Back in Florida

Deb and I arrived back in Sanford last week after another summer at our cabin in the woods. We left Florida around the middle of June and headed to South Carolina where we

always stop and spend a couple days visiting family. Deb's sister has a beautiful home in the Blue Ridge Mts. on the North Carolina, South Carolina border. We enjoy visiting and have become quite familiar with the area over the last several years. The landscape is stunning and there is a lot of good art in the area. Asheville, NC has become a favorite place to gallery hop or take in the River Arts District when we are lucky enough to be in town during one of their "Studio Strolls". After a few days we were back on the highway, making our way to the Tug Hill region of New York. Tug Hill is a plateau that slowly rises from the eastern shore of Lake Ontario to the Adirondack Mountains. We have a six acre piece of land with a pond and a cabin that I built from recycled materials. When we lived in New York, it was a weekend getaway. Now it serves as our summer place. In addition to the cabin, we have two sheds and plans to build a barn that will serve as a studio building. We had a lot of rain when we first arrived. think it rained 15 out of the first 16 days we were there. This made it tough to get much done as we have to work outside. I ended up picking up some work helping a friend cut down and rebuild a bunch of church pews. By mid July we had a nice stretch of sunny, warm and dry days. I began work on a 90 foot, dry stacked, stone retaining wall. THe wall had been originally "layed up" by the home owners in the mid 1960's and had seen better days. I had to take the wall down section by section and put it back up. No small task. About half way into the first day I wondered if I had tackled to big a project and felt a bit over whelmed, but I kept plugging away and after about six weeks it was finished. I did manage to do some welding and added another sculpture to my growing sculpture garden. It is a real "hippie in the woods" existence, but we love it and have plans for additions to the cabin and expansion of our gardens. We enjoy giving people who visit tours of the grounds. By the middle of September the days were getting shorter and temperatures a lot cooler. It was time to "roll up the tent" as they say and point the pickup truck south. Gave our son and grand baby hugs and kisses and we were off. A few days in the Carolina's. Took in the Sculpture Invitational in Highlands, NC. Really enjoyed that. Then on to Sanford and back at it. Deb and I are busy getting new work together for our "Got Art" show at Gallery on First. Happy to be back in Florida.