Watching Baby

I am at my Son and daughter-in-law's place in Yukon.  They have given me a lovely grandbaby and are working on the next one.  They are building an addition on their home.  I am watching baby while they work.  It is a lovely day here in Yukon.  Sunny and warm, clear as a bell.

I am feeling pretty good these days and glad to help them.  I still have the problem with the skin lesions.  There is still no word about what is causing them.  I am still getting them and the old ones are not going away.  However, the new ones are much smaller.  So, perhaps, whatever has disturbed my immune system is calming down.  

I have done some work on my paintings and hope to get my calendar project completed by the middle of October.  If not, it will be next Spring.  I need to paint at least 3 more paintings to complete the project.  I seem to sell all my paintings as soon as I put them up for sale so I guess I need to try to paint faster.  However, my style is slow, slow.  I block in a painting; with only an idea what season it will be and roughly what will be in it.  I then study the painting and let it tell me what it wants to be.  It always turns out to be Yukon and a place that I have seen somewhere at some time finally reveals itself to me.  These paintings seem to speak to other people as well.  

I have been busy the past month.  My husband and I went south to British Columbia to the Gulf Islands for a couple weeks and had summer; then came back and went fishing in Alaska.  There is sad and upsetting news in Alaska.  The halibut and salmon stocks are way down.  For the first time that I can remember; there were no pink salmon jumping in the Juneau area.  Usually there are "Pinks" jumping all over the place.  That is not all; the Coho Salmon are not in yet.  They are way, way overdue.  The King Salmon stocks are also very, very low.  The Kings running in the Yukon River through Whitehorse are down 90% from this time last year.  I feel like it may be "The Silent Spring" for these fish.  I hope not; but it seems so.  The fisherman will be suffering; not to mention the Bears, Killer Whales, Seals, Bald Eagles, etc. that depend on these food stocks.

On a bright note: we had great Humpback Whale viewing.  I never saw so many Whales splashing their huge tails in the water.  It was magnificent.