Cleared out a portion of our riverfront yesterday, morning campfire both for fun and for uhhh… profit?

Gardening update: the first 2 batches of seeds (nightshades, leafys) are getting large. Some herbs I started before the business trip last week are poking out. Also, seeing the first spinach seedling today.

Life imitates game

Garden update: cabbage/lettuce & nightshade family all coming out. Started basil, spinach, and Brussels sprouts today. Gardening is one of the most hopeful experiences there is. Also a small but personally important act of defiance against everything that is nonsense right now.

First time trying to grow cabbage, surprised how quickly some of them germinated. First garden seedlings of 2026!

Hello y'all! A super talented friend of mine, @leftoverlantern.bsky.social, is finally starting a Patreon. He's one of the most insatiable creators I've had the honor to know and is always so inspiring. Please spread the words and help encourage him to keep doing super cool stuff.

Who are all going to GDC this year?

First time salt-water fishing, completely surprised to catch this guy within 20 - 30 minutes.

Lunch sketch group, topics: sage, sea, skateboard

Getting back into traditional art. Bases on a mad angry character from Chinese mythology who grew a face on his abdomen to avenge himself for losing his head in battle. Gauche/ pencil.

Love the river fog in the fall.

Death is actually "inevitable", funny we all are not asked to feel charitable towards people who speed others towards it. I understand that the fire pit in the near distance seems less threatening than the numbers must go up beast chasing immediately at our heels. Understand but disagree.

Golden morning. Comes with nature sounds :)

Finding a local boardgame group and getting outdoor faucets for garden and fire pit are both greater mental boosters than I realized before yesterday 🎵🎉

Evicted this lil guy from our garage.

Early fall mornings here are breath-taking.

RL “Stardew” farming update: Asian eggplants, okra, and first harvest of Chinese okra (luffa). Forgot to plant the luffa till pretty late in the season, impressed by how well they are doing.

Eggplants making a rebound with weather cooling down. Beautiful sunrise this morning too.

Beautiful fog panning over the river this morning.

Finally opened up the gauche kit mom helped me get half a year ago. Photo study. Weather has been ridiculously amazing in Arkansas last couple of days. Unsure if false fall or real fall but I will take it! Photo taken last year in CO.

First time seeing rainbow at home since we moved. Beautiful evening overall.

Sketch night doodle, immersed for a few hours in nostalgia-inducing nerd chatters about DnD and jokes/stories about the industry from a highly problematic but also in some ways purer time.

Lunch sketch group sketch. Getting the itch for pencil drawings again - been kind of slowly falling out of digital paintings since the AI pocalypse

Becoming a soup person due to the overwhelming need of eating up garden vegetables as well as the pure deliciousness.

Corn flowering.

Happy 4th!

From garden, about to become delicious soup. Grateful to have something to look forward to every day.

This morning’s garden harvest. We need to find a way to eat vegetables way faster!

In OG WoW, I loved running around in Un'goro Crater hunting and skinning everything as a happy little hunter. So I really enjoyed painting the signature card version of Restore the Wild for Hearthstone's The Lost City expansion. Many thanks to the AD Jim Nelson and the team. ©Blizzard Entertainment

The last piece of gear of Night Hunter of Hornworms, Head Net of Protection from Mosquitoes +1, is now ready in my deployment menu. Tried out the black light last night & caught 6 of those buggers poised to decimate humanity/tomatoes. Next time there will be less void debuff of buzzing & biting.

Just a little over a week into growing, the pea sprouts are ready for first harvest. Looking forward to having some fresh greens tonight!

Father’s Day delivery to my dad, then today’s haul. The smaller rounder brown sugar tomatoes taste reminiscent of a really tasty tomato variety we used to enjoy as fruit in NE China when I was a kid, as I hoped.

Last couple of day’s harvest

This is the first time we stayed home for 3 weeks (and going!) in a row since we started the moving process. Posting some garden updates: tomatoes, bell pepper are getting big. Eggplants and cucumbers are starting to form.

2 sunny days in a row without rain is kinda rare during the last couple weeks!

Nice evening after a few stormy days 🥰

First time eating home-grown spinach last night and it was shockingly flavorful. Probably the best-tasting home grown veggie we’ve had so far. Powered by this, started a new mini plot inside the garden. What to grow this late in the season TBD.

First harvest of spinach, a shocking amount given we’ve only planted 5 as a test and this was a partial harvest. This is the first produce out of our first year garden!

Came home to huge squash plants and even a few baby squashes. That was fast!

First time night time plein air, and last painting before going home. Oil on gesso board 8x10”. Not being used to going out into town/cities at night anymore, it felt surreal and a bit unsettling in an interesting way to be there.

Oil on gesso board 11” x 14”. Also saw big horned sheep in the wild for the first time ever, fittingly next to Sheep Lake. Magical.

Squeezed a lil 9x12 plein air into the morning before work. Challenged myself in getting over my fear of trying to paint straight lines in oil today.

Always love snowy mountains. Plein air from this morning, oil on gesso board 11x14”.

Got to paint out with mom again! Beautiful weather and RMNP. Oil on canvas 11x14.

Visiting mom and immediately met her deer neighbors literally one mailbox down. Magical.

Year one peaches are getting to apricot-size - probably too early for this tree to bear any meaningful fruits this year, but still fun to see.

Corn is finally planted, hoping for non-sweet corn I grew up loving. (Trying yellow dented.). Garden’s coming along nicely especially the tomatoes. In between watering stuff I had to pause and snap a picture because the morning was so beautiful.

Had to clarify to a teammate not once but twice that I use physical stickies instead of digital ones as part of my note-taking arsenal recently, which somehow restarted my habit of making meeting doodles. The middle creepy one came from a meeting that was getting a bit too long 😅

Dad and his wife visited, and turned out to be way more interested in learning woodland maintenance together with us than our original plans of hitting some AR state parks. Several hours of working together made for the start of a nice walking path as well as another unique memory together.

No trees, houses, dogs, or humans were harmed in the making of this bonfire!