This issue includes some new ones from Elley and Griffin, plus some of my favorites from Kristy and Nikole. I think I mentioned that, lately, I’ve started to just sit back and enjoy my screensaver, which draws from my archive of 10k+ images. I’ve been one very lucky guy to work with so many wonderful ladies to create art. The creativity, the laughs, and the end result of art and often lasting friendships have outpaced anything I could have ever imagined. Watching the saver pass image and image is about as joyful as it gets for me.
From simple classic nudes to Playboy-style art, and from locations to studio, it has always been a joy to work and create with others. If all of that wasn’t enough, I usually get a hug or two at some point in a shoot. At 74, one can’t receive too many hugs.
This month brings change for me every year. My birthday starts out the month, but usually a week or so before, about mid-October, we transition from the mountains to join the valley people to enjoy the winter weather of the desert and to watch the license plates change colors.
Speaking of weather, Arizona just received a load of rain we never expected. Just about everywhere in the state saw record rains and a lot of flooding. Even Payson’s main thoroughfare was a small lake for a while. If we’d been in the mountains, we would have certainly been stuck up there for a while. The weather station said we received 4.8 inches in 48 hours. A couple of weeks before, when we were up there, we received 3.8 inches in 48 hours. At that time, I got to fill the new 2500-gallon tank with rainwater for the spring crops.
Speaking of crops, we should be harvesting lettuce and spinach from our new Chandler garden starting about the time you are reading this issue. We have been growing sprouts very successfully for a while now.
Another food adventure has started for us. Bread. I ordered up some frozen breads, including sourdough, crisaunts, muffins, etc., from the Wildgrain company. We’ll see how it goes, but having fresh-baked, wholesome bread with ingredients you can pronounce should be delightful.
The trend here is to grow what we can and get food that's been processed the least. And I’ve now started learning canning, both water bath and pressure. I expect I’ll be blabbering about that in future issues.
One last happy note: by the time you are reading this, the politicians will have stopped begging for your money and gone back to just the billionaires and foreign countries for their spending cash.
As always, feel free to comment, ask questions, or make suggestions. I’m at ai7r@mac.com
This week in this artist’s life…
