Row On!

Painting by Amanda Blake.

Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily life is but a dream! Greatest song ever! (inspiration by Jim Carrey)

Supercoolhappylovething!

That's how I was feeling, rolling this weekend. Whether I'm riding my bike or not, when I'm outside, moving around, it's a love drug for my mind, a remedy for spirit. She's got everything I need.

I got to do some of this both days this weekend, off with myself, feeding my soul and what I found was that it needed it, the soul was hungry.

Think back to a happy time. A really, really happy time in your life. Go back as far as it takes, to a time when you felt so light you thought you might float.
Do you remember it? The carefree feeling? The acceptance of the moment, of yourself, of life? Feeling unfettered by thoughts of the future and oblivious to the past? That's what I'm talking about my friend, that time is NOW!

Fearless..more or less.

Painting by Amanda Blake

Typically Fearless!! Eyes closed, full gallop, whooohooo'ing in and out of the stars! That's what I'm talking about!

Snowy Sunday

It snowed all night and today turning everything into a magical winter wonderland. A walk in the woods, a warm fire, tasty food, time in the studio. This is what winter is for.

Pine Grossbeak at the feeder. Such vivid color against a monochromatic landscape is startling.

Our wood cutting cabin.

This piece lets energy flow in and out at will which is best for wood cutting.

My favorite seat with snow.

Saint Lupus watching out for all us wild and domesticated dogs!

Coyote Ridge

Blue Sky looking North

I enjoyed a warm, dry ride out at Coyote Ridge and Blue Sky trails on Sunday with Emma. It had a little bit of everything, technical, fast and flowy, rock steps, climbing, descending, mileage and it was new to me interesting. It felt good to get out and away from my higher levels of stress lately, apparently I can still distract myself from my worries by riding my bike, in the way that children have the ability to spontaneously use their imagination to forget what's bothering them and be inspired by every pony, feather or bug that crosses their path.
Josy, our incredibly sweet and beloved 15 year old Border Collie has been a pretty sick pup lately and we've been nursing her back to health which has been up and down for the last 3 weeks. Every time we get one of her conditions or symptoms under control something else happens that needs attention and usually at 2AM in the morning. At 15 I think she has dodged a bullet so to speak yet I worry about her and everything, probably too much. Though a certain feeling or understanding has occurred to me lately about having animals. I've always had cats and dogs throughout my life and kinda don't completely understand people who choose not to have animals but over the last 4 years we have steadily lost one dear animal friend after another at a great cost in various ways. Each time seems to be harder and more stressful for me, to the point where I don't know if I can keep adding more animals to the mix, at most it will have to be one at a time (we have two dogs right now). Who knows, I may change the way I feel about all of this but for now, I'm worn out in more than one way. The riding does help though.

Sunny, trail bliss!