finished painting, naked tree fingers, and other miscellania

I’ve finished the painting, 9" x 6", signed it, removed it from the board. Looking at the last image I posted I’m thinking maybe I should have stopped there. This painting is from a photo David took and posted on his blog Travels With Birds months ago. I thought I still had the image which I downloaded but apparently I deleted it after I printed it out.

Last week, my sister’s friend and our ex-employer from the antique store, Donna, came and got three pieces of furniture of Pam’s that we wanted to get rid of. She no longer has a store but has a space in an antique mall in Rosenberg. Friday she brought one of them back, a large chest with four drawers that are divided that my sister used as a jewelry box (my sister had a lot of jewelry, costume and otherwise) because on second thought she didn’t think she could sell it. I had asked her to bring it back if that was the case rather than set it out for trash. Since Robin didn’t want it back in the house, I decided to put it in the shop for now until I decide what to do with it.   

The plaque on it says ‘The National Cash Register Co.’ and now I recall that it was part of an old cash register. There’s a slot cut out on the top for the mechanism that pushed the drawers out I assume. The actual cash register sat on top.

Robin’s bf Evan was helping to get it out of Donna’s car but first we had to lift the bay door in the shop. It’s been probably 6 months since that door was lifted and it was balking about 2’ up but between the two of us we got it all the way up but then it wouldn’t stay up so I had to prop it up with a 2” x 4”. Obviously, something was broken and we probably broke it forcing it up instead of looking to see why it was balky. Anyway, we got the chest in and went to lower the bay door and now it won’t close all the way leaving about an 18” gap. Upon further inspection I saw that the cable on one side had become disconnected. Rocky came and looked at it this morning. If he can’t fix it he’ll disconnect the cable on the other side so that at least I can get it to close all the way. We’ll still be able to lift it with brute strength but it will have to be propped up every time. I have too much other stuff to deal with to worry about fixing that bay door right now.

And speaking of other stuff, I finally finished cutting away the canopy of the pecan tree closest to the house last week, ending up with four piles that have to be hauled to the burn pile. Today I emptied the truck on the burn pile and then refilled it with two of those piles of tree debris. I have to burn before I can add that load. But now those hanging branches look like a multi-fingered hand digging into the ground. 

I might have mentioned that I saw some plants just under the back porch of Pam’s old house that I thought were hostas and that I was going to dig them up and move them over to my place on the shady side of the house this fall. Well, they bloomed and they aren’t hostas at all but hidden ginger. 

I’m still going to move them because I’ve lost all my white butterfly ginger and most of my pink butterfly ginger from the well blow freezing winters and the horribly hot and dry summers of the past three or four years. I still have lots of the yellow butterfly ginger but they haven’t bloomed the last two years and don’t look like they’re going to bloom this year either.