As the sun rises over the ridge-top to our east the frost on our metal roof quickly responds. It sounds like rain as the melted drops fall onto the lower roof. But it’s not really raining. The sun is shining brightly outside and there are no clouds in sight. It’s only frost melt.

Today’s plans include hiking to the water tank again to make sure my repair job is holding. The temporary repair is still in place and I decided to leave well enough alone until it fails. When that happens, I have the right parts to fix it this time. My ritual of checking the tank is becoming a great workout routine. I think I’ll keep it up.

Other things on the list are to work on my eagle painting. I’ll make a process post for that later too, so I guess I should add that to the list. And I want to start the process of making paint from the green-ish rocks I found yesterday. That is one I don’t have recorded in my color journal, so I’ll try to remember to make good notes.

Earlier this morning I made some white paint for the eagle. I used some of the cleanest native limestone I could find, but still added some of the really white calcium carbonate powder I purchased. This is one color I do use purchased material for because at least we do have limestone here. I just haven’t figured out a way to remove the iron from it. The iron gives the white a pink cast, and I definitely didn’t want that. It’s also impossible to grind the native limestone in a stainless bowl and not get the gray from the steel added to it. Before I use this white that I made this morning, I may try grinding some more of the cleanest native white that I’ve found in a small porcelain mortar I have. I’m afraid it will break it in the process of breaking the rock, but hopefully that won’t be the case. I’d really like to use our native stone for this one, so that the whole painting is done only in Ozark pigments.