More Storm Photos

We had to quickly sweep this away from the foundation to prevent flooding under the house.We just fixed this bird feeder.. it was demolished. This will be our last chiminea.
Broken glass and ruined awnings and screens. And at the end of this great day...A RAINBOW seen through my STRIPPED TREES..how very special!!
Can you tell I am using sarcasm? I guess what is most important is that we are still here. And here ain't so pretty anymore. RV trip - here we come!

Well, Helloo Dorothy!

It's interesting, on the day we let the bird fly free, a tornado touches down within a half to a quarter of a mile from here. Hub brought us a new weather scanner from his trip to D and as I am listening to it, there are warnings of golf ball sized hail, 60 mph winds, flash flooding, and tornado within the 2 counties, here and the next county,to the south. We watched the clouds for a little bit and thought we had better get all of what we were working on inside and watch from there. We saw funnels and VERY fast moving cloud masses. And behold the skies let loose with the worse weather, our neighbors say it's the worse they have experienced and they lost all the windows on the front of their house and their siding and roof are totalled. We lost three windows on the same side. Look for more photos above, chiminea is toast, our trees leaves are gone, ALL the planting I have done is totalled, basically everything I have worked on in the last month is a waste. I watched chairs, garbage cans, tree limbs, screens, fly by the front door. It was storming into my bathroom, broken glass everywhere. The dogs and I were attempting to "huddle" at one point in the middle of the house. It was a torrent of hail (yes, golf ball sized, slamming the windows) and rain and wind for about 25 minutes. The T touched down in the southeast field from here. Actually hit a house east of here, we heard, don't know. The water has flooded the pond, and the water has gone over it's banks in the creek. See the photo at the bottom, can you see any pumpkin plants? That's because they were anihilated (sp)!

Time Flies

Peepers is ready to fly!!
He has spent today in a larger dog crate, flying from side to side, top to bottom. Flapping and exercising his wings. He wants to get out in the biggest way. I have to watch him, he tries to squeeze through the grates on the door, so I stuffed the larger places with paper towel. There is just one big reason we can't release him today. I NEED TO SEE him pick up food on his own and eat it. (An online article told us this should happen before releasing a bird). He "pecks" at the worms, but doesn't know how to tip back and let them slide down his gullet. We don't know how to teach him that either. I am certain he can fly on his own. So, we spend a lot of time observing and waiting. I may have meal worms all over the place by the time we are done. Oh well, they can take their place with the crickets that are there. Peepers is closer today than yesterday - to eating from the ground. He wasn't this close yesterday. WE will probably withhold food for a little bit, so he is GOOD and hungry and ready to do the deed in the morning! God bless this bird. Look how much he has grown since May 20th blog, just 10 days ago. We have learned so much about birds in this experience. Next time we see a tiny baby on the ground, we will either know what to do, or know to walk away.

Already Tuesday..

I have a lot of works in progress . This oil painting is one of them. It is Cape Lookout in Oregon, some of the most beautiful beaches in the US. The fence needs some more work. I have two portraits on the easel right now, one new and one that I started long ago. I never throw anything away because you can always rework it and supplies are expensive, and hard to come by in this part of the country.

Happy Bird Day!

Finally a day in the studio. 8 x 10 "Bailey" weimeraner, in pastel
Look at Peepers. He is looking like an adult bird. What a difference 10 days makes! He is using his talons like a BIG BIRD! Flying lessons tomorrow or Wednesday!

Best Laid Plans

Well, it's been one of those days. About the only really important thing is in this photo! It's been a "meal worm" kinda day!
We did get into town and tipped a few with the "locals". It's HS reunion weekend and MEM Day is bigger here than in the big city. The little town was a "buzzin'". It's always a bit of fun to go there. I fully intended to get out to the studio, but what did I do when I got home, instead??? I mowed. Well, we have 8 acres that we keep lookin' like a park. So it takes a lot of mowin (and gas). Never thought it would be so easy to spend my days picking up fallen limbs and spraying thistle. Repeat after me..."gas prices are absolutely absurd"!! Anyway, I sprayed the bug repel, watered the corn, pumpkins (yes, they are peeking their little heads out already) and sunflowers and mowed my brains out. Hub is STILL out there. You could say we are fanatics. But then again, I know some people,dot dot dot, I do that cause Feedburner doesn't like the real dots.

WORKSPACE

Messy as it is, this is where I do my art. We repurposed a very large metal farm equipment building into 3 - 'alike in size' spaces. The first is a 2 car garage; the middle one is my heated studio - 33' x 24' with great north light. Because we insulated it so well, it seems to be cool in warmer weather; the end part of this building is a workshop for hubbie, where he does all HIS STUFF. I am very happy to have such a big space to house all the things that I like to do, and it's all in one place. It's even big enough for the wiener dogs to do their "racing". LOL!! This building is part of the reason we located here, in the middle of nowhere. It's extremely peaceful!

ALARM

Introducing our "custom dual home security monitoring system"..aka Hasty Herman and Chaco. LOL!! Always activated, always on alert. They are the subjects of my "Day 1" blog with the dog painting. They are doxies of the best kind!!
BIRD NEWS: MEALWORMS came today, Peepers is a happy bird!! The "fuzz" on the top of his head today makes him look like Professor Irwin Cory. His feathers are really filling in. Won't be long!

AS the Sun Sets in the West...

and Peepers grows and grows. He is getting pretty frisky. We built him a little perch to sit on, but it seems to be a little perch to s**t on. How can one little bird have so much waste? Hmmm. He stretches his wings all the time and doesn't spend much time in his nest/bowl. We will be moving him to a bigger dog crate tomorrow, so if he decides to spread his wings a little more, he can, anything to encourage flight! He is going to get a portrait done by me. He has a "bum" right foot, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't look right, don't know if he injured himself in the GREAT fall or if maybe he hatched that way. I am working on a pastel of my dog Bailey as of now, will be finished within a few days and post it. eBay'n has kept me busy today. Still trying to get rid of the mass of stuff we moved here with. Believe it or not, we have mosquitoes already. Get OFF!!

Dog Run/Kennel

We finished (except for the Shade-A-Pet sunscreens) the dog run/outdoor kennel today...a place where the dogs can stay while we are away, since none of them can be trusted in the house alone and if we kept them in the open fenced area, Bailey, the weimeraner, would most likely try to climb the fence. AS you can see there are two areas, one for a big dog and one for two smaller dogs. They practiced being in there twice today. Unbeknownst to us how they really did, we just hope it works for all of us. We felt liberated! P.S. The baby bird is still thriving! Mealworms didn't come today, hopefully tomorrow.

Coney Island Sketch

My daughter and son-in-law, live in NYC. They sent me a photo that I used to draw this charcoal sketch. I had this photo on my desktop background for quite awhile, thinking about how I would draw James, in particular, as he was in such great shadow, and Jess was in such stark sunlight. So I did a value study with the charcoal. I still have some work to do on it...

Jasmine

This is a pastel drawing I did for my neighbor's grandaughter who graduated from H. S. this weekend. She got this horse about a month ago. It has been an interesting venture for the girl. One day the horse jumped over the fence and out of the pasture, my husband saw it as it ran past him on the road at the mailbox. Knowing that the highway is only 1/2 mile away, we panicked and called everyone at work, also knowing that the horse wouldn't let us catch it, luckily the neighbor was pulling into his driveway for lunch. Funny how that worked out.
BTW, baby bird is still hanging in there. Mealworms are supposed to be here USPS today or tomorrow. He now lives in a dog crate, where he can get some muscles in those little legs, by hopping in and out of his bowl/nest. It is stormy here for the next few days. I wonder if he will be ready to fly soon? Probably in the next week.

PLANTING

Pumpkins and corn planted shown close-up in top left and from entering the field at bottom. Zucchini and peppers planted top right. Noticed some strange footprints in the dirt from last night, probably raccoon. Hope they don't want to eat anything in this garden, if so, we are putting in electric fence this week.

(photos gone)

BIRD GROWTH

Yes, he's growing and maturing. We have had to move him into a small dog crate. He keeps getting out of his bowl/nest...getting ready to fly soon, so in the dog crate he can hop about and get his legs strong.



Today was a day of planting. We planted corn and pumpkins in the south forty, (not that big, but it seems very large). Nine rows of sweet corn and three mounds of pumpkins. Also, here's a photo of the zucchini and pepper garden. It was started about a week ago. Sprouts are happening! Tomatoes plants have been planted in the barrels by the house. We also put together a new dog run out behind the studio building. Dogs are needing a place to be when we have to leave from time to time, the crates don't work for BIG dog anymore, he got out the last time. Time for being "city" dogs is about to run out. I even found a BIG FAT GRUB, while we were adjusting the fencing by digging a little around the bottoms of the kennel fencing, put that little guy in a bowl of dirt, until tomorrow when I can grind him up for bird food. Photos of planting above!

REHAB

Last Friday, we found a baby bird, about 1 week old, laying at the door to the quonset hut. It obviously fell or was pushed out of it's nest, some 20 feet up in the door, although we have looked and looked to find the nest, to no avail. We have tried this before, without luck, but had no choice but to try it again. We put the bird in a box, with some dry mowed prairie grass and covered the box and left it in the "Q". The next morning the poor thing was about froze to death. So we quickly got online and searched for info on "rehabbing nestlings". There IS some info out there although most tell you to "don't mess with Mother Nature". We weren't just gonna let the poor thing die. We put it in a box, with my drafting table light over the box and have been using a McDonald's coffee stirrer, feeding it soaked dry dog food for a week and you know, the little guy is growing and thriving. It is interesting to see what comes with a bird naturally, like lifting it's butt over the edge of the bowl he sits in to take a poop, so as not to dirty the nest. We were amazed. I downloaded a "birdsong" CD, and we play it for the bird. You are supposed to make sure it hears the sounds of birds as it grows, well, we tried that outside, but it was too windy and too many predators around. We have a gang of rogue bluejays, that literally terrorize the woods and farm...I watch them scare other birds away from their nest, no doubt to get close to other babies or eggs. So far, so good on this baby blackbird. It is neat to see him begin preening. I say 'Him", but did you know that it is impossible to tell the sex of a bird without DNA or probing inside the bird for it's organs? And of course, if it lays an egg...so far, it has been a true learning adventure.

DAY 1

Hello all! Well, I am attempting to "amp up" my computer skills and abilities with a blog where I can display works that have been completed and maybe even some that are "in THE process". "Eclectic" describes the state of my "art" these days.
Having the time to experiment, leads me to explore new mediums and improve on old ones.
From time to time, I may refer to my studio by name, "Studio 165".