Beyond the Lines

"Beyond the Lines," an art show featuring 

Pia Reilly and John McCabe was held at the Clausen Museum in Petersburg, Alaska. The artist's reception, October 14, 2011, was well attended. (To enlarge the image, click on the photo.)

Pia and Jim

 John

 

  

   

   

JOHN  (watercolor)

 JOHN  top - (colored pencil, ink, graphite)

bottom - (graphite/colored pencil)

JOHN  (colored pencil)

JOHN  (colored pencil)

 

JOHN (above), PIA (below)

oil on canvas

  JOHN  (oil on canvas)

 PIA   (oil on canvas)

JOHN (left & upper right), PIA (lower right)

oil on canvas


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Praying Mantis

This praying mantis has been happy in my rose garden eating insects... I happened upon it, in the heat of the afternoon, and ran in to grab my camera. Of course I was trying to get the macro set up and missed the shot of it clasping on to a hornet-type insect.

 The rose is Pascali.

Topping that Tree

Mr. Stevens finishes the job...meanwhile I have a conversation on the street with Joelle about the brown bear cub that has been making the rounds in Petersburg.

Logging

Don Stevens has been a busy guy lately. He has been limbing trees in preparation for downing them. Using spikes on his boots and a harness around his waist, he climbs the tree, cutting as he goes. It has been fascinating to watch the progress. Little by little we've been seeing more of Petersburg Mountain appear.  It will be nice for Wally and Colleen's yard; the winter sun will shine through.

 

One limb down!

 

 

My "snapping finger" wasn't quick enough to catch the falling limbs so I did a short video.  Amazing how he moves around those huge limbs!

Petersburg

Well, I'm back for two weeks... rainy as ever! 

The muskeg has begun to rust up. I watched three deer bed down in the backyard the other day. They are pretty tame as I was able to walk up within 6 feet of this one.

Miss Maisy Mae!

Today was a fine day for bathing dogs...warm and sunny, hose water warmed by the sun, and a freshly cut lawn to work on. Maisy did quite well with Caitlin and I working on her. Here is a wet and dry shot...

Weed Rake

Annie needed to make a trip into Leavenworth yesterday so we visited a fun park and ate our picnic lunch. After sitting on a log nibbling and drinking, Oliver was ready to do "boy things".  I distracted him from taking off with this dry branch. Brooke thought he was hilarious with his dragging the stick around and called it a weed rake! That little girl says the cleverest things!

After lunch we found out how dusty the trail was as Annie's toes were buried in dirt. (photo to come)

Opening up the Cabin

It was long past time to open up the cabin for the season so finally we took time out of busy schedules to make it happen. 

We left town in Wally's boat and were puzzled when an alarm sounded off and on. John took the engine out of gear and checked it out...good on the oil, good on the temperature, spitting water fine, and getting plenty of gas.        Hmmmm!             Seeing nothing wrong, we started out again. As the boat sped up the alarm became constant...what a pest it was becoming. So we checked out the engine again, nothing wrong. Perplexed at the situation we finally put in a call to Hammer's Marine to ask what Tim thought the problem might be. While John explained the situation on the phone, Miss Snoopy Snoop did a little snooping and found the source of the problem.  Turns out that it was the depth sounder!                  Whew!               We had lost a bit of time so John kicked that baby into gear and hightailed it for the cabin.

    

We were able to take the little short cut since the tide was high enough and the cabin came into sight...looking good!

It was an out-going tide so we used the haul-out rope to anchor the boat. Duane, Wally, John and I tugged hard on that rope as it was riddled with barnacles. I must say John did the majority of pulling but we added to the effort! 

Heading up to unlock the door, I had to check out the plants...daphne is growing large and had bloomed, some of the columbine was in bloom in front, the Elderberry was huge and flowering too. Beach grass and new trees are beginning to take over so we'll have to do some work on that this summer.

John cleaned out the gutter that leads to the water tank and put the inlet together while I manned the bilge pump inside the 1000 gallon tank. It was easy to wipe down the walls and floor and let the pump pull out the 4 inches of water and sludge. I think we only had to haul out 10 gallons or so by bucket. That pump saved lots of time and energy!

Had to take a few photos on the landing...

 

It would have been easy to stay for a few days but without water and food it was time to head back to town. 

And so we pulled in the boat and climbed aboard...

just a little bit high and dry so John's boots became low and wet.

A grand time was had by all!

Scandinavian Almond Bars

We were invited to feast on some oysters Chris Holm brought north. Chris and Wally breaded the oysters and Chris did all the frying. Terri brought a beautiful salad, Grandma Koke had fish cakes in cream sauce, muffins, bread, a pot of rice. We brought dessert...I thought sherbert with a crispy cookie would be a good finish to the rich meal. I looked in the cookbook and found this recipe. It goes together in a snap and tastes like Scandinavian Heaven!

 

Pat out four logs and top with toasted chopped almonds. Bake, slice and cool. Then top with glaze if desired.

  
The end pieces become the cook's snack!

Little Norway Festival Parade

The sun shone for the 2011 Little Norway Celebration Parade this last week. I was amazed at the turn out...people were lining the length of Main Street and the parade stretched up the PFI hill.

First came the helicopter fly over with the flags, fire department, color guard, and various vehicles and they all threw candy! The lady in front of us kept her kids' stash between her feet.

Then winding down the street came the Norwegian dancers lead by Heidi Lee. We didn't know a single dancer this year.

  
This was the Northern Lights Brass Band.

The Son's of Norway is celebrating 100 years in Petersburg. They were represented by the Vikings and Valkyries with the Norwegian ship. This year's Norwegian American Award was given to Naomi and Doug Welde. 

 Jack Engell was in the boat throwing candy in the red sweater.

 Alaska Airlines had an entry:

The school used some grant money to purchase some drums for a drum line. It's the closest thing Petersburg has to a marching band!

 Then came the families of Hammer and Wikan celebrating 90 years in business. They had a shopping cart drill team led by Sue Jensen Paulsen.

Smokey and something green also trailed along!

The Harley contingent took up the end of the parade...I don't know how many there were but it was quite impressive.

We wandered around after it was all over and ran into family. Jenny had Parker in his Norwegian sweater.