fair winds~

this was one beautiful evening on the bay. as we looked up from our hammering and painting, we were gifted with this stunning sight. i like to think it was our much loved and very missed friend erling smiling down on us.

this will be my last post until i return in late october. i'm headed out to alpenview to cook for the visiting fishermen & ladies. in mid-september i'll be relocating to the outcamp on the ayakulik river, to get reaquainted with my friends the bears, the cook tent, and the outhouse. alpenview has a great website here, go take a look at all the beauty!

while many folks will be enjoying the warm harvest days of october, i will be here

chipping the ice out of my contact lens case and watching my pal sweetpea fish in the home pool:

i really wouldn't want to be anywhere else!

i hope you all have a wonderful late summer, and i look forward to catching up in october.

texture tuesday~ it's the little things

kim klassen gave us the theme "the little things" for this week's texture tuesday. i love the little things. the stuff inside the xmas stockings...the prize in the cereal box...the tattoo in the cracker jacks. life's little diamonds.

i think this photo i took a couple weeks ago while cutting wood for the woodpile fits the bill just perfect.

keeping the woodpile full is one of those jobs that just has to happen. no matter what. we all try to be really busy all the time, because the person who isn't...gets woodpile duty. i lost. i took a minute to pull up my socks, and was accused of loitering.

but look at the gift i got! i didn't even notice until i was carrying the wood into the cabin! then i had to go through it all to pull out all the pieces that looked like this. because, how could we ever burn them?

i shot the photo using the color accent feature, keeping only the dark greens. i adjusted the contrast a bit and added a layer of kim's luminous texture set on multiply blend at 54% opacity. that's it.

here's the before:

take a moment to go visit all the other folks taking part in texture tuesday by clicking here!



stitching on the dock of the bay

well, our weekend at the cabin turned into two weeks at the cabin. there was a lot to be done.

i managed to sneak a few sunny moments on my dear dock with my new obsession, embroidery.

i brought a leftover piece of my favorite avocado-dyed cotton, and went to work with my new book "doodle stitching" by aimee ray. what a great book, full of fun inspiring things to stitch.

 i think with time i may get it. i will need more time than i got from my husband.

you know the saying - it takes a lot of work to live on a farm.

we don't live on a farm, and i'm glad for it.

after i snapped these photos i heard the whip crack,

that was the end of the fun for me.

some of us got to ride cute orange tractors and dig in the dirt.

some of us got to lay in the sun and watch...

or take a little dip in the bay...

 i got a paintbrush and a ladder,

and got to practice my multimedia art techniques.

we didn't do too bad for two old people by ourselves.

i even figured out how to use the timer thing on my camera.

this shot was taken right before gerry told me my next job was

climbing under the cabin to dig out all  the nasty land otter nests and stuff.

you can tell he was thinking about how he was going to tell me

by the look on his face - just look at him up there, mr. i ride the tractor.

we had the most glorious weather, and when it got warm enough the no-see-ums went away and we could take off the bug nets and put on shorts. shorts! amazing. i have a tan line!

every once in a while the clouds would roll over the mountains...

that really helped keep us motivated.

before we knew it, we had replaced the foundation,

put up new skirting,

and for a moment, i had my white seaside cottage~

well, a gal can dream, right?

i had my 50th birthday during this work week,

and i am here to tell you

my husband put me on a pedestal for the entire day:

not a happy warm fuzzy feeling for me.

at least i talked him into giving me a 2x6

instead of the 2x4 he originally had up there for me.

but, we finished! next trip we paint the trim and start building the new deck.

(see the blurs in the photo? no-see-ums. they'll bite anything)

in the end, the two of us loaded over 6,000 lbs. of lumber plus the compressor and all the tools & paint in and out of the boat twice, onto the 4 wheeler trailer and up to the cabin from the beach.

my pal duffy did a lot of this:

we should have got a st. bernard.

texture tuesday ~ dreaming

a foggy 7 a.m. cup of coffee out on the front yard at the bay.

complete with bug net and small white dog.

every day should start like this, i think.

surrounded by silence:

just the high tide water rippling on the beach

the muffled gulls drifting by.

was gerry dreaming? 

nope. just waiting for a SAT phone signal...

so much for my henry d. thoreau moment.

i used kim klassen's "dream" texture on this photo taken a few days ago at ugak bay.

click here to visit all the other texture tuesday folks!