Whoof! I am so behind on my updates!

But I have 3 new toons up over at my website. Two smallies and one regular one.

You can start here:
http://www.resafantasyarts.com/yetuntitled5sup.html

The extra toons are to celebrate the new movie ... and the mayhem and bloodshed (okay, not really bloodshed ...) that's created in Forks Wa. And also to celebrate my finally having figured out the mystery being RSS feeds. Yay!

Look! Resa Lives!

Hidy --

Long time no writey!

Well, that's partly because I'm not in Forks this summer. I had to take a temporary job in Port Angeles til September, when I return to take training for a new job in Forks. So, hey. It's all good.

In the meanwhile? It's summer. And it's been dang hot this last week both here and in Forks. My cousin even packed her bags and stayed with me here in Port Angeles for a week or so, til the really hot weather passed. Since it was about 10 degrees cooler here in PA, than in Forks Wa. Strange to think so, but it was.

And now? Now, it's DAMN COLD. After 80F and 90F, it suddenly dropped to the mid 40s last night. And I had to turn on the heat. Can you imagine? Using a heater in Summer. That's ... just ... wrong. Hehheh.

Oh, and I do have a new toon up at the webpage, just a wee supplementary toon. Which I forgot to mention here when I put it up ... sorry.

http://www.resafantasyarts.com/yetuntitled.html

And, a new one will be up on the 20th. If you subscribed to the rss feed ... that's still a bit wonky. But I hope to have it figured soon.

Best wishes!
Stay warm! Or cool. Or ... dang, whatever you prefer.
-- Resa

New YET UNTITLED Strip!

The first of three for July! Yay!
http://www.resafantasyarts.com/yetuntitled.html
Enjoy!

- Resa

Yay! New YET UNTITLED strip!

It seems that I've found a way to post my new strips on time, even while I spend this summer in Port Angeles. So lookie! It's only the night of the 14th, and it's going up now for the 15th! Yay for me.

And it can be found:
http://www.resafantasyarts.com/yetuntitled.html

Enjoy! Hope you're all having a wonderful summer. It's been a bit wet here in Port Angeles. And wetter in Forks, my cousin tells me. Which surprises nobody.

Best wishes,
Resa

New Yet Untitled Strip up!

You may find it HERE!

Heh. I'll be out of touch for a few days, but please -- enjoy it!

Be safe, ya'll!

Another Day in Forks Wa

It's a bright and sunny day here in Forks. The winds a bit up, but nothing to worry about. And so I was sitting on my porch, breathing it all in, occasionally wandering about to check on my flowers or study the progression of streamer moss growing downward from the limbs of my trees, when I heard it.

You have to understand that Forks is pretty quiet generally. Or quiet'ish. You hear birds, pretty much all the time. And the creaking of tree branches as the wind blows through them. And the occasional squirrel setting up a fuss, but other than that, it's quiet.

But as I sat out there listening to our Forks Version of Quiet, there came a sound. A horrible, terrible sound. It had the resonance of a small plane propeller being spun to get the engine going, mixed with the agonized squeel of some huge animal. And it was loud, and heading in my direction quickly. And so startling in it's suddenness, and fast approach that I wasn't quite sure how to process it immediately. Yes, the brain just went "whaaaa???"

Then I remembered how odd the llamas sound when they're irked about something. And out of the brush and trees, and thankfully on the other side of the fence, came bursting forward a very, very pregnant llama girl, shrieking her head off, and followed fast behind by the head llama male. The entire image was of her trying to avoid an attacker, and it took some work to grab hold of my dog and convince it that this wasn't a time to get involved to help a lady. Both of them could easily put her in the doggy hospital.

But then, Miss Llama stopped and glared at Mr. Llama. And Mr. Llama backed away quickly, obviously very intimated while she continued to shriek at him. And I think I got it.

I know that the local cows have all begun having wee cow babies over there. So I suspect it might also be time for the lady llamas to be bringing forth their own little ones. And Mr. Llama wants to be there, and Ms. LLama isn't having any of that.

Whatever the case, as I stood there, she continued to shriek and stomp her feet at him until he backed completely off and left. And then she quieted herself, seemed much more satisfied with the world, and turned to stomp off in the other direction.

NEW WEB COMIC AND WEB SITE DESIGN!

It's scheduled for tomorrow morning, so it's a bit early. But here it is.

I'm in a terrific hurry -- for the next few months I will be living part time in Port Angeles where I have no internet connection. And wanted to make sure I didn't miss the deadline before going back to PA. Yipes!

Please!! Email me if you find any mistakes in the newly revamped website. It may be a week before I can read them and respond, but I would so appreciate it!

And also, Yet Untitled is the monthly (possibly bi-weekly for a while) web comic. It features Silver from The Cartoonist. And deals with life in Forks Washington, the Twilight Invasion, and various other stuff. May you enjoy it. I thought it was fun drawing.

Talk at ya later,
- Resa

Various Links for the New Year.

Hi there! I hope that the New Year went wonderfully for you! It was nice over here too. Though dry. It took about two weeks for our 2800 gallon rain catchment tank to fill completely. Though we did have over 2 inches, I'm told, the other day.

Okay! My Linkies!

Forks Daily and Annual Rainfall Totals.
It runs about a month late in the posting, but keeps track of every single day's rainfall.

Hillywood Show does NEW MOON.
These girls are scary good, with production values that rival, and sometimes surpass, the actual movies themselves.

And Leyna's tutorial on Digital Portraits.
Leyna is a fantastic portrait artist. And I'm thrilled to finally be able to see how she does her work.

And ... have a wonderful beginning of the New Year! With much fun and frolic!

Best wishes --
Resa

Olympic Peninsula Line Men

Know that we love you. And appreciate all that you'll be doing over the next four days to keep our electricity on. Stay warm.

- - -

Yes, another storm is coming in with high winds and flooding. It's already blowing, but the main system will hit tonight, with predicted winds up to 50mph, gusts to 75. And Monday brings in an even stronger storm. (sighs) But hey, it's winter. We're prepared.

Going into town, everything was closed but the Forks Outfitters. Which is where everybody was going to get supplies. The main drag was very dark under even darker skies ... except for on bit of brightness. Dazzled By Twilight. Which was still open.

I suppose even sparkly vampires need supplies ...

Aaaaah! Hail!!!

I may not be impressed by 9 feet of rain in a year. But hail impresses me.
Which ... is almost embarrassing.
Because I've SEEN some of the hail that a few of you have to deal with.
And our hail only comes in very small, to moderately small, bean-sized pieces.
And ... well ...
And I'm going to start wearing my leather hat again.
Because it may be small, but it still bring'th the big ow'ie if you're not prepared.

Just a note to any Twlighters reading this Blog

Dazzled By Twilight is having a small contest over at Facebook. The 1000th person to join gets a prize. So, if you're interested -- Go Here.

In other news, we have gotten an amazing number of thunder storms this year. In all the time I've been here, I think I've experienced only 3 or 4 thundery storms. But this year alone, I think I've up'd that total another 5!

The Cullens should be so pleased.

Best wishes --
I'm off to eat ribs! Yum!
- Resa

I love this place.

Tonight the surf is particularly high. And that means that we can walk outside and hear the surf crashing against the beach five miles away.

I don't know why, but that just makes me so happy. I'm damn lucky to be here.

Ah Hah! First Little Storm of the Season!

We're in the midst of our first storm. And the rain was coming down so hard and fast that, for a while, it looked like a snow storm out there.

After watching it for a few minutes, I tried to get a picture. But I missed the moment. (Sighs)

I really need to get a newer digital camera one day. My poor, 10 year old, Nikon takes 60+ seconds to warm up between photos, and man! It is frustrating to be standing there, going "Com'on! Com'on! Hurry up!" at it, and miss your photo opportunity just as it clicks on.

Gah.
But hey! Decent little storm! Pretty steady gusts in the high 40 mph. And rain too! What fun!

Yeee Haaah!

Ah, our first Special Weather Statement is in. So, it's official. It's Winter.

Luckily, it doesn't look too bad. Just lots and lots of rain, some flooding, and winds between 30-50mph. Which is fully do'able.

And on the off chance that Mother Nature pulls a fast one, and we get unexpected high winds -- which happens once or twice a season -- we have all the required LED emergency lights, extra candles, firewood, food and drink. So we're set.

I'm actually a bit excited about it. The weather just hasn't been wild enough for me this year ... Heh.

Raw Salmon and Dogs

It's fishing season again in Forks, Wa -- heck, when is is not? And we stumbled upon some raw salmon waste leftover from someone's fish cleaning. And so, a reminder -- raw salmon can be deadly to dogs.

I speak from experience, as we lost a dog to Salmon Poisoning just that a few years ago, after someone dumped their salmon waste near our home. Something, I'm sure, they never imagined could be harmful. And so, that is the reason for this post.

Please come, Fish in Forks. But be careful of how you dispose of your fish waste.

A Murder of Crows

The other day while I was reading, I kept noticing something flying back and forth by the window. Looking closer, I saw that it was crows. A lot of them.

So I went outside and it was actually some several HUNDRED crows.

They were scattered all over the yard all around the house, perching on fence posts, in bushes, and in every tree. They didn't seem to care much that I was out there either. I looked at them, and they looked back, with their unfathomable, little bead black eyes.

Kinda Creepy.

Well, today I looked out and there they were again. Less this time, probably under a hundred total. And this time, I grabbed my camera and went outside and they all fled. Dammit. I wanted a picture!

So weird.

It must be the Sparkly Vampires.

Water Rationing in the Rain Forest

From the Peninsula Daily News:

Forks officials last week asked residents to cut back on water use because city wells are about 30 percent below capacity.

It's been an unusually dry summer in Forks, normally one of the wettest towns in the United States.

Rainfall is about 23 inches below normal so far this year — and water use may be higher, too, because of thousands of visiting "Twilight" fans.

The Forks Visitor Center registered 55,600 guest book sign-ins in the first eight months of this year.

It had 18,700 for all of 2008.

Forks itself has only 3,200 residents.

Heh.
When I heard about the rationing in the local paper - The Forks Forum -- they only blamed those 23 less inches of rain this year. But I'm thinking it's the added 55,600 people we've had this year so far. And the main Twilight festival has yet to appear. And the hotels are already booked up. So, I'm thinking ... SCARY!
Heh.

Another good reason to go with a rain catchment system, eh?

The Cullens got in a little time playing baseball last night.

And it looks like they may get in time for another game this afternoon.

We don't often get Thunder Storms in Forks, Wa. I've only seen a hand-full in the last 9 years up here. But our house got rocked by one in the middle of last night, that seems to have fried the outlet we plug our computers into. Fortunately, our computers were unplugged.

In other news, I made another Twilight Plant Pot -- this time as a commission for my friends Jennie and Keesha. It's a Jasper Pot, and only up on RC-ForksWA currently, but I hope to have time to get it up in my main gallery soon.

Since I know Twlighters read this journal now and again, I should mention that the DAZZLED BY TWILIGHT store and tour company has taken over one of an old, closed restaurant to reopen it as the TWILIGHT LOUNGE. It's a giant building, and I have to wonder if they intend to have some kind of smallish Twilight Convention there on Halloween or at the opening of New Moon.

Along with this, Forks has one very small theater that has been closed for about 20 years. News is that somebody -- possibly again DBT -- is fixing it up so that residents and tourists can see the movie in town, instead of driving one and a half hours to Port Angeles to see the movie there. Lemmie tell ya, that would be nice!

Whoo -- a reopening of a restaurant and possibly our old theater! Jobs and movies! This rocks!

Gotta run. There's thunder! Gotta go see!

- Resa

You Ain't Seen Scary 'til You've Seen Mad Llamas.

I think I've mentioned that we have cows occasionally. In fact, the punks ate my strawberries the last time that they were wandering through our yard. Cows seem to want try everything -- tree leaves, bramble stalks, and yes, strawberries. ((Sighs.)) But hey, strawberries are tenacious, and they're starting to come back, but I suspect I won't get fruit this year.

We also have a rather good sized pack of llamas that live in the field with the cows. We don't see them often, as that field is VERY VERY LARGE, but they come be periodically, I suspect to tour the territory.

They've never been friendly beasties. The pack leader is very quick to make motions that suggest power spitting if I don't stay very clear of the fence when we go walking. But lately? Lately he's been in a mood. He charges the fence no matter how far we are from it when it spots us. And hisses and stomps and throws his head around. And ... damn, but he's a scary bugger! And often, he's backed up by a few... er, "second in commands?" who stand behind him and glare at you too.

We'd been wondering why. And found out yesterday, as we were driving into town. Out there, in the the meadow, no longer blocked by brush was the llama pack. Now sporting several new baby llamas. Heh!

So, I guess I can understand the crankiness.

I'm cold.

After several hot days in the 80s and 90s, and many weeks in the high 70s, Forks Wa has decided to drop back down to the 50s.

Yeek! I'm FREEZING! But I absolutely refuse to use the woodstove in Summer to heat the house. No. Nope. No way! And, how in the heck did I lose my adaption to cool weather in just a handful of days? I am ... so ashamed.

In other news, Forks had 16,000 Twilight visitors last month. Which was twice June's numbers and almost as much as all of last year's Twilight Tourists. And since Forks sports only about 3500 citizens, it's been interesting.

Gah, went to go re-read the article from yesterday to verify this on the Fork's Forum newspaper, but the article seems lost. But I can say for certainty, that it did seem EXTREMELY busy in town these last few weeks. Our one traffic light was quite over-whelmed. And I suspect we might really need a second one. My cousin Jatina, however, counter-suspects that the town will riot if anyone suggests another one.

Well, yes. She may have a point. We Forksters like our tiny, teeny towny. And two traffic lights is far too ... ahem "Southern California".