Cardie Hilliard's Place

"Above Cardie Hilliard's Place"   16 x 20 in. 

Some paintings are special because they remind you of times long ago.  Take this scene for instance.  It's located above an old homesteader's ranch named Cardie Hilliard.  Cardie lived up in these hills till his 90's.  My dad used to hunt his property for Chukars. When I was a kid, I would spend hours roaming these hills while my dad hunted.  Often times I was bored out of my mind and wondered why my dad took so long to hunt.  Eventually, I would get old enough to join him and I would hike for hours sweating and mingling with the sage brush.

I had great memories from these hunting trips like the time our dog got a face full of porcupine quills stuck in her nose, the time I left my hunting vest full of shells on a rock (boy my dad was angry), and the dozen or so times our dog would run off, get lost, and require us to spend hours looking for her. 

I returned recently to paint this area.  Cardie Hilliard's place is weathered and abandoned.  The sage brush is reclaiming the land but it will never reclaim my memories.