charlottehoffman.com Blog

May has been a very, very busy month.  On the weekend of April 24th we had the privilege to show our work at the Silver Fox Winery for the Mariposa Agri-Nature Trail.  We were asked to leave the show up for a Sierra Foothill Conservancy  event to be held the following weekend.  As members of Sierra Foothill Conservancy we donated 20% of any sales made during their event.  If you have interest in helping preserve lands then I would advise looking into the Sierra Foothill Conservancy.

Silver Fox Winery Gallery

The Yosemite Western Artists organization held it’s annual Tri-County Exhibition reception on May 1st.  Below is my entry with a light blue Honorable Mention Ribbon hanging at the corner of the painting.   I entered the ‘August Meadow, Yosemite Valley’ pastel.

My younger daughter and her fiancé came to visit Mother’s Day weekend.  On Saturday we went to Mariposa to stroll their historic streets.  I finally got to visit the new Riversong Gallery a friend just opened.  She’s done a beautiful job and has lots of ideas and plans for the future.     On the way home I saw a sign at the back of a pickup truck that read ‘chicks, eggs and goats’ at the corner of Ben Hur Road.  Well I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to check out the animals, after all, that’s like a mini zoo.  And then I couldn’t leave without taking something with me.  One of our original set of 2 Plymouth Barred Rock chicks became hawk bait so I had to take home a couple of companions for the remaining chick, Louise whom we call ‘Weezie’.   I chose 2 Bantam chicks that are almost full grown.  I wasn’t thinking,  I was so caught up in their beautiful feathers that I didn’t think about egg size.  I’ve enjoyed fresh eggs from my 4 year old Plymouth Rock but she’s not laying much anymore.  I guess 2 Bantam will add up to one normal egg.  I’ve had them almost 3 weeks and all 3 chicks get along beautifully.  They are hilarious to watch ‘play’ with all their dodging and weaving and kickboxing and short bursts of flight.    

Bantams:  Lola (brown) and Lacey (white).

On Mother’s Day my older daughter and her husband drove up for the day.  We all went gold panning.  My son-in-law is a knowledgeable prospector so he was our teacher.   We didn’t last very long since there was a very icy breeze and very little sunshine.  I’m looking forward to a get together this summer when we can spend the entire day playing at the river.

We’ve had such a cold May with several dustings of snow.  I’m still lighting the woodstove.  This morning  (May28) was 35 degrees when I got up and the highest peak above us was white with snow.  I think that’s about the 4500ft elevation.  I’ve put the heating elements back into the coup twice but right now there isn’t supplementary heating….I keep thinking it’ll get warm!  We had a dusting of snow on May 11th.  The chicks didn’t know what to make of the furry ice.  I think the rain froze and then there was a dusting of snow.

Weezie and furry ice.

We’ve taken several day trips to Yosemite this month.  The most memorable day for me was watching the Bridalveil  Fall rainbow.  We watched as the rainbow began at the bottom and crawled to the top of the falls.  I’m guessing this took at least a half hour.  As an additional benefit we saw 3 separate rainbows arc across the valley.  The valley rainbows were due to the almost constant light drizzle and the fall’s rainbow was due to the angle of the sun and amount of water raging over the edge which created lots of mist.

The final Sierra Foothill Conservancy Plein Air Paint out was held in Clarks Valley on May 16th.  The first location I chose to paint was along (in) a creek.  The second location was a pond.  Now it’s time to finish a few more paintings and frame them for the exhibit in August.