"First Snow, November 12, 2013", oil on panel, 16" x 12", c. Charlene Marsh

First measurable snow of the year!

Okay, we didn't get much but enough to cover the ground.  I had the farrier coming at 1:30 p.m. so I rushed out into the forest in the morning to get a painting done before the snow melted.  The sun was out so it was quick work before the snow melted.  This fall, the colors went from green to gold to rust, with no reds.  A few trees still had green/gold leaves!  One tree lost all it's green/gold leaves after the snow fell so there was a blanket of these leaves on top of the snow!  Very surreal. The snow painting has a hint of fall underneath the snow.

I got back in time to meet the farrier only to learn he was running late.  Darin and Allie, his assistant, arrived shortly and trimmed both horses quickly.  The ponies stand perfectly in their stalls and don't even need a halter!   My mare, Missy, Meegy's mother, is 31+ years old and blind in one eye.  Darin commented that POAs (Ponies of America) and Appaloosa's(that are bred into POAs) are notorious for going blind.  Missy and Meegy are both POAs.  I am going to have to keep a close eye on her to make sure her other eye is good.  I've had Missy for eighteen years now and, along with her son, I am hoping she can continue to do well in her familiar surroundings.  

I have never used a blanket on her but am thinking it may be time.  Tonight temperatures are due to drop to 18 degrees and I am worried about her.  I spent much of yesterday winterizing the property putting away glass sculptures, birdbaths, garden fountains, hoses and digging up a new iris bed.  Also had to bury a dead possum I found next to one of the gardens.  I also put out the heaters in the horse water trough and goldfish pool.  But I forgot about covering the two windows in the barn where the horses come and go and eat.  I'll have to do that tomorrow. 

Anyway, I'll be posting all the new paintings soon.  I have worked really hard to capture the changing fall colors and hope to post a progression of the change.  The snow painting caps the end of fall.                                                                                      

Treasures from the Forest

Today, my chimney man came to clean the wood stove and stove pipe.  He measured how dry is my wood and declared it the best he had ever seen measuring 14-16% moisture.  He said it doesn't get better than that.  I try to stay a year ahead of the wood so it has time to "season" and dry.  Burns much more efficiently!  He also installed a screen to the cap to keep out birds.  I had two bluebirds fly into the stove pipe and die in the fire box last spring and I didn't want that to happen again!  

I have been painting en plein air like a madwoman every day.  Backpacking a heavy pack into the forest, up and down the hills, can be a real challenge.  Especially given a sledding accident back in 2007 where I slammed into a tree at about fifty miles per hour, smashing my back.  For a few moments, with my face in the snow unable to catch my breath, I honestly thought that was the end of the trail, literally!  But I was finally able to get a breath and lift up out of the snow.  Everything, while in extreme pain, seemed to be working.  Working enough to walk a mile home through the snow.  

Anywho, I have been backpacking out into the forest every day to paint the fall colors.  We are having a very late fall this year.  Normally, the colors are over and done by the end of October and, certainly, no later than November 4.  Usually, my last plein air fall painting is done on the 28th and then a storm comes through to knock down all the leaves and the trees are bare.  There will still be lots of beautiful rusts and purple colors but the bright, fall colors are over.  This year, the colors weren't even starting to change until mid-0ctober and not peaking until the end of the month!  This year, golds and rusts dominate and there are not so many reds.  But I love painting all the shades of gold!  

Since the fall colors are only here for about three weeks, I cannot miss a single day of painting!  Hence, painting like crazy every day!  But, today, the afternoon got later and the shadows grew longer by the time the chimney man finished and left.  My back was sore and I was generally tired all over from going out every day of the past two weeks with a heavy pack.  I decided to just hike my trail and scout out painting locations and enjoy just being in the forest, sans pack and paint.  

Along the way, I found a nest fallen from a tree along the ridge top and then an old deer skull along the creek.  When I got back to my property, I used the apple picker with it's ten foot long handle to pick a hat full of apples.  The tree has been most productive this year.  I stop nearly every day to pick a handful of apples to enjoy, fresh and cold.  Sometimes I pick a bag full to save for later.  They may not be pretty but they are organic, bug free, and very tasty!  The hawk feather I found a couple days ago along the trail.  That'll look great tucked in the band of a hat.  The geodes and crinoids are from earlier expeditions.  

Walking and painting in the forest is my passion and my addiction.  I feel so much peace in the forest.  A day is simply not complete until I have spent time in the woods, along the creek, amongst the hills and cradled in the hollers. 

Charlene Marsh Studio/Gallery sign

Thanks to everyone who attended the October Open House last weekend!  I was humbled and honored that people came from all over the region and as far away as the Saint Louis area to attend.  I have had additional visitors this month who called and came out at their convenience at other times which is just great.  I love visitors to the Studio/Gallery!  Please call first to make sure you don't waste a trip out here and that I am in the gallery when you arrive.  This is my big, plein air painting season to capture the fall colors so I am likely to be out in the woods at any given time.  I am not a nine to fiver, that's for sure!  I was on the Brown County Back Roads Studio Tour one year but found it very difficult and disruptive to my painting schedule.  I tried to set hours that would still allow me to paint but it didn't really work too well.  I think for the artists and artisans who are at work inside their studios all day, the Studio Tour is just great!  But trying to work outside in the woods and still man the studio/gallery didn't work for me.  

Here is a sneak peek at a new painting, still wet, done at that magical bewitching hour of dusk when the colors have an ethereal glow.  The colors last a very short time before it gets too dark to see.  I'm coming home in the dark with a flashlight!  

"Bewitching Hour in Yellowwood Forest, October 18, 2013", Oil on Panel, 16" x 12", c. Charlene Marsh

Stacking wood on a crisp, windy,  fall day.

The big pile of cut and chopped wood has been staring at me for a week now.  I like to get the wood all stacked and under cover before the winter snows blow and since they were blowing just yesterday, I decided I better get to it.  I worked on the pile for three hours or so and got maybe half of it stacked.  I get a bit obsessive about tasks like this and often work until the job is done with no or minimal breaks.  But I still needed to eat some lunch and get out to paint in the woods so I finally stopped even though the job wasn't completely done.  

Note how green the leaves still are on the trees!  I usually finish the last plein air fall painting around October 28 when the colors peak in a brilliant red  and then a storm blows in and knocks them all down.  But this year, the colors are just getting started!  Comparing this year's color to even last year, we are a good 11-14 days behind! 

Getting started.  You can see the unstacked wood dumped behind the growing stack.  Older wood, already stacked, is under the tarps.

Finished for the day.  Time to go paint!  There is a second stack, about half the length,  shaping up behind this one.

First snowfall of the season!  

This morning started off cold, one of the coldest of the fall season.  Temperatures hovered around forty degrees when I headed back to the barn to feed the ponies and my basil still looks fine so it didn't dip to freezing overnight.  I worked outside around the barn and gardens and woodpile until a cold drizzle turned into a cold rain.  A few minutes ago, I noticed the cold rain had turned to snow!  Too warm to stick but snow nonetheless.  Sometimes big fluffy flakes!  Reminds me of an October snow about twenty years ago when we actually got 8-9" of heavy snow that blanketed the October oranges.  Created very surreal, beautiful colors.  The snow didn't stick around long but long enough I did a lovely painting that was purchased by a close friend. 

First Snow of the Season

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today I said goodbye to an old friend.  She was probably 70-80+ years old and had passed away this summer.  "She" was a stately, tall, old hickory tree in my backyard next to the studio/gallery.  She provided shade on hot, summer days and let the sun shine in during the chilly, winter months.  

A large top branch broke off last spring and my arborist advised me of the options.  We decided to wait and see how she did this year.  Early spring, she sprouted green leaves on the trunk with the most hollow pocks, you know ~ the perfect hollows for nests and woodpeckers.  The solid side didn't have any new green leaves.  Over the course of the summer, despite more rain than the past two, the green leaves turned brown and died.  By July, it was clear that the past two years of drought had taken another victim.  

So Matt and Levi came out today and, using climbing gear and ropes and pulleys, brought her down.  First the lateral branches.  Then one large trunk.  Then the last, largest trunk with a few laterals that could not be trimmed.  She came down with a roaring crash and thump that rocked the earth.  An awesome sight to see and hear.  Matt's skills guided the fall so that it narrowly missed my zinnias and bed of peppers.  Not one broken plant!  

Old Hickory will serve one final purpose:  she will heat my house as firewood in the wood stove,  providing the cozy warmth only wood can on cold, snowy, winter days.

Old Hickory before being cut.

Skyline looks a lot different without Old Hickory.

This morning I woke up to deer in the yard eating my flowers.  But I love watching them and cannot chase them off.  Two bucks and two does.  From the points on their antlers, the boys appeared to be three and four years old.

This guy seems to know I am "shooting" him.