Time Out in Mendocino

The most beautiful sights, besides the mountains, to be seen in Reno, are the sunrises and sunsets. Below:  are some of the necklaces in my bead collection.  I started collecting when I traveled around the world, over 40 years ago.   I keep some of them stored in the big box with lots of drawers. below.  

Antique glass beads, semi-precious stones, old charms and amulets, hand-carved pieces. 

My latest in a series of paintings about children and animals.  I've decided to not start any more until I finish this and five others I've gotten almost done.

A shrine I made using charms, amulets and meaningful things I got out of an old shrine I'd made years ago but had disintegrated.  Renewal.

This are my latest sculptures, in plastiscine, an oil based clay.  I'm learning how to cast plaster.  I want to eventually make a lot of concrete faces of goddesses that I intend to leave all over Reno on concrete sidewalks.  They will each have a goddess symbol etched in the backs of them that will match the symbols I intend to make as land art around the area.

I was feeling bored and depressed and decided I just had to get away for a while.  My friend David  had invited me to visit months ago so I just called him up and asked if I could come on over.  I really, really needed to see trees, greenery and colorful plants again.  Reno is pretty much a dull brown all year round.

Below is the cabin I stayed in during my stay.  It's the same cabin where I wrote the first draft to my first book back in 2006.  I sure got to see green - it rained all but two days of the ten days I stayed.  So, I didn't get to do very much mountain hiking, but I did get a lot of ideas for a new Murphy's Law list.  My ex-roommate, Debbie Murphy, (now a chiropractor in Ojai) reckoned that if you made a list of ten things to send out in the world, that at least one of them would come back positive.  I've sent out ten things in the past and had all ten come back good, so you never know.

The view of the mountains from Laura's house.  Below are the berries in front of Laura's house.

Laura's garden shed

David's house just after the yellow leaves fell.

A visitor in the sink in the cabin.  Since I'm a Scorpio I just scooped him up in a cup and put him outside.

Above, a flower in David's garden.  Below is Laura's greenhouse with a small shrine I made, and the remains of a garden goddess I carved for her, many years ago.  The goddess had to be cut down because the bottom of the trunk finally rotted out.

A waterfall on David's property that totally filled up his almost empty pond.  Now the ducks can come back.

Wet cob webs outside the cabin.

Rock garden at Laura's.

I took one hike in the woods, then it rained again.

Flowers at Laura's.  In the fall the raccoons attacked her grape vines, which grow all along the front and roof of her house, causing her dog Janey to bark like mad, and keep Laura awake.  They captured several of the raccoons and drove them many miles away and let them loose in a BLM forest on another mountain.  Laura didn't mind the grapes so much, but the raccoons also ate 40 of her favorite goldfish, that she knew by name.  Grapes and fish?  Sounds like a perfect raccoon meal.

David's property - when I arrived it had been yellow.  Now it is green.  After ten days of healthy vegan meals, hours of conversation, and rain, I decided to come home and get to work on my Murphy's Law List.