Grass-fed and rather contented….
March 21, 2020
Although centrally located–and well within the city limits of Kamloops (pop: 97,000), British Columbia, Canada–we nonetheless hear cows bellowing distantly from the mountain range across the way from our house. This is cow country–beef cows–Herefords–grass-fed, and let out to pasture once Winter is past. Sitting out on our deck, I can just make out these tiny dots–Herefords most certainly–moving slowly across the great expanse of what is locally known as Strawberry Hill.
watercolour (detail of larger work), Arches Cold Press 140# Paper, 7.5″ x 14″
by Lance Weisser
During these unusual and routine-disrupted days, when everyone seems mildly ajar, pretending all is still fine, yet wondering what the heck to do with themselves, I find it reassuring to watch cows do nothing all day but search out grass on Strawberry Hill.
(And I’m sure many of you reading this have become even more thankful you have pursued painting or photography or writing as a mainstay in your life. These solitary-type endeavours are certainly now helping to anchor us amidst days of remarkable change and confinement.)
A Winter’s Eve
February 23, 2019
It snowed yesterday, the kind which floats down like sifted icing sugar, giving the impression that it can’t possibly amount to much, except it simply stayed that way for the entire afternoon and into the evening. And as I was cooking dinner, I glanced out and saw a van spinning its wheels, barely able to crest the top of the hill just below our house. That icing sugar now lay a significant number of inches deep, making the mule deer tracks under the bird feeders in our red maple appear as quilted dimples, leading off across the whited bedspread of the yard.
The mule deer–a party of three–come down from our backyard mountain ridge and go to town on the neighbourhood’s cedar hedges around four in the morning. Now, I’m not one to get all soft-hearted and nostalgic over having deer around, simply because they dine on just about anything except what mother nature provides in ample supply up beyond our neighbourhood: emerging tulips in the front–all manner of vegetables in the back–and everyone’s cedar. The other morning around five one of them confronted our little dog Elmo in the predawn pitch dark as we did our morning walk. Neither of them moved for a great while until the young buck got bored and sauntered off with its two pals to see what other landscape deconstruction they could manage before daybreak.
Finished work….”Logged-In”
April 16, 2015
“Logged-In”, 25.5 cm x 35.5 cm (10″ x 14″), Watercolour on Arches 140 lb Hot Press paper, (donated to Kamloops Art Gallery Annual Art Auction)
weisserwatercolours 