How have you been doing during quarantine?

[snoball]

Thanks for posting Brian, I really enjoy seeing the surroundings in other places.

 

[Artyczar]

Brain, you guys have a sky like ours here. So blue, it looks photoshopped. It's a very similar terrain. Love your sketches!

 

[brianvds]

Yours skies are such different colours.

Might simply be an effect of the camera.

Looks like a lovely area.

It is indeed, though quite small, and as most of the area around here, not without significant growth of invasive plants.

Is that cattle in the first pic? I like the sketches

Blesbok - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blesbok

Here's a more clear pic that I took a year or two ago:

They're easily spooked and will not let one get close. In fact, yesterday I was sitting on a bench when they came storming past. Someone or something had scared them and they were running like crazy.

Most people here hardly notice them, because nowadays you see them everywhere. They're a bit like impala in Kruger Park. People easily forget that only a few decades ago they were endangered. Me, I love 'em.

 

[brianvds]

Brain, you guys have a sky like ours here. So blue, it looks photoshopped. It's a very similar terrain. Love your sketches!

The reduced traffic, thanks to Covid-19, might play a role. But it's true, in early winter we do sometimes get lovely blue skies, particularly early in the morning.

No, I did not enhance the color digitally.

Later in the season it gets very dusty, and then the sky, particularly near the horizon, can take on all manner of earthy hues, which you sometimes see in paintings by local artists. Or in this photo:

I enjoy sky watching - I really should learn to paint clouds properly.

 

[Artyczar]

Most of the time, these are the extent of the clouds we get around here.

 

[brianvds]

View attachment 1378

Most of the time, these are the extent of the clouds we get around here.

As I recall, you're in Arizona or something? Looks absolutely spectacular.

 

[Artyczar]

As I recall, you're in Arizona or something? Looks absolutely spectacular.

No, I am in the high desert of southern California in a town called Joshua Tree.

 

[laf.art]

Wow Arty another stunning sky, what an incredible place it looks.
The Blesbok look very elegant, and yes a bit like Impala Brian, must be amazing to have these (to me) very exotic animals running around freely

 

[brianvds]

No, I am in the high desert of southern California in a town called Joshua Tree.

View attachment 1385

Looks lovely anyway.

 

[brianvds]

Wow Arty another stunning sky, what an incredible place it looks.
The Blesbok look very elegant, and yes a bit like Impala Brian, must be amazing to have these (to me) very exotic animals running around freely

People tend to get used to whatever surrounds them, and after a while no longer even notice anymore, even as they think how marvelously exciting and exotic other people's lives are. This has gotten much worse since Instagram hit the world.

Well, I can add items to my bucket list all I want - I don't have money to make any of it happen. The advantage of this is that I have been forced to start looking around me. Anywhere on earth there is much to see and marvel at.

I still think bears and raccoons are wonderfully exotic though.

 

[Roni]

So blue, it looks photoshopped.

Sometimes you even HAVE to photoshop a picture so that it does look as the original scene did.

People tend to get used to whatever surrounds them, and after a while no longer even notice anymore

True. In the town where I was born (and still live) you grow up surrounded by historic buildings from the middle-ages and the Baroque and you NEVER notice, because it's your normal.
I had to get into my mid-20s to really start to appreciate the beauty of my hometown.

 

[brianvds]

Sometimes you even HAVE to photoshop a picture so that it does look as the original scene did.

Yup, the camera almost always causes a kind of reddish haze over everything, that disappears with a few tweaks in Gimp or Photoshop.

True. In the town where I was born (and still live) you grow up surrounded by historic buildings from the middle-ages and the Baroque and you NEVER notice, because it's your normal.
I had to get into my mid-20s to really start to appreciate the beauty of my hometown.

Assuming you live in Europe, you do indeed have history there, all around you. As some comedian said, "Europe, where history comes from."
I experienced that during the two years I lived in the Netherlands. Beautiful old buildings everywhere (and in all the bigger towns, covered in graffiti), and also more recent but no less momentous history in the form of WWII fortifications.

Around here our written history does not go back very far, but we do have the oldest prehistory. I live right next door to the "cradle of humankind."

 

[Roni]

I live right next door to the "cradle of humankind."

That would be South-East Africa, right?

 

[brianvds]

That would be South-East Africa, right?

South Africa, to be precise:

Cradle of Humankind - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Whether that is really the actual cradle is of course debatable...

 

[Roni]

That's cool, thanks for the info. I'm a little interested in those things. Never heared of that particular spot though.

I always thought the "craddle", (if one would dare to spot this exactly at all anyways), would have to be located somewhere east of the East-African-Rift-System (this wiki-article you linked names the Afar-Drape [they call it "Afar triangle"] but I - personally - always feel a little uncomfortable if one tries to be so very precisely on a subject that is so uncertain, that's why I usually only refer to "somewhere" in the South/East-region of the continent). However, your spot in South-Africa could also still be interpreted as being a very-south-part of the E-A-Rift, I think.

I'm not intending to hijack this thread, so mods: stop me if I do!, but since I'm interested in the subject I got a little carried away, being fascinated by the possibility to exchange with someone living there.


Oh, by the way:

Assuming you live in Europe

Yes. Germany.

 

[brianvds]

That's cool, thanks for the info. I'm a little interested in those things. Never heared of that particular spot though.

I always thought the "craddle", (if one would dare to spot this exactly at all anyways), would have to be located somewhere east of the East-African-Rift-System (this wiki-article you linked names the Afar-Drape [they call it "Afar triangle"] but I - personally - always feel a little uncomfortable if one tries to be so very precisely on a subject that is so uncertain, that's why I usually only refer to "somewhere" in the South/East-region of the continent). However, your spot in South-Africa could also still be interpreted as being a very-south-part of the E-A-Rift, I think.

I'm not intending to hijack this thread, so mods: stop me if I do!, but since I'm interested in the subject I got a little carried away, being fascinated by the possibility to exchange with someone living there.

Well, it's a world heritage site, and many important fossils have been discovered there, including "Mrs. Ples," but yes, boldly calling it THE cradle of humankind is probably a bit of a stretch - we simply do not know for sure at this point. But it's not harming the tourist industry...

 

[stlukesguild]

I still think bears and raccoons are wonderfully exotic though.

Well... Raccoons aren't all that exotic around here... and I live in the city limits. They love going through the trash. At the apartment unit I lived at some 10 or 12 years ago they used to find them in the big trash dumpsters all the time. We'd just put a 2x4 board in the dumpsters so they could use this to get out. Our older daughter in New Jersey frequently sees Black Bear. They also love to dig through the trash.

I wonder if Brian would find this native critter also "exotic". My dogs certainly didn't when they met one last year.

We have tons of them... along with deer, rabbits, and squirrels...

None of them have any natural predators here to keep their numbers down... except for speeding cars.

 

[stlukesguild]

The dominant color around here is GREEN:

These are views right off my back porch. Lots and lots of GREEN... the park which follows the Cuyahoga River and surrounds the city is even called the Emerald Necklace. GREEN!

...and GRAY...

Lately, it seems as if we are living in a deciduous rain forest. I suppose I should be an Impressionist... but my paintings would likely get quite soggy... and honestly, I'm not overly fond of GREEN (it is the opposite color of RED after all ) and I'm not all that big on painting landscapes. I think I may have painted maybe a dozen landscapes in my life... and at least half of them were required by classes in school. I suppose if I wanted to paint landscapes I'd need to move somewhere out West...

... or maybe hang out in Vermont in Autumn:

 

[HalifaxCB]

we do sometimes get lovely blue skies

We get lovely blue skies as well. Or so I’ve been told; it‘s said they’re on the other side of the fog...

 

[Artyczar]

I love the garden Chris!

St Luke, My border collie used to get sprayed by skunks all the time, one time right in his face! He ran into the house one night smelling like a stack of burning tires. The house stank for a week! His poor eyes were red and burned. He was so freaked out and ran right into Michael's lap like he'd seen a ghost. We had to keep him outside that night after spraying water all over him, he thought he was being punished. It was the most awful night! In the early morning we washed him with "No Skunk" several times and then got a mobile dog groomer to come help us and that helped a lot, but it he still smelled for a while, not as bad, but still. Poor guy. Then he was sprayed again two times after that. You'd think he'd stay away, and maybe he did for the most part, but those things were all over the place at night. He was never sprayed in the face again, and never as bad as that first time. Oy vhey!