Art By Tali Landsman

Happy Thanksgiving weekend to all of you! We have been luxuriating at home with some Tofurkey (tofu turkey) roasted with herbs and stuffing, roasted potatoes, and all sort of delicious seasonal dishes. In this season I always make a list of everything that I am thankful for, and believe me, the list is very long. I do feel so very blessed. I hope that those of you who goes through a tough times right now will remember that it is not the hand that life hands you that matter, but how you choose to play the game.

We were surprised to see very little snow on the mountains of Colorado. We still hope for a good start to the ski season if it will start snowing soon. In the recent months I have been reading a lot about Universal Health Care in the USA. Among the articles that I read, I saw some personal account of people that are seeking treatments outside the USA for all sort of ailments, operations and much needed medical care. The list of countries that were mentioned was long. This raised a very sad thought in my mind. Here we have Americans that lived here all their lives, paid taxes and raised children who cannot afford to get medical help in their greatest need. In our recent travel to Thailand, mainly in Bangkok and Chiang Mai, we saw Americans that have traveled there to get dental treatments. We saw advertisement of dental clinics offering to pick you up at your hotel with a Limousin and advertising fast and very advanced dental treatment for a fraction of the cost in the USA. I believe th...

After what seems like endless time in the air and long waits in airports, we are finally back in Colorado. We spent a night in Boulder and the next day we shopped for groceries in the fabulous "Whole Foods Supermarket". Those who live in the USA do not appreciate enough what is right on their doorsteps. Only after coming back from a country where non organic produce sells for very high prices, do I appreciate being able to buy fabulous organic produce for reasonable prices. And the variety and abundance of goods is so wonderful. I was able to get fresh lemongrass and gallanga (Thai ginger) exotic mushrooms, huge pomegranates, organic fingerling purple potatoes, Veg Tom Yam paste and many more goods that would only be a dream in the Far North of NZ. It is good to be home. There is almost no snow on the mountains which must worry the ski resorts (and us).

Today Was devoted to hard gardening work which included chain sawing logs and a lot of lifting, carrying and much cleanup. It was a milestone for me since it was the first time ever that I got over my fear of using the chain saw and learned how to saw pieces of logs and clean and oil the chain saw. On the advice of my neighbors John and Marilyn, I started drinking lemon-balm tea every night before sleep. I pick up some fresh lemon-balm from my garden in the late afternoon and put it in a teapot with boiling water. It is delicious and calming.

This is the first painting done on a canvas blackboard that I have completed in the sketchbook series. I wish I had more time to work on other paintings and develop this technique, but I will have to pick it up again when we are back in Colorado since our visit to NZ is almost over.

Just getting an opportunity to add some images from the mountain biking adventure in our trip to the highlands in Thailand. There was a section of the journey that we had to make by boarding a long -boat which took us down a fast moving river and later we continued cycling from a village down the path. The long -boats are really a wooden large kayaks that have an small engine located at the end of a long stick which the boatman can easily raise as we approach rapids and big rocks in the river. Along the way we passed some small villages where kids were jumping and swimming in the river. We saw old ladies working in steep fields that hugged the mountains. Water buffaloes taking refuge in the shallow water and small wooden villages where people still smile at strangers, never ask for money, beg or hassle. We saw no poverty or real need, only proud people with a choice of a lifestyle to work the land and live closely to nature.

I took my sketchbook to the upper pond with the intention of making quick, three to five minutes sketches of our pond. I do these exercises with a time limit because I want to draw from real life and to be able to do this, I have to practice seeing and translating situations into a drawings or a drafts very quickly. People do not sit long in one position even in cafes and restaurants. They keep on moving their heads and hands, shift their position or get up. People on the street are even harder to draw, which is why I always use photos of street scenes. But it is good to train myself to be able to draw quickly. I used a B5 pencil.

Yesterday we introduced ten gold fish into our pond. Now that the water lilies are established, the water in the pond is less murky and the fish have a good chance of living happily and multiplying. I hope that their red and bright orange colors will not attract the attentions of some fishing birds that I have seen around the pond in the past. I always thought that since we live so close to the harbor, the birds will not pay much attention to our pond, but I did see them nest and play in the trees around our pond. I read this article that assured me: " There are many species of fish-eating birds around the world. Many are not normally found fishing in small bodies of water, or are found only in oceanic or polar areas. Many predatory birds do not fish in smaller ponds, possibly either due to there not being enough fish of the right size in the pond to attract them, or not enough physical space to do their normal fishing maneuvers, or their not being "wired" to recognize s...

Yesterday our little town of Kohukohu was buzzing with activity. In "Village Arts" - the local art gallery, we attended a ceremony blessing the end of the Ralph Hotere exhibition. In the Waterline Cafe' the local talented musicians organized a fund raising benefit to help tsunami victims. Attending one of these events, I am always reminded what a group of talented and eccentric people live in our village. So many of the locals sing so beautifully and have such a knack for preforming. Bruce walker is a fabulous musician and he also organizes a lot of the local events. A lady preformed belly dancing dressed in a colorful costume, people sang, told jocks and stories and read poetry. It is always sad to say good bye when the time comes to go back to the USA.

We had a wonderful and very adventurous time mountain biking in Northern Thailand. We flew to Chiang Mai where we met our guide and drove to Chiang Dao which was the beginning of our cycling tour. We cycled along the golden triangle to Chiang Rai. The roads were good but most of the time we were not on them. We cycled into the fields on torn dirt roads steep and filled with slippery rocks. The dirt paths are hilly and we found the down hills to be just as challenging as the uphills. Most of the paths are not maintained and suffered severe wash outs during the monsoon season that just ended. Going down hill you cannot make much use of the breaks or you can flip over your mountain bike. You have to navigate onto the better patches of dirt and keep on praying. Our guide called it "A technical ride". The Thai highlands are filled with rice paddies, garlic, peanuts and corn fields. We cycled through mango groves and banana plantations, got muddy and tired and happy. We are back in...

Thailand is mostly Buddhist and the temples are called "Wat". The city is filled with them and every few villages in the country side share and maintain a WAT. Most feature curved wooden roof lines and stupas intricately decorated with gold leaf or Mosaic. Some of the WATS are filled with saffron clad monks and operate as living monasteries and some are only installed with statue of the Buddha and have head monks presiding over prayers, festivals and ceremonies. All are easy to visit (if you do not wear shorts or tank tops).

Bangkok is a big noisy metropolitan. It is much like any other big Asian city except that the drivers do not habitually lean on the horn as they do all over China and India. Once filled with opium dens and seedy guest houses, now luxury hotels line the city's horizon. You can have your pick of five star accommodation for about $100 USD including a delicious breakfast. You do not need to be very observant to notice the overweight " farang " (foreign) men holding hands with the small Thai girls, shopping and talking (mostly in sign language), to understand why some people find Bangkok a heavenly destination. And yes, there are plenty of sleazy bars with imported beer and drooling horny men, but we did not visit them. Instead we roamed the markets and the streets to see how the people truly live, taste their food and have a glimpse into life in contemporary Bangkok. It is a complex place with plenty to see and do. We had a great time there. We took a vegetarian cooking clas...

When I was a child I have seen photographs of the women of Siam. They featured beautiful women with elaborate hairdos, sparkling jewelry and big smiles. The women were thin with elongated fingers, they ate dishes spiced with lemongrass and coconut milk and they lived far away in an exotic land. Sometimes they skillfully jumped between two bamboo sticks on the ground much like we used to jump rope. Siam had changed its name to become Thailand and the people gave up traditional clothing in favour of casual clothing, but it is still a tropical land filled with gentle people, exotic fruit, abundance of beaches and food that entice the senses with lime basil, chilly and palm sugar. We were lucky to visit Thailand during a major festival called 'Loy Krathong". Part of the celebration included a custom parade, hot air balloon competition and elaborately decorated floats on the river. This was our only opportunity to see the colorful clothing they used to wear. But I am not nostalgic ...