Outreaching and updating.... and adventures ahead!

I realized a lot of drafts were sitting in my program here, waiting for better photos and I forgot to upload them!!!
So this is just an update on my recent adventures.

I have learned PowerPoint and just finished my third presentation as my outreach for the Artist in Residence obligation...well gratification would be better named.....

In July, I spoke at the Scottsdale Artist League.  August was Tempe Artist Guild and just Wednesday, gave a presentation to a great group of quilters called the Mavericks!   I bring my borrowed projector (GREAT thanks to the amazing Arizona Art Alliance and Mike Brady) and did this one in the daytime!  Still was able to show the drop in the bucket of my over 3000 photos from that month living in the Petrified Forest. When I return, November is Peoria Artist League and January will be the Mesa Art League.   Hopefully I will carry a little less of the original art with me for show and tell as it will be moving into galleries or permanent homes... or donation to the PARK!

Summer is always fighting the cabin fever I get in so many days over 100° weather in the Phoenix area, so I am coming out of my despair and starting to plan my annual car trip to Denver in October.

I have offered to be present for my original month of October (because of the annual jaunt, I nearly declined, but Kip was able to double up artists in May...so I was out of sync) during the last week of the month as I drive back.  So I hope to put on my badge and set up - for a couple of days at least - in the PDI to work on a small secondary project of portraying the visitors!
My first concept was supposed to center around the ravens, and where they would lead.... but they basically HID from me most of the month!  This time I want to interview people stopping in and see if they will let me borrow their visages for a project emphasizing the HUMAN aspect of the park!

I am loading materials and getting them ready for the road as I go up to enjoy the trees turning in Centennial and come back to see another season in my beloved PEFO.

Just throw in a visual aid...

...from a previous trip..... I KNOW they will mob me this time!

One More Piece! One More Presentation!

It was a tense day.
I had applied for a second AIR. It is rarely done but I have such a great idea.... so it will have to wait.
I can do it in another Park, but this was inspired by the month I spent there.  I am going to talk to Kip later about a different plan, but no PEFO for me in 2018... Stay tuned, I am branching out.

And I have not updated, but I do have another presentation tomorrow at the Tempe Artist Guild in Friendship Villiage, 2645 E. Southern Ave, Tempe AZ.   I will be running the artist critique at 5:30, with the business meeting at 6:30 and ME at 7:30 to 8:30!
So there you are!

While waiting for good or bad news, I did another piece.  Many of these will be entries in the Mountain Oyster Club in Tucson in November.  What a lot of exciting reference I have!!

Little Visitors on the Flagstone

It is hot here in Scottsdale.
It is sweaty and the air never cools, but we did have a monsoon rain last night and I left the door open!!
That is all my excitement.

I have been working on  another one of my birch panels.  This is two little ground squirrels, snacking in the shade of a scrub brush, right outside the kitchen, when I returned in June.  It is only 10" square and I am feeling like it may need something.... later.

I am going to do another presentation on August 17 at the Tempe Artist Guild.  I will probably do some editing on the slide show and, of course, we have a few new paintings.

With a week to go, who knows what else will show up!

Will post the details in the next blog.

Captive of my Computer

I may have complained by not having wifi, but I do feel as though I am a prisoner of technology today!
I am learning OpenOffice Impress which is the freebie PowerPoint program that I can use on my laptop for the presentation at the Scottsdale Artist League on July 11.  I had it pictured that I would just go through my 3000 snapshots and run them like I do on the computer.... keeping in mind I tried to show them to some friends the other day and after two hours, we were only up to May 15.

It is a great way to organize my thoughts but it is also a great way to pretty much stay right where I am.  I do need to figure out my future and which of the 30 or so paintings in my head will escape to canvas.

I also have another project...... I am going to apply for next year.

The Artist in Residence program may or may not be around long, the way things are going and very few parks will let my cabin mate join me.  Aside from trying to find cat-sitters for shorter possible residences, I DO have a STRONG concept for the next residency.  This trip was so overwhelming I am having a hard time winnowing it to a single vision.

I am also drooling over possibly learning what happens in the season changes in the park.  Thinking of snow on my teepees is actually exciting.  Not learning to drive in slush or closing the windows and trying to keep warm, as it is the ONLY time to be happy living down in the valley, but I see WHY I need another month.

EVEN BETTER, four or more one week visits through the year to build an intimate knowledge of the place.  I feel like I belong there....sort of like it belongs to me...

Makes me feel even more cabin fever looking at the photos over and over again...

 Queen of the Battleship

Pronghorn on Birch Panel

I needed to use up some of the amazing wildlife stuff I had.   Trying to be more iconic, I got the iconic beasties of the park.  Pronghorn.
This couple was hanging out on the amazing last trek down.  He decided to rest and the three girls in his gang sort of wandered around.  This little girl decided to hang and chat.

I had a number of these panels from another project.  10" square with 2"deep sides, I never liked painting over the beautiful wood.  Seems as though the colors just organically tie in...
Start:

Finished

First Update

As part of the terms of being an Artist In Residence I have to do community outreaches back home.  Well the first one came quickly!
In April I was asking at one of the local Art Leagues if they might want to hear the report when I got back, so Scottsdale Artist League has scheduled me as their July speaker on July 11!
I am hoping to find a digital projector as most of my tale is images.  If not, I guess I will have to paint more....
I finally am at the first stop of my piece about the mule deer that walked above the casita one dawn....

I fear the photos is not showing well, and the piece is not quite the mood I was going for... but it is a pretty good sense of how I felt that amazing morning looking over my refrigerator in my kitchen!

I will keep showing pieces as they come and update you all about any events or follow up activities.

My plan is a presentation to the park in October, when I am on the way to my annual trip to Denver.  Poetic balance, I think....

Back to the Hell of the City

Not much pretty to post, but as it is only my second full day here, I have a couple of updates.

My computer only malfunctions at home.

On my short day back home mid-May, I must have spent a couple of hours frustratingly trying to get my desktop to not boot, run and turn itself off and on again after about 3-10 minutes.
I blew it with my hair dryer (hot off), I took a very soft brush and tried to find hidden dust bunnies.  The interior fan was known to literally stick.  I opened the side and gave it some help so I assumed old parts, dust and oncoming heat might be part of it.  I finally gave up.
When I got home on Thursday, I had no stamina.  I called ABC computer repair in Tempe.  They took it in and of course it ran like a TOP!  Two days and I asked them to replace the sticky fan ($15 and the $40 one obligatory hour fee seemed great!)  Data Drs. cost something like $200+ and it did the SAME thing and they replaced NOTHING.  I know it was hardware, they kept checking software.

Well, I got it home yesterday and it did it again.  3 times!  We all seem to think it must have something to do with the house, but I have never figured why everything else in the house works consistently but not the computer.... MONTHS at a time and then it hates me.

MY opinion was still monster dust bunnies.
And this time I think I saw one blow INTO the power source.
They say it is not reasonable to pull the power unit  apart to clean.  I do understand why, but I think the bunny is JAMMING, not burning out the fan.  Moving it to the shop would jostle it out and bringing it home, it may migrate back... ok, it is the stuff of dreams but....
So when it failed again, I called.  It was Friday and I could not tolerate one more day on the tiny computer.  As you can tell, my thoughts flow freely when the keyboard is willing!

At any rate...my solution was a small fan.  It was to keep it cool and circulating.  For some odd reason, after about 14 hours now, it is still working....
So.....

I hope to go into the blog and edit my typos, expand on things and possibly even add some better photos that I could not edit from the tiny laptop.

Both of us are NOT happy.
I have been doing paperwork and balancing budgets and such so it is depressing but, I believe I am nearly done. That means I should actually unpack the car and bring the cat's cage in.... I want to run off with him, but the trip ANYWHERE is so hot, I should stay home and regroup.

As far as the Park is concerned and my participation in the blog.. More to come!
As I am no longer a public commodity, as part of the park itself, I can swivel my thoughts to making a bit more money off of all this inspiration in my head .. and camera!

Route 66 Days in Holbrook has a table for PEFO and I am going to firm up my participation by Monday so Kip can plan on me!  I will be trying like mad to do a few more animals from the actual park and maybe some 66 sights... not sure how,. but it will be fun, and make more rock transfers.
I have a wealth of legal scrap rocks here.  There is a tiny cache I got on the road to Holbrook that will be labeled as such, but t is setting up the office, the digital editing programs, scanning finished art etc to get started for a bunch of goodies by next weekend.
I will update you on the donation to the park as well.
There is nothing very beautiful around here to photograph, so I will try to send progress shots as I go....
Your PEFO AIR!
dj*

Big Party!

I decided I would be seen.
I loaded my rocks and goodies and walked over to see the doings at PDI.   The day was warm (they started calling it hot) and morning had no wind so I set up on the outside patio.  With lots of rocks holding things down, I had no problems.


It was such fun!  I met an actual person FROM Central City Co.  Nobody actually is from there!  We talked about the good old days before casinos!  There were Chinese, German and possibly Belgian folk and unusually a few non-English speakers, but lots of Coloradoans.  Felt like old home week.

I finished my little ground squirrel pretty quick.  Smaller than usual pieces because the big rocks are still at home.  OR in the suitcase all wrapped and tagged and unsold!

I even made a lot of progress on good old #43!
Although I was not there a long time, I was pretty tired out.  The early mornings are not for me.  I got up again, a bit too late to make it to my deadline on Friday but I keep trying.





The dust and wind finally did me in at the PDI, but I went home and with a dinner party pending, found I was actively doing a LOT of stuff and nearly didn't get there in time.  MOSTLY because the internet was a total pain all day.




I met up with Suzy and Steve, and Jim and Annie and a couple visiting Suzy and Steve and a neighbor in the park at the mobile home of my favorite ViP Dennis and his ViP wife,  Jo Lynne.

They fed us.  
MY oh, my did they feed us!! Steak and mushrooms with onions, big salad and baked potatoes!  We fought the wind, but honestly, I am pretty immune to the wind.  Perhaps the picture of my hair expanding around me, and ending in my meal could be disconcerting to the observer, but for some reason, it seems like the park, playing and hugging me... seriously, I feel embraced.


I was excited to bring the cookies my client had donated to the trip that I PROMISED I would save for pot-luck donation and not snarf all by myself!  We adjourned in to their luxury land yacht (which reminded me so much of my Mom and her husband, Tom's traveling home) and chatted until after 8!  Great company and elegant hosts!

My hostess gift was a small print (perfect for decor on the road) of the drawing I made the night before.

PROBABLY part of why I am not doing mornings so well.

DAWN! And Why You Should NOT Be Happy To Sleep In.

I figured it out.
Last night I was so exhausted that I pretty much shoved anything smaller than a boot into a closet.  I tried to sleep about 8, as I was falling asleep listening to podcasts and had a really good 7 or more hours of drawing in public to put toward my "debt" to the Park for this gift.
So, when 3:30 came around and the stars were still up, I threw some food at the cat and all was well.
What was odd was that there was no 4:30 wake up.
I saw the sky dark blue and lightening at the bottom through the window and took a few photos of the low clouds that were actually starting a sunrise.

As I called out, no answer from the cat.
Of course he would not have dropped dead but this was really wrong! He depends on trying to wake me up for his entertainment.  When I am up, and there is sun on the bed... he can sleep again.





So... I track him down.

He is transfixed at the door window panes.  He normally looks up and to the left to see the next of my House Finches, but this was the other direction.

Over the wall I see some brown moving and think it may be a coyote or something so I turned around and grabbed the camera.




Nope.

It was a gang of young elegant Mule Deer!!



The first shots were before the sun was up but I counted first two, then three and I got about 170 photos, but this was the shot of the morning.  Here they are with the young family from the nest above the door, so it is three of the deer and two birdies!

RIGHT over the wall around the patio.  That is the roof of the casita and I did not dare go out for fear of disturbing them.

This is how close.
Yeah, I had to shoot through the screen, but you can see the corner of the fridge out the north kitchen window:

I watched until they disappeared in the direction of the road with a panorama of the Painted Desert with 15 minutes of sunrise twilight.

NOW the magic happens.
NOW I wake up when he says to!

I took my run into Holbrook and it is a bit before 11 at the beautiful patio of my tolerant McDonalds, with reliable wifi and the ability to reload podcasts and even listening to some tv on the headset!

LIFE IS SO PERFECT HERE!!!

Prepping

Friday is our demonstration at the Holbrook Historic Train Depot.

I got up very early and came into the PDVC to find a great connection, uploaded yesterday's blog and actually found I could download some podcasts!

Amazing.  Then I pulled out my watercolors, as the day was barely chilly and I could paint with my jacket on.

I got most of my birdy done but need some masking liquid to do right by the background, so I am putting it away.   But the people were great!

I met the couple who had parked in PDI for two nights while they camped.  I was worried.  Rarely do cars stay there with camping permits more than a day and the weather was pretty wet.  They were brave and skilled and having a great time!


I met a gentleman who was enamored of the feeling of the place.  He had a lovely boxer and took my card.  Thought my pet portraits were a GREAT bargain!!!



And I met my model for the demo tomorrow.  She said she was tired of being"from Pennsylvania"

 her white hair was tied up in a Navajo knot and you could feel the yearning for the desert.
I spent the better part of the afternoon throwing coffee grounds around.  I got the pencil lines started for the event.


Tomorrow I will be doing a bit of McDonald's while I try to update myself for a couple of hours before we all meet at 4.  I am hoping this time to have the actual list ready and buy what is on it!  Lots of cans, as I will be having to leave it in the car for a few hours during the demo or come back to the park late... oooOOOoo... Nope.  Not into it.




Tonight is inventorying the various things I will have on the display.  Also prep for the weekend.  I need a little practice on my decals!

And the sunsets (they are everywhere!!!) were quite lovely...

Day was perfect,  BUT cat needed to be in the bathroom.  Oh well, he can't be perfect all the time!

Time and Place

A little less bright and although the cat still believes in 5:30, by working later last night, he was a little more cooperative when bed rolled around so we slept the whole night!

The clouds were billowing and today promised real weather.  At different times it was bright and sunny, then gray again. The weather over the PD was long black and blue or soft white right from the edge!  And real rain.


I headed to the compound for the blog posting and had a very hard time resisting the smell of the Navajo tacos.  I started in the cafe, but there was no consistent service.  My friend Suzy, the girl who is everywhere, suggested the conference room in the offices.  Such a joy!  Just sitting at a table in a chair... I mean it was no McDonalds but much faster and no falling on my face or bouncing from signal to signal.  A definite possibility leaving longer time to myself!
From there I had a weird idea that the birds might be hanging out where more people drop food.  So I aimlessly wandered and found this sign... how could I resist!






Then this...



And this.

Behind the walk way is a row of offices with great big windows for eavesdropping on hard work.
I had a really nice chat with Cathy from the Paleo labs. She was one of the women who was carrying the plastered fossils yesterday and showed me the breaker box. I told her she could not miss my demo in Holbrook on Friday and should find me on Saturday and Sunday in the PDI.  We discussed the dangers of carting in my Flagstone blanks!  I mean it is precisely like the rocks just flaking off my wall outside!  No pilfering allowed! So when I do my demos, I might just put an ink disclaimer on the side so I can explain how these were from scraps and construction left overs in Denver and Phoenix and no IN SITU rocks were harmed in their construction.

I headed home and snapped this shot standing by my car and over the top.  Such an amazing gift to be here!!!

Went in, and promptly curled up for a sleepy, napping mid-day. And the Thing and I did some epic napping! In and out until almost 3.  The head was just low enough to need a cover to curl up under and the dark sky trickled down... not poured.  Over the canyon edge the Desert was cloudy white.  Tourists poured in, as it was one of the great view points without wet, but we caught up on the nights without sleep.  I have a piece of a little bird sketched and ready so I didn't feel guilty.  Just warm and cozy.

About closing time, the weather broke and the land was visible again. I could not resist a pre-sunset drive into the teepees.
This sight made me beam!

 Every car is stopped in its tracks gasping at the amazing scenes revealed by wet earth and migrating clouds!  I pulled over in the main teepee pullout, behind three or four cars and we would point back and forth across the road pointing how beautiful the changes were while watching the other.

I stood in ONE SPOT for about 10 minutes.  Just snapped as things changed.  I know I took over 13 shots but these groups explain what I cannot show, or actually paint.

The land is less for 2 dimensional art than dance or theater.  This is scenery that needs the element of time to understand how the eroding piles of basically colored mud, change from viewpoint and clouds and moisture.  To stop at a single scene does not do it justice.  I have found myself stopping dead on a turn I have gone over maybe 10 times already, too narrow to pull over, and seeing if I can snap a shot only to get home to see... well a scene.  It is the wonder of a mound of white and read suddenly exploding behind a wall of purple.

I have three weeks to load these moments of wonder into my head.


I raced home and worked on my bird picture.

This is something that I CAN do.
My art is about capturing a moment in time.
Small moments, these I can do, but the scenery is to monumental for me.!

One Week Down... Waaaa!

I know, I am being a whiner, but I am very upset that I am almost 1/4 done... One week?  Not cool. I really don't want to do art, I want to plan art and stare at things.

Managed to cover my head for about an hour!  Got up at 6 and am feeling better and better.  I don't seem to have any unexplained aches and today was promised horrific winds and cooler temps.  Not real weather, but "dry lightening" was forecast...OOOoooOOo. Felt almost jolly, having a painting under my belt and more ideas, I ran into the compound and loaded the blog.  Takes much longer than at RFM, but weather was nice.


Here is the main parking area and entry to the PD Visitor Center.

 You are looking at the gift store and the area where the offices and my area of contact are.  They have a library I was very interested in... but it is NOT my kind of library.  It is for research and has serious stuff in there.  I was hoping for a copy of Desert Solitaire as I don't seem to know how to download my library audio books.  They are all set to stream and won't store. Drat!

Here is the Ortega shop and best fry bread cafe in the park!! (only one, of course, but their "baby" is exactly right!  I always drown in Navajo Tacos but these are human sized!) To the right is the patio area and where the best wifi is available.





I don't like to admit how much time I spend there.  I MUST get my booty down at dawn's early break and learn how to unlock the gate so I can use that extra hour before things get hopping.


I know, I am supposed to use the lock-down time to commune with nature on my own, but I am only today starting to understand the ins and outs of how the park is available and NOT available to me.



A weaver and her daughter had set up camp in the PDI over weekend and there was a couple of tables of rugs and beads.  The stuff of Pow Wow wares and the loom with the framed samples of dyes.  I remember the display in Mesa Verde and seem to vaguely recall the weavers on the side of the road... Alice and Donna had introduced themselves to me on Friday and I got carried away yesterday so I stopped in again. The other artist had given them his space and I think we will need to coordinate.

I would have loved to paint them working!!!

Alice is 97 and you don't see her picture.

She is still debating whether I can take a photo to use for a painting.  I understand completely!  For decades Native American's images have made money in advertising and their snapshots have been turned into art by amateurs and PROFESSIONALS and they are still eeking out livings trying to keep the culture alive.  I totally honor that decision........but she will be back the last weekend.  I will clear out my Saturday to see if I can work from photos if she lets me snap her on Friday!

I had visited PDI twice and the first trip (wherein I planted the idea of photos... and would return) is where I chatted up Dennis.  He was a volunteer who I would have talked to all day.  He turned me on to his best thoughts about wildlife and explained a phenomenon that I had a hard time putting into words:

Some of the amazing area near the TeePees is much like the rest but less colorful and it looks dusted with espresso!  I didn't understand why it was coated with all this brown.  He explained that the layers erode in sequence too.  So this area had eroded to the brown and it was falling from the top, although it looked like it was being coated in it!  SOOO COOL!



The first trip in, Suzie the amazing woman who is EVERYWHERE, showed me that the flier is done for the demo in Holbrook on Friday.  Looks REALLY good!  I am going to demo a coffee stained drawing.  Always action packed!




Again I have two neighbors.  Just for one night and I have already forgotten their names but they are passing through and you could see it in their eyes, they felt so privileged.

I got brave and inspite of the storm blowing up around me I went hunting and FOUND two pronghorns, right where Dennis proposed!  Not best shooting conditions but babies with barely horns and new poses.
A great day all together!

BRAND NEW ART

EVERYONE knows I am not a landscape painter.
I paint anything with eyeballs.
So although it will be fine to follow through on my plan to do portraits: of Rangers, of volunteers, of willdlife, visitors and even prehistoric people, I decided to take a class that features wildlife art and elegant, loose vignetted landscapes with Morten Solberg.
It is mind boggling.
Yesterday we worked on waterfalls.  Something I doubt I will have much opportunity to paint during the Artist in Residence, but I was excited about the versatility of only using two paints and white!  So I put in a little wolf.

It had so much potential.

Today, we learned a very creative technique, which I frankly failed like a ton of bricks.... BUT it was a completely different approach to how to  use paint.   

Instead of the exercise, I had a brain stop.  I just could not do it.  Realizing I had only 4 hours sleep the night before and woke up three hours before class (to put in my tiny wolf....) I took a break, ate lunch, which I had forgotten, and came back with a photo from my visit to the park last year.

You may not find it exciting, but as these were both 6"x 14" paper sheets, I THINK I came up with a way of using the essence of the land, but not the usual, tight, representative style that is me!    PERFECT for the little bits behind my guys:

Ah the fun of being an artist!!!  I still cannot wait!!!

NEWS IN JANUARY

Quite a few distractions have taken up my art time and on January 3, the first working day of the new year, I got a call in the middle of a family crisis from Kip, the AIR Ranger in charge! Dismissing myself from the ruckus, I spoke with him an he asked if I might wish to share the month of May with another camper.  It seems the casita will be empty as the Artist for May has a great big travel trailer and only needs a hookup in a different area of the park... so if I did not mind sharing my month, I could come in the spring.

I JUMPED on it!
I was there last year in May and found the wildlife reference I was hunting in Colorado - pronghorn and bighorn sheep - wandering around, taunting me!! I used a couple of them on my rock art.

The chilly months elsewhere are wonderful here in the Valley of the Sun - Phoenix AZ, but the summers are hell.  And our summers tend to start about March in the 90s.  YES I would love to come in spring.  TODAY it is in the high 90s and I am feeling it.

So the blog went live on March 16.  

45 days out from the month I get to move in!

I hope to update it regularly during the residency, but I understand I may have to set up camp in the visitor center with my laptop during business hours.  This will be a major upheaval!  I turn to the internet at home in town for solace and companionship with human beings.  I am a private painter but love doing demos and talking to people.  I will have NO PROBLEM interacting and enjoying my time with the public, but look forward with dread and anticipation to the isolation.  It will not be hard to fill my time making pictures.   They bounce in my mind all the time, but the purpose of my residency is to experience it.  But I tend to be a night owl and this is going to be a project about ravens....they fly all day!

The theme I presented dealt with following the ravens where they lead.

I was kept company last spring by any number of black birds that were watching me and the other visitors as we watched them.  Somewhat like useless tour guides who simply shepherded us.

Long before humans realized this was a special place, the animals just watched.....

I firmly have vowed to let the experience as a visitor - simply being there - fill me.
I want to meet other visitors, and the people working there, visiting the park for their livelihood, coming to explore, and dig into visitors of the past.  It will be trying to subjectively celebrate the experience.  Not a hiker or an outdoors-woman, I am a visitor.  I expect to connect with the nature that we all need to recharge, but as an artist I have a give that will help me make permanent those moments to share with others.....

Wish me luck!

Every Little Penny!

I have decided to lighten the load of some of my miniature reproductions on flagstone ahead of my departure.  Of split minds, with the distraction of prepping and planning and the real need to hold down the fort at home, I am putting one up a day on my facebook page.

So I am showing my first sale!

I started making these pieces as original art on great scraps of flagstone for wall decor.  I liked the brown on brown as a great surface for wildlife art.

This is the original piece, 11" wide and I sell it for $250.00.  

By downsizing and making completely handmade decals using acrylic medium, my reproductions are different sizes and directions. After I transfer them on to the rock, I  touch up with paint. It is a recreation of my own work... not really an original, but lets call it Artist-Enhanced... oh I guess I did on the small tag!!

Since October... about a year out.

(NOTE:  The diary began when I got accepted, but decided not to bore you or obsess too much by holding off to 45 days out.  My original, assigned date was October....)

November 2016 is half over which means I am LESS than a year from my start date!
I passed through the park in October on my trip to Denver at the beginning and end of the month.  Frankly, as much as I was hoping for a deadly hot month to help me through the usual cabin fever of the Summertime Phoenix Inferno that lasts 6 months or more of 100 degree days, the beauty of the fall colors of southern Colorado moving down through New Mexico and into the park, was nothing but perfect.  I understand a few flurries of snow but a rather unrelenting wind may be my worst weather problems.  The roads were full of tourist buses and the gift shop was just busy enough I did not get to talk to anyone on the way back home.
Heading out, was a real adventure.
I had contacted Ranger Kip, the AiR coordinator and my cat and I pulled in the visitor center after a slow drive through the whole park (no stops, but plenty of slowing to really appreciate the lay of the land) and he had me bring my guy into one of the meeting rooms and out of the car (again PERFECT weather, but not good for parking with pets) in his portable cage which lays flat and pops up.

Then I got to go to the laboratory where the zoologists were "skinning' two birds who had mistaken a window for open territory.  By prepping the skins, they can use the information for later study.  From there I was shown. along with the two AIR's for this year, the Museum storage.  I was drooling over a wall of original photographs through out the history of the park, but there were fossils and even some of the artist's works ready for new walls.   In the main laboratory they were using bone fragments to create 3-D printed skeletons for research!  Such great toys!

Which brings us back to this day in November...
Well yesterday.  I had a large envelope waiting for me at the post office when I opened my box.  Inside was the welcome packet!

Which included a few forms and thick printed mini-encyclopedia of the park as well as all of the rules for living inside the park.  Which is thrilling.  I expect to have it all well worn long before I arrive. 

First thing was punching holes and putting them all into binders.  I really love the little folder it was jammed full into!!

So that will keep me busy for a while.... not quite enough, but no whining!  I can dive into the history, wildlife, archaeology, fossils, rocks and all, any time I start counting the months again.