Lucky’s first winter out west.

It’s 10 degrees and Lucky is safely entombed in his snowbank.

Lucky dressed up for the holidays back when he thought this was all the snow he’d see.

The Snow-Horn called in the snow!

Wichita angel now in Utah

Quadruplet Wichita angel now in Utah

8am Xmas morning, 10 inches of new snow outside.

Xander makes an Xmas morning toast from the head of the table.

Holiday winter setting.

These little ladies were just heads and wings with pipe cleaner arms, and then an Xmas miracle gave them bodies again and a sled!

Lucky isn’t feeling as lucky as usual.

Lucky begins to eat his way out of the drift.

The Walter Horn.

Shawn is going haut-couture this season.

The silvered weir-fairy called down the snow.

The welcoming committee on the front porch.

Santa brings smiles all ’round.

Broad Canyon Fire

Broad Canyon Fire. Acrylic. 24″x48″

some sense of the perspective; near = fire/sunlit crazy smoke you are about to pass under, far is miles and miles of smoke heading to distant mountains.

Redo of the last post with an image 5x denser; the sun is now red and the vaseline view is clarified.

This is ten days of painting, but who’s counting…

Pergola & Iris

Wisteria needs a pergola, so off I go…

Wisteria is going into its 4th year, and had climbed to the top of the screen last year. 

A string links the Wisteria to the pergola- it’s already half way up there.

Some day the Wisteria will make a nice privacy screen.

A few days earlier (Sat) I put in this new screen for the fish pond.

Raccoon sushi bar is officially closed.

Team Goldfish.

Kaye’s Dragonflies among the pond iris.

Iris patch in full bloom.

Yellow goes horizontal. 

Inside yellow v Outside yellow.

Boulder Colorado variety.

These smell like honey.

Boulder Colorado Burgundy

That color is impossible.

Meyer’s Ohio Farm variety (Allison’s patch) 

I worked the rose bed this spring, and it made a huge bump in blooms.

Tight as a button.

The coal fireplace in our house has never been used. It is too small for a gas insert, so I blocked it off with insulation in the chimney and a foam panel across the face that was festooned with greeting cards. We had these old-world English tiles in a box, which gave me a Hobbit-approved idea.

The tiles are mounted on hardy-backer board, and grouted. The panel adheres to the fireplace with velcro stripping. While I was at it I build a large foam insulation box that inserts over the drop ladder up in the attic. Now we’re tight as a button.

Solution to a fireplace that has never been a fireplace.

Trumpet vine triage. 80mph winds with wet snow compromised our hummingbird haven, snapping the old tree top and bottom that the vines have grown around. I added cables and brace-post (post is anchored in the ground with rebar and screwed to the old tree with angle iron). I have a plan to replace this triage with a better solution…

The red cables went in first, then the wooden brace. Then the cables were released and the vines were cinched back tight with the old tree, then I re-fit the cables to hold the vines in place. 

Website Upgrades; or down the rabbit hole.

A little mechanical bird told me that my dangerhart.com platform will go dark as a new platform replaces it. All the information contained on each page is still viable, but I had to rebuild the website onto the new platform. The new platform is pretty keen, set to work across devices from phones to ipads to laptops. All day Wednesday was spent rebuilding the site, and the past two days have been dedicated to editing and refining. I went back into Pythagoras, Salt In Suspension, Bonneville Reliquary Bend, Bronze Pour, and edited down the About page (still needs more work), and lots of other tweaks. It is the kind of thing that eats up whole days. Take a look over at dangerhart.com. It should all look pretty familiar, but much better if you are using your phone.

Had to go way into the guts of the computer to find this MFA image of the bees wax Intron Figures again- but worth it!

Demonic Dripping Freezeless Spigot Stem

Mansfield 6″ (9 inches in actual length) Stem. Protean plumbing bit that you might try to fix, which doesn’t make it worse about 20% of the time- so the plumbing shop pro told me. I was in the 80%.

This little wand of black magic set a tour of plumbing shops in motion. All shops have been out for 10 weeks, always just having sold their last one- but offering that I try this little parts replacement kit that we don’t have, but that the shop all the way across town does show having two. The old plumber-pro tells me that 80% of the time the new parts will just make the leak worse (the little gods of home plumbing are hungry and needful)- and though I did stop the leak at the vacuum manifold the plumber-pro’s advise proved out with a worse leak. Today I made my weekly (bi-weekly?) call-around for the part again; the nearest shop has quit carrying this brand and paid the manufacturer to ship all their stock back, and the shop across town has two left. By the time I get there they have one left. Upon switching it out I take care to make the incantation and blood sacrifice before closing the water off, and again after installation, and again prior to turning the water back on: the magics governing water were pleased at last.