Woo Hoo $5,000.00!!

Stephens Creek Barn  by Shirl Ireland   6 1/2" x 12"    Oil on linen

I created a painting of the new Stephens Creek Barn in Yellowstone National Park as a donation to the Yellowstone Park Foundation. It was a bit more complicated than my usual Yellowstone paintings, since this area is 'authorized personnel only'. I had to be escorted in through the gate.

Some background… The Yellowstone Park Foundation is the official fundraising partner for Yellowstone National Park. They support MANY good causes in the Park from building this brand new, badly needed barn to house animals and equipment to purchasing the chairs and tables I use at the Yellowstone Heritage and Research Center to funding the new Old Faithful Visitor Education Center. Their scope really is ‘far and wide’ in Yellowstone. To see how much they contribute to the Park…. http://www.ypf.org/.

Anyway, I thoroughly appreciate all their efforts and thought it was the least I could do to help support their work.

To ‘christen’ the barn, they had a barn dance where they auctioned off my painting last night… I’m THRILLED to say it went for $5,000.00! – money I know that will be put to good use through the Yellowstone Park Foundation.

Our Yellowstone Zoo - The Birth of Twin Pronghorns, continued....
 

The mother pronghorn stays away from her twins to decrease the likelihood of predators finding them- since they're so darn helpless at the moment. She returns only to feed and clean them. It was a cold and wet night and we had seen a coyote roaming in the vicinity. It was good to see the mother show up this morning and both twins get up to nurse...all was well.