Norwescon was fun, but exhausting. I'm going to change my business model next year: bring my laptop and a nice color brochure, printed at Lulu, so people can get their books sent to their homes; the only thing they'll have to put on the plane is the fancy signed book plate they can later put inside the book. Free wifi in the hotel bar!
This is dear friend, buddy forever and very talented artist Monika Livingstone and her puddies in her great big gorgeous house in the woods near Sequim. Don't let S'quim (how it's pronounced) fool you. They're a retirement community overbuilding their water, and they all want to shoot the deer and elk for eating their roses. They think of cougars as illegals who don't pay their property taxes. Talk about why don't you Go Back Where You Came From?
The castle at Troll Haven, near Monika's place. Springtime, and the fruit trees are blooming. Artists know that the air in a place has its own color. The color of the air in western Washington is pale raspberry, as though someone stirred jam into ice cream.
Design-wise, it's a dorky dragon. But technically, it's one hell of a piece of work. All the art at Troll Haven fits under the original definition of amateur work -- done with great love.
I'm not sure how to view the rotting buffalo head on another gate. The farm has bison. Heads of sacred animals and humans weren't necessarily treated any differently in the past. For all I know, this is an old herd bull in a place of honor. Perhaps it's an air burial? Nobody was around to ask, and I don't want to email them about it. I'm sticking with air burial, for my own peace of mind, no matter the original intent. 
Now a live herd bull, a beautiful square little Angus with a bronze ring in his nose:
A herd bull near Forks we called "Larry" was gone from his pasture after three years of seeing him every time we drove past. I'm telling myself this is Larry. It looks like him.
Yes, I lie to myself, just to keep breathing. I fight enough battles.
