Buffalo Grass Pastel

Last night I finally had the chance to get back to doing some drawing. This one has been sitting on my easel since before Thanksgiving. I probably worked for a good hour on it and then felt I had to stop before I messed something up. Usually I can give it a couple hours and have an idea what I need to do next to a drawing but this one has me stumped.

It's an abstract take on some weeds I saw in a ditch a while ago with buffalo beneath them. As though the plants are growing from the bodies of the buffalo; circle of life type of thing.

Buffalo...

...weeds....

What do you think?

I like the bottom (dark buffalo areas) and I like the top (blue sky and weed tops) but I'm not feeling the center (weed stems and horizon line) but I don't know what I need to do.

I thought maybe I need to develop the stems. Or maybe I need to work on the horizon line and background. Now I'm not sure if I want the buffalo to look as though they are below ground or above ground. I do know I like the rough sketchy style going on. I don't want anymore realism here, just abstraction.

Thoughts? Opinions? Any ideas would be most helpful.

Super Croc!

The little museum in our town, the Stauth Museum right across the street, just got a VERY BIG exhibit! SuperCroc!!!

SuperCroc, or Sarchosuchus (that's such a fun word to say) was discovered in 2000 in the Sahara Desert in Niger. Only about 50% of the original skeleton was found but by studying living crocodiles scientists were able to recreate the total skeleton.

Super Croc was 40 feet long, as long as a school bus! That's twice as long as the largest living crocodile on record. The skull itself was 6' long! Amazing!

Yahoo wouldn't even be an appetizer for this dude. In fact scientists believe that this prehistoric crocodile would wait submerged at the waters edge and catch dinosaurs coming to drink. Then eat em'! A crocodile that ate dinosaurs. Yip and Yap were amazed by that little tidbit of information...and so was I.

I love this photo of the scientists who made the discovery lying down in the desert behind the skull to recreate the length, or what they guessed, the croc would have been.

That is one mighty long, strong tail and just check out the size of those teeth.

Of course there is more to the exhibit than just the giant skeleton. There's models of what scientists believe SuperCroc's eggs and babies would have looked like. There are side by side comparisons of SuperCroc's bones to modern crocodile and alligator bones. There is a National Geographic video documenting some of the work scientists did on SuperCroc. There is audio of modern reptiles sounds and those of what scientists believe SuperCroc would have sounded like.

Though it's small, all around it is an absolutely amazing exhibit for such a small town of 900 people to have the chance to host. If you are in the area it would be well worth your time to detour to check it out. The exhibit will be up til March and I have a feeling the boys and I will be checking it out often...we've already been there 3 times!

Yep, we are pretty blessed to have such an amazing museum for our neighbor.

Sunday Devotions - The Sheperd Comforts

image borrowed online and poem borrowed from
Really Woolly Bedtime Prayers by Bonnie Rickner Jensen.



The Lord will hear your crying, and he will comfort you. Isaiah 30:19

The Sheperd Comforts

When your heart is sad,

Or maybe even mad.

When you're crying and feeling blue.



The Sheperd knows,

Just how it goes,

His heart has felt that way too.



So say a prayer,
He's always there -

To help and comfort you.



You'll soon feel great,

Just fine, first rate!

That's what God's love will do!



Dear God, Thank You for being my friend when I am sad. Amen.

Bieber Fever

Purse Gurl has been back visiting us for the last couple weeks, what a pleasure it's been! We reminisce about family, cook together, and sit and talk, talk, talk. Everything about spending time with Purse Gurl has been great....except for one thing...and that one thing might get her kicked out of my house.

Justin Bieber.

See, I'm lucky enough to have young kids right now. I don't have to put up with Hannah Montana, or Keesha, or whoever else it is "cool" right now. I don't even know who's cool because my kids are too young to care.

Then in walks 20 yr. old Purse Gurl who listens to Justin Bieber. And lately, she and Yahoo's girl time has included watching Justin Bieber videos on YouTube.....over and over again. Yahoo was even singing along yesterday and dancing up a storm!

I can't hardly stand it! Bieber needs a haircut. He looks like he's 12. His songs make him out to be a mini Cassanova with all these girls swooning over him? I just don't get it. And I'm getting tired of hearing, "One Less Lonely Girl". Really? That qualifies as good music now? (Sheesh, I sound like my father!)

Give me Toby Keith anyday....now that's someone to swoon over.

But I love Purse Gurl and so does Yahoo and they are enjoying their Beiber time together so I'll let it go.....for a little longer. I might have to buy some industrial strength earplugs.

Now I know how my dad must have felt when I had a thing for Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing. Wow, was that 20 years ago? Well at least I'm comforted that Bieber probably won't be popular forever!

Foody Friday - Homemade Mac n' Cheese

Purse Gurl has come back to me! Although she's been carefully avoiding my camera she did allow me to photograph the Baked Mac n' Cheese she made us last night. So yummy!

Boil about 2 or 3 cups of macaroni or other small pasta; we used penne rigate. While the pasta is boiling make up the cheese sauce.

Start with 1/2 cup of milk and mix in 2 T. of cornstarch. Set aside.

Heat 2 cups of milk over medium heat.

Slowly add 2 cups of shredded cheese (room temperature! That makes a difference I've learned.) Add more if you like it extra cheesy. Wouldn't this be great with a bunch of fancy white cheeses? Mmmmm....

Slowly whisk the cheese into the milk until it melts. Then whisk in the cornstarch/milk mixture.

Whisk and heat until desired consistency is reached. It should be thick but pourable. Adjust cheese or cornstarch as needed.

Pour over cooked pasta and stir well. Transfer to lightly sprayed baking dish and bake at 350 until golden brown on top.

Sorry, bad picture...but I had to snap it quick before my kids dived in.

* A fabulous twist on this is to sprinkle 1" pieces of bacon on top before you bake it.

Photo Thursday - Understanding Light

I've recently started following the blog One Thousand Words. Gretchen from Texas has started this blog to help photographers of all levels improve their understanding of their camera and to create a forum for questions about how to improve their photography. Gretchen, Texan Mama has even given us assignments.

Assignment #1 - READ YOUR CAMERA MANUAL!

Assignment #2 - Understanding Light - For this assignment she challenged us to start really thinking about light and how it changes throughout the day or how it changes from one location to another. Once I start thinking about light and it's effects then I can anticipate the settings I need to make to my camera.

f/11, 1/200 sec., ISO 200, flash, 2:30 pm

I've already posted on how the bright afternoon sun here in Kansas creates dark shadows under my men's hats. I've learned moving in and using a flash helps tremendously along with a fast shutter speed. I know many people say the middle of the day is a terrible time to shoot photos but it is quickly becoming one of my favorite times of day to break out my camera.

f 3.8, 1/25 sec., ISO 800, 6:40 pm.

f5, 1/80 sec., ISO 800, 6:30 pm.

The two previous shots, kids and chalk, were taken before Thanksgiving and were pretty tricky. It was almost dusk and I had to open my lens up and slow down my shutter to get these images. What I really like about the evening light is how cool it is, bluish. (I love the shirtless boy and barefoot girl wearing a winter coat!)

f 5.6, 1/100 sec., ISO 200, no flash, 8:00 am

f 5.3, 1/100 sec., ISO 400, no flash, 8:00 am.

I still feel really unsure shooting indoors. I always want to automatically flip on the flash. With the previous two morning indoor shots I kept the kids near the windows to allow the natural light to do the work. I was fairly happy with the results. I like the morning light because it is very warm while creating soft shadows.

But I was at a total loss for this one! The boys Christmas program was in a gym with the lights turned off! I did my best but in the end I had ISO 1600, flash and it was still dark and grainy.

Ah well, I have years of Christmas programs to practice on don't I?

If you are new to taking photos jump over to Gretchen's One Thousand Words. I've already gotten some great advice and lots of encouragement.

Fort Larned Christmas

My first date with DR was at Conners PrairieLiving History Museum in Fishers, Indiana. We went through their Christmas walk reliving Christmas traditions in 1830's Indiana. It was cold and windy, which gave us a good excuse to hold hands!

Because we are suckers for reminiscing our first date, DR and I took the kids to Fort Larned, KS over the weekend. Fort Larned was a Union fort during the Civil War right on the Sante Fe Trail and on Saturday they were having their Christmas celebration.


We started off in the visitors center where their were some artifacts for us to check out and books to buy for some last minute Christmas gifts.

Then we headed off to the fort's hospital for a 1860's Christmas in the western frontier.


With no electricity the whole room was lit up with dozens of candles which created a beautiful soft glow throughout the whole room. However, I couldn't get my camera to get a good photo of what the room really looked like. I had to use the flash and I got brightly lit photos; not at all what the room was like.



The officers wives were dressed in their finest hoop skirts and they began the night by feeding us a traditional fort Christmas dinner! They had oyster stew and tomato soup, homemade breads, lemonade and warm eggnog, marble and spice cakes, gingerbreads, cookies, and pies, pies, PIES! Apple, custard, raisin, pumpkin and more....mmmmm!! Sorry, I was too busy eating to take pictures of the food.


After we had finished gorging ourselves on the fabulous food, all the visitors settled down on the benches, conveniently placed around a hot pot belly stove, for Christmas carols. We were led in singing of Christmas hymns by the quarter master, I believe.


After the singing the re-enactors explained some of the conditions those at the fort had to deal with while preparing their Christmas celebration. There weren't evergreens on the frontier so sage bushes, shrubs or even elk antlers were substituted for the Christmas tree. Eggs for baking were scarce also and a letter written by an officers wife, at the time, recounts how a shipment of eggs that had arrived were each wrapped individually in cotton batting to protect them during the trip.


Of course what Christmas, even on the prairie, would be complete without a visit from Santa. He asked Yap what he wanted for Christmas and Yap answered, "Remember? I sent you my letter already!"

And Santa, right on cue, "Oh yes! I read it a couple weeks ago. My elves are working on it right now."

Yap turned to me with shining eyes, "Mom! Did you hear that? Santa's elves are working on my Christmas list!!"

We joined in a game of drop the hankerchief. Everyone stands in a circle while one person coyly drops a hankerchief behind someones back then they take off running around the circle. The hankerchief is picked up by the person in the circle and they run around the circle in the opposite direction, both racing for the empty spot in the circle. Whoever loses has to drop the hankerchief on the next round. You wouldn't think this would be a contact sport but more than once I was sure someone would get knocked to the ground!

We only stayed half the evening considering how grumpy Yahoo was getting (it was way past bedtime) and we still had over an hour drive back home. There were many other activities planned that we just couldn't stay for. But we are already planning on coming back during the day when it's a bit warmer.

Have you ever visited a living history Christmas? Where?