A Day in the Life

This week has been a little slower but not much. I finished a book last week and am starting into a new one this week. I have it fleshed out, the pre-writing steps taken, and  started to put the story onto the document. Only struggling with the first 500 words, I realized I was telling the wrong story and now, my fingers are flying and I'm excited about the book. That is how the process works for me.

This installment of A Day in the Life happened last Thursday.

We awoke and were eating breakfast when I asked my usual question of my hubby. "What are your plans today?"

He said, "We're going to get some bluegrass hay."

George

That meant I wasn't going to get to my chores for a bit. We finished eating and while I cleaned up the dishes he made sure the back of his pickup was empty.  I walked down and fed the horses before we all (dogs included) climbed in the pickup. The hay was only about five miles from our house. we loaded the twenty bales onto the back of the pickup and brought it home. Then we had to re-stack a small hay stack that had started to tilt. After it was back in place, we unloaded and stacked the bluegrass. After all the problems with our daughter's pony, it was finally diagnosed as needing a low calorie, low carb diet which means we scrounge up bluegrass straw hay for him and it is doing George some good being on the same diet. ;)


When the hay was all stacked I asked, hubby if he needed me for anything else. He replied, no.  I spent the rest of the morning working on the book I finished until he arrived and said it was time to go to town.  I'd mentioned the day before I wanted to attend a meeting of the Historical Society. It was a luncheon. Hubby dropped me off. I attended the meeting. Some of it was interesting and some wasn't. I've found so far that these luncheons are never about what I thought they would be from the write up int he newspaper.

I also had an appointment with another writer and the head of the Harney County Library to set up an Indie Author Day at the Library in October. Between the luncheon and the meeting I had some time to kill and used it browsing through the local quilt shop that is closing and has their fabric for half off. I picked up some fun pieces and then headed to the library.  The meeting went well. We are sending out invitations to local writers to be on a panel to talk with the public. It should be a fun day!

We returned from town with a few groceries. I made dinner and hubby said, he needed my help after dinner. While in town he'd picked up new nozzles for one of the dairy irrigation pivots. He needed to change the nozzles and needed me to read the numbers and pick out the ones he asked for and hand them to him.  The dogs hopped in the work truck and we went out to the North Pivot.

Dogs hoping a rodent will be drowned out of its hole

Putting in the new nozzle

Hubby turned the water off and we walked through knee high wet alfalfa as we walked along the pivot changing out the nozzles. Mikey was racing around through the wet plants having fun cooling off.  Tink jumped back in the pickup. She is a diva and didn't like getting all wet.

Mikey all wet after his run through the alfalfa

When the nozzles were done, the sun was setting and the sky was turning a fire season orange.

The sprinkler ready to go.

We went home, took showers, and settled in for a couple hours of TV before going to bed. We live a laid back lifestyle and I like it!

Connecting US HWY 20

Artist Sal Strom

Tuesday I participated in an event that was the brainchild of artist Sal Strom.

When she discovered that HWY 20 ran from her home town of Newport, Oregon all the way to Boston, Massachusetts, where she received her Master's in Fine Art, she dreamed of bringing the towns along the way together through art.

Her goal for the 3,365 mile trip was to "have fun, laugh, and remember that our connections through art and play make us stronger as a group." And that is what she did at fifteen libraries along the route in towns with populations of less than 5500.

Hwy 20 crosses through 12 states. Sal made a map of each state and using the colorful safety pins she calls "therapy" to show her route through the states, she has created works of art. Strom is a tactile artist. She uses cheesecloth, acrylic paint, and odds and ends to make her pieces. Her inspiration is creating "art as therapy" projects.

There were 5 local authors and 3 friends or library associates who participated in the event. The authors brought their books and were encouraged to decorate tubs with flowing, colorful, cheesecloth to cradle our books in the tubs. Then photos were taken. These photos will then be cropped and added to a collage Sal is making to be exhibited at Newport Visual Art Center, Runyon Gallery June 9th-July 2nd and Lincoln City Cultural Center, Chessman Gallery, Jan.13th - Feb.5th.

decorated book tubs

While the books were being photographed, we were encouraged to wrap Sal up in the remaining colorful cheesecloth and then throw the fabric around as she peeled off the layers around her. It was hard to get introvert writers to place cheesecloth on her. We were all standing back with the fabric in our hands, trying to figure out how to get it on her without bringing her into our safety bubble. It was pretty funny, I thought. LOL

Sal's art rendition of the states and HWY 20

Her partner and technology person during the trip, Lynn Moyer, has been blogging about the experience. Here is a link to his blog: http://connectingus20.com/our-blog/day-39-event-in-burns-or