Creative Writing Exercise

In the echoes of my past, I hear the mourning of the trees.  To survive fire and ice, drought and flood, is to be mighty.  The forest is alive with strength.  But as the morning dawns, a chill sweeps through the trees.  A strange, frightening sleep has come to haunt the woods.  As a pale form stomps through, death is brought in a veil of violence.  No armor is strong enough to stop the death from coming.  As the professor of progress comes with his axes and saws, the forest sighs its last breath of freedom.

–Nnett, Fall 1999

Colors and mediums

Shelley Kissing Rosie the Plimoth Cow
Gifted to Shelley for Christmas 2008
Water-soluble oil on canvas

I found my notes on this painting a few days ago. I was surprised to read that the same colors I used for Shelley’s face I also used for Rosie’s nose. I guess I forgot.

I used water-soluble oils for this painting over a decade ago. I haven’t touched my oils in at least three years. But the other day, I started playing with oil pastels. I think I would really enjoy using chalky pastels, but I can’t stand the sound they make on drawing surfaces.

I have a few unfinished paintings. I plan to work the oil pastels into them, and if not that, give them to Goodwill or the dump.

Looking for Father-Daughter Lines

I had an idea for finding Father-Daughter lines by looking visually at large X matches combined with low AT matches.

Movement of the Matthew Winne Family

In order to help verify whether Louis P. Winne (Lewis P. Winnie) was the son of Matthew Winne and brother to Henry, David J., and Joshua (his relation to Eliza is stated in his son’s Civil War “Mother’s” pension record), I mapped out the family members’ migration patterns:


I’m still not certain that Joshua is part of this family, or whether the correct Joshua is mapped. There appear to be two, and more on that later.