Snow Planet and Kudos Inbound

Snowed In
Photo: Lorie Klahn

Home Front

Friday, January 2, 2009.
The neighbors called tonight to say that they were plowed out for the first time in several days. I thought that we (who live alone at the end of our road) were the only ones isolated. The interesting part is that the snow excavation for our neighbors, at our "road head", required a large plow (read: diesel locomotive-sized snow blade in front of a grader), another road grader and finally a bucket loader to do the job. Sheeesh!

Oh, so the upshot is we are still isolated. I have been harvesting game birds for dinner.

Saturday, January 3, 2009.
The plow came this morning and just cut a swath through the snow. Whew!

I had envisioned skiing out to the neighbors for groceries, and pulling them back on a sled, as I used to do mountain climbing. Instead, Lorie went out to the grocery and that was an interesting event. The one she wanted to shop at was closed for snow load issues with its roof. When she did get to a supermarket, everyone was commiserating about being snowed-in for up to seven days. It was a group of snow refugees, busted-out and getting provisions!

Barn, Sun & Snow
Photo: Lorie Klahn

In Blog Land

Welcome readers from Making a Mark. I am very happy to share two other recognitions from bloggers this week; one from Julianne Richards, and the other from Miki Willa.

Miki is participating in the portrait challenge at Different Strokes. I am amazed at the fun of seeing so many portraits created by talented artists, and Miki's first effort is a huge success, IMO. Seems this first-timer effect is going around - first Robyn Sinclair creates an etching that is first time genius, and now Miki has done the same thing with her first pastel portrait. Give me some of whatever these two are having!

Miki said this kind thing about The Colorist:

The Colorist: Casey Klahn has more than one blog, but this is my favorite. He shares information about artists he admires, ideals he aspires to, and he promotes other artists whose art inspires him. I especially enjoyed his series about artist's traits. Casey and I have very different styles, but I am learning from him about stretching my usual color boundaries once in a while. That is a good thing. He is also good about responding to comments.

And, Julianne, The Colorspeaker, has introduced me to ArtSlant, which is an art networking site that allows you to post your blogs and other linky things. See Julianne's profile here, and mine here. See my blog post at ArtSlant here, which I swear took me all of about 3 minutes to cut and paste from The Colorist.

Julianne says the following about The Colorist:

This is a blog by an artist for artists. He will often do series of posts of which I have highlighted and given the link to a personal favorite. Anyone serious about living a life of creativity, aka "as an artist" will benefit from Casey Klahn personal insights, thoughts on becoming a better artist, for ARTS sake, and much much more. And last but most definitely not least, is his own artwork, of which most certainly is extraordinarily unique and not to be missed. The rest of everything is what they call in the south, "just gravy." Stop by.

Thanks to Miki and Julianne.