after that, I uncovered this old truck!

 

 

and the  last thing I found today was this outstanding example of a semi.

 

 

When you line them all up like this, the evidence is clear: 

 

Semi trucks evolved from tricycles!

 

Any free thinker can see it. 

They all have wheels,

they're all made of the same materials,

they're all facing the same way.

What could be more clear?

 

Science proves it too.  Here's another example.

 

 

 

Didn't the artist who drew all this do a wonderful job of making this

all look so good?  He picked very nice colors, some with strips some without,

and they're all facing the same way!

 

Isn't science great?

 

I couldn't look away!

A couple of times in the last month, I have been detoured on my way in to work.

I travel a dark winding and lonely road, the only way, and with few options for turn offs.

Last moth is was a house fire, and as I was finding my way to work I could smell see and smell the smoke a couple of miles away.

 

Yesterday morning I came upon another cop sideways in the road.  Yesterday was moonless and out there where we live, a moonless night is a pitch black night.  It was clear that I had to detour again and I figured it may be another house on fire. 

 

The place where I was stopped didn't have an option that was known to me so I had to consult the map on my phone.  I'm so glad I had a map because my truck was on empty, and fooling around trying to find a way into Bloomington may have caused my to run out of gas.

 

Long story short, it was a train derailment.  Indiana 45 follows right along side of RxR tracks either to one side or the other the whole way to work.  the derailment happened to be at a spot right next to the road.

 

 

 

I stopped in the afternoon for pictures but of course, didn't get right up in the middle of it.

So, this angle was all I could get.

 

I'd never seen a train wreck before this.

(A train wreck in the literal since)

 

These guys were fiddling with heavy equipment, flipping cars that had coal in them.

 

Tore it up pretty good.

 

I thought just briefly, perhaps I could use my son-in-laws name as leverage to gain a little access, since he now works for the RxR in Washington, but I thought better of it and refrained.

Not much of a story really,  Just a train wreck.

 

 

I'm glad no one was hurt, and no personal property was lost.

 

Ok, what next?

Mill Lake 2013

So, each year we are blessed to be given a week at the family cottage on Lake Mill in Michigan.

It's now owned by Jane's cousin Scott and they have been very good to us.  The Lake is just North of Paw Paw.

 

 

 

 

This was the first time we brought our own boat to the lake.  I've written about it before.

We arrived on Sunday afternoon, it rained Monday!

 

 

Tuesday faired much better weather-wise, but some what cool.

 

 

 

SD did a bit of skiing Tuesday morning, he and DR tubed around the lake a little.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then the motor crapped out on us and would NOT be fixed!

 

 

So it sat there floating about, mocking me.

 

 

 

I had planned to do it anyway, so I left the boat to laze about while

 

 

 

 I painted the trailer a color that more closely matched the boat.

 

Wednesday was nicer and Janie sat outside to paint a little picture.

 

 

 

This is her work.

 

 

This was her subject.  I like it, she's good at it.

 

 

Thursday we visited Meijers Gardens in Grand Rapids.

 

All type of plant life and an outside sculpture garden as well.

 

I don't get modern art, but .............

 

 

I did like this work in red by East Jordan Foundry.

 

This is a large horse.

 

 

 

A very large horse

 

 

This is what our cats see.

 

There was this kids play area showing the five great lakes around Michigan.

You put little boats in it and they all float down to Niagara Falls.

 

and this kids play area about bugs and such 

 

 

This guy on Lake Mill flies his plane in and out for the weekend.

 

 

 

Sunset on Friday.  Going home to fix the  boat motor. 

A Garden/Studio Tour

Yesterday we went on a self-guided tour of a few of the art studios

in the county.  Pottery, water color and jewelry were a lot of what we saw,

as well as the gardens that often surround the studios.

 

One had a nice water feature, something we've been considering

for our place.  We have an unsightly place where water run-off come

from a pipe under the road and onto our property, running down

and into our pond.  It amounts to a rut with weeds.  We need to do

something like below.

 

 

One studio was all about pottery.  Very nice stuff.  Very nice price. 

And why shouldn't it be?  It's not run of the mill, made in China stuff. 

It's hand made and very good quality.  I don't know if there's anything wrong

with this set, but it was being used in the garden as deco.

 

 

So was this rockin' goose!

 

This place was all about iron works.  Funny things made from metal junk.

We like the whimsy.



 

Turtles or crabs anyone?

 

This guy, (Brad I think) built this "Mill" from some parts of an old mill found in the county.

The water wheel works but doesn't do anything but turn.  How's that for whimsy?

The water sluice was built to look as if it was being fed by a pond, but alias, it was only a hose.

 



A nice view of the water wheel, which takes only a very small amount of water to turn it.

The family lives on the top flood, his store on the bottom.

 

 

 

This boy had high hopes of a catch of some kind.

 

 

Our last studio stop had more garden than shop. 

An old house served as studio with gardens to the left.

 

 

Rusty things adorned fences, .............

 

 

Bird houses and arbors, ...................

 

 

A poopy crow watches over a part of the garden.

 

 

Yellow

 

 

Red

 

 

........ and a rooster crows

 

 

Not that one, this one below.

 

 

Unusual bird feeders were everywhere.

 

 

An outhouse

 

 

On that note, we went home and began plans for our own water feature.