Music Monday - Puppy Love

This seems thematic...  

(Damian McGinty. He can work a crowd!)

The humans in the household are experiencing mostly puppy-love (he, who shall be known as Toby).

The resident animals? not so much....

Despite being safely behind chicken wire, the hens are very concerned about this turn of events.

The cats are even more-so -

There is much poofing of tails and arching of backs -

- not to mention the hissing and growling...

Despite being twice the size of the little beastie..

He optimistically keeps trying to make friends.

We'll see who is the most persistent...

WIP Wednesday - Garden update!

Apparently I am playing outside way more than in - so I'll show you what I'm working on (ie, gardens, not studio..). Here's a brief overview of some of the growing things in my yard -

My 'woodland area' underneath my firs out front.... Lots of undergrowth of various states of edibility-

One of my gates to the back gardens - with magnolia berry climbing on one side, and hops on the other.

The front berry bed - 7 different kinds of blueberry, 2 different gooseberries, aronia berry and seabuckthorn.

Pathway to the backyard - multiple varieties of (edible) daylilies, lavender, rosemary, santolina, yarrow, and lemon balm...

Herb boxes on the back deck (waiting for it to get warm enough for the addition of basils..)

More berries - jostaberry, red currant, red raspberry patch (and grapes just starting to bud against the fence).

Raised beds (in and out of shade here) - strawberries, greens, and assorted veggies and potherbs...

New spiral garden (with perennial, medicinal herbs just starting out), the potherb and perennial bed behind and a chicken coop full of very grumpy hens -

- they hop on their feed can and chastise me quite thoroughly because I am not letting them out while the new, young plants are growing... Maybe next month, girls - if it warms up enough for things to actually get going....

We'll see how things look in June!

Figure Friday - (plus, *Fowl*!)

Long pose day, so only a few, brief warm-up gestures..

Long pose, toned paper - about 2 hours...

It stopped raining long enough to take a brief meander outside, and remember what a lovely place I have to go drawing every week... This time of year, we have an enormous paddling of ducks that hangs out around our buildings ( a small sampling of which you can see here...)

Lots of ducks - mallards, wood ducks, domestic white ducks, as well as Canadian geese and a number of crows....

...all being herded around a bit by the various local, lovely roosters...

...and to celebrate, I ate a curried chicken pasty from the British tea shop next door. An all bird day!

Music Monday - plus small garden/chicken update

Behold, Patriotism - muppet-style:

And here are some of the blooming things in the back yard in July...

Lots of volunteer poppies this year. Plus Bee Balm, and blooming catamint...

Beautiful blue borage stars.... Lots of raspberries in the patch....

One of the fancy, 'double' poppies (which almost look like peonies :-)...

And here are the babies - who are now gangly teenaged pullets (who will not stand still for the camera... I let them out of their hutch by day to scratch about the coop -

- while I let the evil big hens out to free-range in the yard and gardens. To their credit, they are *both* laying again, so I can't be entirely disgusted with them. :-)

The Week in Review -

It's been a busy-busy post-less week. For a brief overview, I give you a lovely little, belated, sorta-art-related Music Monday ditty (thanks to dinahmow)(I do love me some cut paper!) -

I spent the last week painting a new version of my steampunk Oz piece for an alumni show at BYU -

(I was never quite happy with the version I did last year. I think this one turned out better. So here's my WIP post from last week....)

It was also my baby's 18th birthday...

Cakes and celebrating has gone on all week! Next up - high school graduation...

And in other news, the studio-chicks have gotten much too big for their studio box!! (noisy, smelly things!)

So, happily! they are now out in the chicken coop, albeit in a rabbit hutch within the coop (so that the ornery big chickens don't take them out like the last batch of babies). Ornery big-chicken is still trying to peck at them from below, but they will remain safely above until they are large enough to fend for themselves...

In the interim, their heat lamp is like a night light so that I can see them out in the coop from the studio window. Which is nice for me, for although I am really happy to have them *outside* and have easy access to the scanner again :-), I do miss their darling peeping and chatter keeping me company.

Baby steps....

Sure sign that it's spring?

- It must be - because, no drawing is happening and I've spent the bulk of the week knee deep in manure! :-)

I recruited a couple of my now-absent-son's burly friends to help unload three trailer-loads full and have spread them across all the garden beds (and have expanded a couple. I'm more than doubling the size of the day lily strip. Day lilies are a pleasant edible flower, but you need a lot of them if you want to eat buds and visually enjoy blossoms as well.

I've mostly cleaned out all the raised beds - a few kale and giant spring onion remain.

I still have to re-set the strawberry bed... And see if I can manage to get some peas and spinach and arugula planted...

"Babies" are coming up - arugula rustica, chervil, some radish and lettuces. I got to snack on newly emerged french sorrel and violets while raking. (The chickens are furious with me. I'm not letting them range freely at the moment, since they scratch up all the above mentioned babies.)

And there are buds swelling on the grapes and currents and kiwis and blueberries. That's always exciting. Exciting enough that I'm apparently working outside rather than in the studio this week.
*
So the manure is spread, the beds are all weeded, a bunch are edged (a never-ending work in progress) and I'm *thinking* about actually planting something. It feels like maybe it's spring.