A day with no results....

In two afternoons, I dismantled most of the 'imitation' (no splitting, just logs)rail fence that I put up a couple years ago. I learned that the settlers must have used hardwook, not southern pine, because it rots...sigh. Oh well, it looked nice for awhile; even tho' it was a pain to try and mow around. Now I will have an easier time mowing. That I also did, and learned that with the new mower, you could actually mow everything in one day. I did about 3/4's of it in 5-6 hours, but in all but about 3 acres, the 'grass' (green weeds look like grass if you don't look closely...lol)was about 3-4 ft. high, which took a bit longer.

I did get most of it done before the rain. It seems like the rain this summer has been on any day my husband was home, or whenever I had time. So it has been pretty hit and miss. Of course having 2 mowers break down, AGAIN, did not help. They were two old rebuilt riding mowers, that just are too tired to work any more...and too expensive to keep fixing 2-3 times a year. So we rented one from Aaron's. So far it works pretty good!

I learned something else...after a year of mostly inactivity, other than painting, and housekeeping, my body did not tolerate what I did as well as it could have. By last night I could barely move, and was pretty tired. So, I went to be early and slept late.

I had some plans for today...but most of them fell thru'. I was going to mail the 9 paintings for an exchange some friends of mine are doing....but I misplaced one of the painting. I had almost all of them packaged, and ready to go, when I realized one was missing...I looked all over the post office, ran out to the truck and looked but could not find it. By this time, it was 10 minutes past closing, and I was out of time. I figured I had somehow put two in one or left it at home. When I went back out to the truck, where poor, impatient Bubba was waiting...I found it had slid off the seat and into the compartment on the door (I forgot to look there...sigh). So now I will have to run to the post office again in the morning. There will be 9 disappointed people...at least they are good friends and will understand!

I would have been at the Post office in time to get everything ready, if I had thought about unhooking the trailer yesterday. I had laid the tailgate down because some of the logs were 17-19 feet long, and rested them in the bed of the pickup, and the trailer. So there I am, nice skirt and top...pulling and breaking rotten logs till we could get the tailgate up and unhook the trailer. That only took about 30 minutes...sigh. Of course, all the makeup had sweated off by then, my hair, well, it was soaked.

So nothing really got done. We went to Sonic and came home, and in just a little bit we are going to bed! I am wiped out. I just did not want to go another day with no post...since I promised to be better about posting.

I still have not decided about the watermelon festival...hard to decide with the price of a booth, and the probablity of over 105+ degree heat to deal with...and no guarantee of selling anything.

But here are some of the paintings I did for last year...which I did not attend do to my son's wedding. I did not want to just do paintings of watermelons....I wanted to be a bit different...hope you enjoy them....


The Kitties Picnic.....8x10 wrapped canvas....multiple references

Loading the Boxcar.....8x10 wrapped canvas....From a photo in the early 1900's when Water Valley was a switchinig center for the Illinois Central Railroad...they hired "small" children (based on weight) to put authenticity stickers on the watermelons that met the standards; they had to be light because they stacked the watermelon only 3 deep cushioned with hayso they would not break or bruise, an adult's weight also might bruise the melons. They made about 50¢ a day...which for some families was a lifesaver. These watermelon were sought as far away as New York City, where some restaurants would only serve watermelon from Water Valley, MS.














The Watermelon Truck.....8x10 wrapped canvas....from my imagination

Loading the Train.....8x10 wrapped canvas....Another photo from the early 1900's showing how the trucks would line up at the boxcars to be handed into the car, just out of sight would have been a scale to weigh them...but rarely did the man at the door need that to know if it was acceptable...most knew as soon as the melon was in their hands. Children would hang out, waiting for a reject, or the rare dropped melon which was then fair game.














Baby's Watermelon.......8x10 canvas paper