Strange Summer

Where to start - The weather, of course! We have had no summer, for the second year in a row. A day here and there, mostly rain. We also had a disaster hit and narrowly almost miss us in the form of way too much rain all at once - 5 to 6 inches of rain in an hour and a half on July 24th. As a result, we had the house to the east of us evacuated because of slope failure, and two to the left of us as well. Our property suffered minor damage and has now been repaired but it has been a very stressful month and will not be totally over until all the other properties have been repaired as well.

Needless to say, making art was not in the cards. I did manage to finish (I think) a mixed media painting and am hoping to do a few more in the same vein in the coming weeks.

Coming so close to the kind of catastrophes normally seen only on the evening news certainly has a very sobering effect on the psyche. I find myself having a hard time focusing these days, although dabbling away to finish this one did help and I'm sure that starting some more paintings will be good therapy.