2019 Holidays time!

We are into the holiday season here in Meridian and we have enjoyed being home and around family. We have been available to watch Anna several times and as you can see, she is such a little doll baby. She has grown and changed so much over the last few months and is a little chatterbox.
She loves her “Gran-pa” and “Gra-ma” and is always excited to see us.On a few occasions she has said, “ok bye momma” as soon as she gets in the house.
She loves laying down on the carpet with Gran-pa and looking at books. She really likes it when I sit on the couch with her and go through all her little puppet books and sing the songs that go with the stories (Mary had a Little Lamb, Bingo, and Baa Baa Black Sheep).

 Her gran-pa taught her a little trick with some of the non breakable Christmas tree ornaments this latest time of watching her. She was so happy with herself!
She is learning a lot about being polite and asking for things in a nice way like, “Gra-ma I’m hungry, can I have a banana please?”
She is also battling with her two year old instincts like screaming on occasion when she doesn’t get her way. But that behavior is quickly subsiding and she is more and more manageable and reasonable.

Our family Christmas is a little early this year due to travel schedules so we will be all done with Christmas on November 29th! That will leave lots of time to just relax and enjoy the season without all the bustle and stress. The bustle and stress is all happening now.
My ladies Brunch is this weekend along with Thanksgiving and my birthday. Lots going on but its all good things.

New artist website

patricialgibbonsart.com

This is my new artist website. I switched from Fine Art America because I wasn’t satisfied with the layout or the idea that I was just one of a million artists on that service. They put other artist’s work on my web page and the domain was lame.
Now I have my own domain name and no other artist can display on my website. I know I’m still only one of a million artists but I at least have control of my own destiny this way.

I have a show coming up in mid November at a small shop in Boise called Feather and Twine. And I applied to show my work at St Alphonsus next year. I am hoping I get accepted for that show.

Anyway, check out my website!

2019 currently Fall in Island Park

 Taking another break from catching up with the past in order to stay caught up with the present...

It’s Fall in Island Park and with that comes mixed weather and beautiful colors!

We have heard a bull elk bugling for weeks now in the trees across from the property and when we went for a walk in those woods, we came across a couple of small pines that had been shredded (bull elk rut activity) and lots of tracks. We also saw about five cow elk crossing the road ahead of us one day as we headed down to Elk Creek gas station.

Coyotes have been very vocal at night, almost nightly. And we have a resident badger that keeps digging holes into our banks around the cabin. Haven’t run into her/him yet thank goodness!

Mushrooms are coming up all over and the elk and deer like them a lot. Some they eat and some they avoid.

The Fall foliage color is already gone but it was so beautiful. We planted several stands of quakes around the property and a few of them actually turned this beautiful gold color seen on the bigger clump pictured here.

We are looking forward to the day when we have big stands of gold quakies on our land!

 The woodshed roof is finally finished...took a lot of days of work and some tense moments of terror but it’s ready for winter and not a moment too soon as you can see from the next couple of pictures.

The weather is very unsettled and we have had a few snow days where it’s pretty cold and miserable outside. There are hardly any other people up here now and the local restaurants are closing up for the winter. There are still a few that we go to when we are tired from working and I don’t want to cook.

The mountains are misty most mornings and then on clear days, the sky brightens up and the air is crisp.

The other day we were very happy to see that an owl is using our property for it’s hunting grounds. It really helps keep the ground squirrels and the bats from taking over.

We have seen piles of little bones around, what’s left of the owl’s digestion. Owls make a huge mess! But it’s a small price to pay for the extermination service.

I like how this little guy is staring at me through the window. He looks a  lot like Mafia!

Woodshed

I thought I’d mention our experience with our woodshed that we are “modifying “ up at the cabin...

I guess I should mention that Kevin and I retired this past March so we have “ all the time in the world” to do these horrible projects... as though we don’t have enough to do with finishing our master bedroom and bath!
Anyway, we had this shed built to house the wood that we will eventually use in our wood burning stoves. But it doesn’t have any porch roof or any overhangs to keep the snow off the sides of the shed. AND it doesn’t match our cabin or garage so we had the builders leave the siding and roofing off so we could put our own on. When it’s done, I’ll be glad..
So Kevin designed and built overhangs on the sides and back of the shed. He will build the porch roof next year on the front.
Everything would have been just peachy if Kevin hadn’t hurt his right arm (tennis elbow). I naively said I would help him with whatever he needed to do on the shed. Little did I realize that meant actually having to physically work HARD basically all day every day for five days, climb up onto the roof, climb up into the rafters inside, handle drills and drivers, carry 4x8 sheets of plywood along with Kevin, combat sun, wind, torrential downpours, and insects of every  description!
I learned a lot about what I can tolerate and what I can’t. Kevin learned that about me too:/
At one point I lost my sh*t and cried “I just want I go home...”
Today, we finished the roof as far as the extensions and the weather proofing. The only thing we need to do before we go back to Boise is wrap the shed with tyvek house wrap.
The actual roofing and siding will be another trip. Hopefully Kevin’s arm will feel a whole lot better by then!!