8 September 09
A Visit to the State Fair
We’ve now lived in Davis for 10 years and have never made it to the State Fair, just across the causeway in Sacramento. Partly this is a horror of crowds and partly it’s a causeway thing — not proud of it, but it’s the truth. We tend to stay this side of the causeway.
But I really wanted to go this year because my spinning teacher was showing her Jacobs sheep, two of which gave birth during the fair (triplets and twins, and little black-and-white beauties they were too). The trip turned out to be a sheep-type pilgrimage. (The Fair is too big to do even a significant portion, so if you limit yourself to one thing you can do it well. I think this is why you go more often than once every ten years.)
We saw the Columbia (an American breed from the 50s) yearling rams being judged; saw Cheviots and Dorsets (meat sheep) and Romneys and Ramboullets. But my favorites were the merinos, incredibly soft, from Mendenhall Wood Ranch up in Marysville. (There were many, many blue ribbons at these pens.) I was able to sketch this lamb, born in January, name of Marissa. (We also saw lots of llamas. What do you do with a llama??)
We ate fair food including the obligatory frozen banana dipped in hot chocolate with almonds. We saw the vertical teetering sculpture of San Francisco made out of 100,000 toothpicks over the course of 35 years. And we saw this giraffe, made from recycled metal, which I sketched and sent into the One Million Giraffes project. Ola now has over 239,157 giraffes, including mine. Do send in a sketch or two if you can.
9 August 09
Field Of Sun
Late this spring they planted the field just south of our house in sunflowers.
2 August 09
Aerial Mayhem
At eight this morning all chaos was going on overhead. First the whooossh of the propane burner of a balloon floating nearby, and then the persistent buzzing of motorized paragliders. I looked outside — there were at least three balloons in the neighborhood, with a couple of paragliders zooming around to inspect. (The paragliders take off from southeast of Davis, the balloons launch from somewhere near Woodland.) One of the balloons then landed right by the levee to the north of the house, and the several vans of the balloon ground crew were parked by the side of the road, the crew running out to take down the balloon. I kept the cats inside until the mayhem subsided.
All we needed to add to the scene was a dragon and the confusion would be total.
28 July 09
Demiamputation
The nectarine tree, burdened by fruit, cracks in half. A Nuttall’s woodpecker drills into not-quite-ripe fruit. The lavender is crushed.
(Submitted for the 38th Festival of the Trees.)
15 July 09
East College
I’m back from my vacation to Brunswick, Maine and Greencastle, Indiana. Here’s a sketch of East College at DePauw University in Greencastle. The cornerstone of the building was laid down in 1870.
11 June 09
Avian Sasquatch
My officemate wasn’t in this morning which means I get to field his phone calls most of which aren’t as interesting as the one today — the gentleman on the other end explained how he had found a flight feather a good bit longer than his outstretched arm (and he is 5’ 7 1/2”) but had lost it and this was up near Klamath Falls and there was an account of such a giant bird from Mexico in 1921 (killed — the 25-30 pound bird probably fed a family for a week) and another account from Switzerland of a different type of bird much bigger than a condor — these are high altitude birds, generally soar at 10-12,000 feet which is why no one ever sees them…
So do look up — you never know what you might spot up high.
1 May 09
The Clade Launched
The Clade is a new community environmental website that holds that the environment is about more than climate change. Join the conversation…
26 April 09
At The Local Airport
UC Davis is the only campus in the University of California system to have its own airport (though UCSB is quite close to the Santa Barbara commercial airport). For the past few years, the University Airport has held an open house in the spring; aviation buff that I am, I try to go to these, usually doing some sketching while there. At today’s open house, I sketched this Rockwell 112A, manufactured in 1975. A note on the sketch: I used gouache here — I recently built up a little paintbox of different gouache colors and this seems to be a good complement in the field to my box of watercolors.
12 April 09
You Know You've Been Standing In One Place Too Long
…when a squirrel runs up your leg. This happened during yesterday’s outing: I was finishing up this sketch of an azalea in front of the State Capitol at the time.
11 April 09
Davis Joins Cooperstown
The city of Davis has just been selected to be the new home of the U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame. This hall had been located in Somerville, New Jersey but was forced to relocate due to a redevelopment project. More than 25 communities submitted proposals to be the new home, and the choice eventually came down to between Greensboro, North Carolina and Davis. According to the chair of the selection committee, Bill Brunner, “The distinguishing difference between Greensboro and Davis was that Davis was so bicycling friendly…all those bike lanes and the sheer number of people who use the bicycle as a method of transportation or recreation or sport.” Nobody knows where in town the hall will be permanently located but the city would like to see the hall and museum open in a temporary location in the next six months.