Done!!

My next drawing is going to be in black and white. I really struggled with the color on this one, and think I’d have done a better job if I would have done it as an oil painting.

The snow is melting, we’ve got patches of bare ground now, and Wednesday I have 7 1/2 tons of rock being delivered. My nephew and his son are up for a few days while Scottie has spring break, so if they’re still here Wednesday, Scott gets to play with the bobcat and spread rock over my driveway.

It’s another dreary day here, we’ve got rain and then snow is coming in tonight and tomorrow, but there’s another 50° day in the forecast. The geese and sandhill cranes are back, so spring is truly here.

Oh, what a dreary March day it is, drizzly with snow coming later today.

I’m done with the inking on my parrot drawing, and have been working on the color, putting down layers of watercolors, and putting in some gouache highlights. I’m liking it a little bit more, I think the gouache is doing the trick.

A close-up,

Every cold wave for the past month and a half, I say ‘This has to be the last one, it has to start warming up!’ The sun was kind of shining yesterday, and I so wanted to get outside and play in the dirt with my bobcat, but with everything still covered in snow and a frigid NW wind, it didn’t happen. It’s 6° right now, and that NW wind is still blowing. So very, very, very tired of winter.

I’ve been playing with a new style of beads. I think I’ll try putting some murrini on the next one I make.

My parrot drawing is progressing. As usual, I’m not entirely happy with the progress. Maybe after a few more watercolor washes to pop the color I’ll like it better.

And a little humor for the day,

Spring is coming! It may be -3°, but I hear geese down at the river.

This is the kind of handles our doors have,

Yesterday after chores, Christian took the truck down to do the mail and I was in the bobcat cleaning up snow, and out comes Suka, our husky, and my little dog Pip. Suka headed for the barn (and the chickens) and Pip danced around the bobcat. In a hurry to get Suka, I turned off the bobcat with the bucket up. Well, you can't open the door with the bucket up. Turned the engine on, tried lowering the bucket, and it wouldn't go down (safety feature, unless the safety bar in down in the locked position and your butt firmly in the seat, hydraulics won't work). Slammed the safety bar down, still no hydraulics, turned the engine off, see Suka come running back (no chicken in his mouth, thank goodness), turned the engine back on, hydraulics worked, put the bucket down, turned the engine off and opened door, couldn't get the door open because I hadn't lowered the bucket enough. Turn the engine back on, lowered the bucket, turned it off and climbed out of the bobcat and by this time, Christian was back, so we got both dogs in the house.

He went to turn off the water to the stock tank, I climbed back into the bobcat and started again, and out bounds Suka with Pip right after him.

Our back door to the garage has to be closed tightly because the weatherstripping bulges out (on my list of things to do is to replace it all). So both Christian and I figured he hadn't closed the door tightly enough when he put the dogs back in. So back in with the dogs, Christian went in, I went to move the van so I could clear out the snow in front of the garage. Out bound the dogs again! I honked the horn to get Christian to come back out, he came out, I was mad and grabbed a pliers to try to pull the weatherstripping off of the door. Didn't work.

Went back out into the garage, Christian behind me, and we heard a scratching on the door, and out comes Suka with Pip right after him. Christian and I looked at each other and it dawned on us that Suka was getting the door open by scratching on the handle until it opened. We knew that he had done that on one of the bedroom doors before, but figured it was just an accident.

So now I have a dog, a chicken killer and a cat chaser, who knows how to open the door to go outside.

Looks pretty innocent, doesn't he?

It’s a blustery, cold March day here. Oh, how quickly we forget… it’s 43° here, a month ago that would have been a heat wave.

I’ve opened a new Etsy shop (besides revamping my website) to sell my prints and notecards, and am slowly getting it stocked. It’s https://www.etsy.com/shop/GreyhavenArt. Between the website and the new shop, everything else was put on the back burner.

Our last trip to Florida we spent several days at a nice RV park in Gainesville, and they had an outdoor aviary with parrots in it. They were nice enough to let me spend some time inside to take pictures. Here’s the start of my drawing of one of the parrots,

I’m still doing beads, here’s some of my latest listings,

I really, really enjoy Pinterest. I’ve got lots and lots of recipes there, along with gardening and bead and art inspirations. I’ve also found a couple of my drawings there, with others claiming to have done them. I just can’t put my finished drawings on the internet without a watermark any more. I don’t like doing that, because it really detracts from the drawing, but really have no choice. I was really surprised to see how many people were using my Friesian stallion drawing, but the majority of them were using it for their profile pictures, so no harm done.

It is a good day today, the sun is shining and I went out and played with my Bobcat,

I finished my butterfly drawing and have been working on revamping my website and opening a new Etsy store for prints and notecards.

Smile for the day:

What a lovely day today!!! The sun is shining, it’s almost 20° and there’s a 40° day in the forecast! And my bobcat is coming today. I’m really looking forward to this summer and using it for landscaping etc.

I’ve been working on more murrini,

Some new listings on Etsy,


I finished the drawing of my latest butterfly, so now comes the magic of putting down the watercolors,

Some funny pics,

It has been a rough winter here, like so much of the rest of the country. What’s been different for us is not the amount of snow, although we’ve had enough of that, but the repetitive waves of frigid air. Normal high this time of year is in the 30s, instead last night it was -15°, with that bitterly cold northwest wind.

I went down to the cities Wednesday and bought a used bobcat, which hopefully will be delivered Monday.

By the time I got back home four hours later, our driveway was drifted shut. I called Christian to see if he could get through with the truck, but it got stuck, so I parked our van at our neighbor’s and Christian hauled groceries back to the house on the sled.


Yup, definitely stuck, and hung up on solidly packed snow. Thank goodness our neighbor was home, so he fired up his bobcat and cleared out our driveway Thursday. We had to dig out quite a bit of snow from underneath the truck to get it out. And even better, Friday the propane truck came and we got enough propane to hopefully last until spring, which can’t come soon enough!

I’m still working on my butterfly drawing, it’s progressing slowly but surely.

Suka gets to lick out the containers of sour cream, and here he is happily napping with the latest container,

And some funny Internet pics,

It is just wicked, wicked cold, with a NW wind whipping. Sigh, just about March, just about spring...

Snow, snow and more snow, looking out from our garage

That drift is about 3 1/2’ tall,

That’s our driveway. No way is UPS coming today with my Amazon order.

Our path to the barn, that drift at the right is well over 2’. The 5’ piles to the left are the snow that’s been plowed so we can get to the barn. Yup, so ready for spring.

Two lovely, sunny warm days!!! Yesterday I was snowplowing with just a short sleeved shirt (pants and boots, of course), no gloves, no coat, no hat. I loved it!!

Sigh, blizzard warning tomorrow through Friday, with temps back below zero for next week.

Some new beads,

Snow, snow and more snow. Well, at least Pyr, my big puppy, is enjoying it.

Speaking of which, I really need to get a picture of him sitting on my lap like he used to, just to see how much he’s grown. He’s a HUGE fuzz ball.

I got into a murrini zone for a few days, but nothing ‘WOW’ came of it.

I’ve started a new drawing, a butterfly again (I think I’m REALLY reading for spring),

and a couple of funny Internet pics,

Winter just won’t quit. Yes, I know it’s only February, but by this time of the year we’re all so sick of winter, well, you get the drift. Speaking of which, more snow coming in tomorrow night, and then after that, another cold wave with -0 temps coming. Yup, so very, very ready for spring.

Not too much beadmaking going on here. With propane being so expensive, I turned down the thermostat even more, so this a.m. it was 51° in my studio. WAY too cold to be creative!! But I did finish my drawing of Baxter.

A funny pertinent Internet pic,

-20° here, BUT next week they’ve got four days in a row over 30°!!!!! Spring is on the way!!!

I’m REALLY sounding like a broken record, but we have another cold wave coming in, -17° tomorrow night. Getting really, really tired of it. At least it’s been sunny.

I’ve started on a new drawing, quite a bit smaller than the last, just 5 1/2” x 4”, so this one won’t take nearly as long as the elk. This is Baxter, our kitty that we just had to put down this past fall, when he was a kitten. He had such pretty blue eyes. This is in progress,

I just listed some new beads, and have several that I really like, especially the last one,



And a couple of funny Internet pics,