Nebraska

It is COLD here and windy. Fun trial and over at noon. Tomorrow a little bigger. I'll be flying home tomorrow night getting home around midnight after a two hour drive from the Nashville airport.

Omaha,NE

is COLD and rainy. Brrrrrrrrrrrr. The flights to Memphis and then on to Omaha were on tiny little planes that only seated 60 people. Eeek. Scary.

New Paintings

Ok been wanting to paint something purple so went for Tucumcari Mt in NM at sunset. Then as a project did an Alpine lake alongside someone else. Theirs is significantlydifferent of course although they both started the same. Last but not least, a North Florida swamp.

Winter Itinerary

Oct 31-Nov 1 judging an ASFA event in Omaha,NE
Nov 5-Nov 8 ProBullRiding finals in LV,NV
Nov 13, 14, 15-Columbia KY for ASFA (I think)
Nov 21 & 22-open
Nov 26-Thanksgiving (one with Archie and his children and grandchildren, and hopefully one with my son his wife and her parents, egads too much food to think about)
Nov 28-ASFA Region 7 Regional judging
Nov 29-ASFA trial GA
Dec 5 & 6 AKC show in AR (maybe this is tentative)
open the rest of the month probably working Christmas and Christmas Eve to build comp time hopefully will leave Dec 30 for New Mexico and be gone through Jan 8 or 9.

GA Lighthouse

My first lighthouse.

Latest Painting

A fence in West Texas. Enjoy!

SNAKE!!

Common garter snake that is. Last Friday I am trying to get ready to leave for a couple of nights in Nashville for the District 63 toastmasters convention ( by the way I won 3rd place in the humorous speech contest at the district level there) and Archie picks up a bag of garbage in the kitchen that I was going to take off before we left and he says "Hey there is a snake in here". He is pretty calm, I am not. I run in there and lo and behold there it is. He says you want me to kill it? My guts are saying kill the thing but fortunately (for the snake) my head said hey those things eat mice and bugs. It's a garter snake. So I said no don't kill it. He's like so um what are you going to do with a snake? I caught it in a tupperware container and threw it outside. Boy do those things have a temper it continuously tried to strike at me through the plastic container. Blech

SCREAMFEST

Oh my GOD! My mother is visiting me this week doing some house hunting for possibly moving from FL. She had found this haunted house here in Sparta open on weekends until Halloween. I checked into it found that it was being run by some Farmers Association and benefitting the Agricultural Relief Fund. So after watching PBR on Versus tonight (Wahoo Marchi did make it to finals!) at 9 PM we set off for the haunted house ( barn actually). Thinking that it would be some cutesy made up thing and hokey. Well, I spent 20 some odd minutes of solid screaming at the top of my lungs. I think I blew out a vocal cord ..... or two. Man, it was dark, I couldn't see where to go, there were things that felt like spiderwebs hanging in my hair, at one point there was a room of what looked like snakes everywhere and snake noises. I'm not wanting to walk forward and then there are people running out with chainsaws and machetes. I am screaming as loud as I can trying to create a wall of noise I to repel them. My mother is behind me pulling on my jacket with both hands screaming when I do. At one point she says oh my God never listen to me, oh my God this was a horrible idea. I'm screaming they're everywhere my God I can't see how to get out of here. At one point as she is pulling on my jacket and it comes unsnapped I briefly give thought to running out of my coat I am such a chicken, OH MY goodness it was a great scare. If anyone in the middle TN area is a fan of haunted houses, I highly recommend it.

Egads

You know if you are ever waiting for a bitch to come in season SHE WON'T or a different one will. Sigh........ waiting and have been for Charo or Autumn to come in and they show NO signs but Lara may be. Lara is Avalon Solarra SC, FCH, JOR and the plan is to breed her to BIF FC Avalon Victorian Pyre SC, RE, FCH, GRC, TT, CGC, TDI RTD next spring so of course she is challenging my plans.

Lighthouse Rock painting Palo Duro SP TX

Last November I visited Palo Duro SP in TX on my way to NM. Took a bunch of photos including a couple of the rock formation called "the lighthouse" there, thinking I'd want to paint it or have it painted. Just painted it. Just realized it looks like a huge sandstone penis. Oh my.

Happy Happy Joy Joy!

Just heard from my friend Susan Van De Water of Del Sol Borzoi that our Tigress (Avalon Tigress in the Dark JC, FCH, GRC, CC ) won her second conformation major today at a show! Wahoo! Thought I'd inflict her photos on ya'll. She is

an open field coursing champion with three takes, a straight racing champion, an ASFA field champion and winner of the Borzoi Club of Greater Atlanta triathlon (conformation match, straight racing and lure coursing) in 2006.

A new painting

As you all recall I have picked up a brush again and am painting so here to bore you some more, cottonwoods on a river somewhere West of the MS river where there are mountains