Art is a Tart

During the painfully cold days we have all been having lately (except up in Alaska… strangely) I have been trying to do as much drawing and painting as I can. The problem with this plan is that making art isn't something I can force myself to do if my brain isn't into it. I have been keeping a large piece of illustration board on my desk and whenever I can't really muster the passion to work on something specific, I doodle on it. Actually, it's an illustration unto itself- I created a basic drawing in light pencil and have been adding to it for weeks now. Pen, ink and dye mostly so far.

One of the projects I have been trying to get myself to do is a painting for my friends Russ and Jessica. They got married in October and I promised them a gift of a painting. So far, I have created 3 separate paintings with them in mind and I am not happy with any of them. Hopefully #4 will be the winner. I wish I would have promised them a quilt! Then it would have been done by now and I wouldn't feel so guilty for such a long delayed wedding gift.

For those who aren't keeping track, I work in watercolor, ink and dye now. No more acrylics. I have them, and I have some canvases that are gessoed, but I seem to have lost my touch for them. They just don't feel as satisfying as watercolors when I work with them. Maybe I will try going back to oils in the spring, when I can open up all the windows and have some ventilation. At least then those canvases won't go to waste. I'd love to do a series of the various wild birds that live around the farm. I've seen a variety of finches, blue jays, cardinals, crows, northern blue birds, robins, common grackles, red headed woodpeckers, vultures, and hawks.

Beyond art, the other news around here is that Wiley got into some sort of fight with one of the cats (I think) and he's all cut up now. He's got a big gash under his right eye and a few gashes around his muzzle. I cleaned it up as best I could. I hope he's learned his lesson. Atticus and Wiley are becoming better and better friends all the time. They've developed a game of keep away with a red ball that has had it squeaker destroyed. We don't know why this ball is special. There are tons of other ones but this one is the one that sets the game off. I watch them closely when they play this game because every once in a while it goes too far and Wiley nips Atticus too hard. That's when I take the ball away and everyone calms down.

Chairman Meow has now become friends with The Goon Squad, which I might have mentioned before. The three of them hang out together and I think that The Chairman can get Carl to play in the morning, which is really awesome. Speaking of Carl, his mouth ulcers seem to be gone, though he's lost a tooth to it. After a round of meds and some rest, he's a lot better. Brighter eyes and softer fur! The Himalayan disappears for a few days every once in a while and then when she returns, she sleeps for a long time. Aaron thinks she has a meth habit. I think she has another house she goes to. Honestly, she really should be an indoor cat. Her fur is fine for protecting her from the cold, but it's always got burrs in it that are unpleasant for all concerned to remove.

The chickens are still doing well. I'm honestly surprised that they are all still alive and even thriving. When we first saw them in the summer, the chickens were terrible looking. All scrawny and missing lots of feathers. Now most of them have grown their feathers back and gained weight. They look healthy now! It just shows you what some good food and free ranging for your chickens can do for their health. I still get about 2 or 3 eggs from them every day. Pretty impressive for a flock of elderly chickens in the middle of winter. They enjoy following me around when I am outside, so often I have a trail of chickens behind me happily clucking. They also enjoy running down the hill to the old playset that the previous owners left behind. Under the playset is a patch of dirt that works as a dust bath for them. So every day they run down the hill, have their dust bath one at a time and then they run back up the hill. Have you ever seen a chicken run? It's weird and hysterical. And if you think about Tyrannosaurs Rex while you watch them run- it adds an extra level of surreality to the whole thing.

Wanda One-Eye, for those who are fans of hers, (which seems to be everyone!) is still clucking along. She still prefers to stay in her private chicken suite next to the cats. The other chickens like to hang out in her place sometimes. I don't think she minds, but they seem to discombobulate her when a bunch of them rush into her place at once. She gets all flustered and ruffles her feathers and clucks like she's thinking, "Oh my gawd! Slow down you savages!" Wanda is a chicken with much dignity it would seem.

There's lots to tell about the aquaponics system, but I'll save that for a separate entry. I'll just add that I'm starting some preliminary seed tests and they're all looking darn good. I'm lucky I inheriated my green thumb from my Grandma Jan. So lastly, here are a few photos till I write the Aquaponics oriented blog later:

Wanda One-Eye

Some of the chickens hanging outside the coop.

A few more of the chickens hanging around outside the coop with a view of the lower fields.

Some cool fungus on a tree in the upper middle field.

Atticus passed out on his bed next to the gas heater. Don't worry! The outside of the heater doesn't get hot.

All six Guineas.

A view of the lower field from the upper middle field. 

Atticus chillin' out.

Wiley and Atticus in the upper middle field.

A Guinea in the snow. 

Another Guinea in the snow. Aren't they crazy looking? Check out the "eyebrow" and horn! I think of them as being French policemen for some reason. 

All the chickens except for Wanda who was at my feet when I took this photo.

Wanda likes to sleep in the vines and bushes outside my studio. I usually have to go pick her up at night and put her in the barn.

     

Lucy (left) and Carl like to sit on this perch on my porch. I can see them as I wash dishes.

The chickens hanging out with Lucy in the sunshine outside of Wanda's place.

The Hubris of Chickens

Today I observed one of the chickens- the one with the floppy comb- try to 'front' Wiley. I was standing on the hill after collecting eggs from the nest boxes, with the flock scattered around me. I called to Wiley and as he trotted by, this floppy comb chicken actually puffed herself up at him and attempted to peck and scratch him. Of course, Wiley's attitude about the chickens is that they are not even close to being worth his notice. In his world, they are so utterly beneath him that he gets bored just chasing them around. So he trots by this one chicken as if she didn't exist and she tries to start some kind of fight with him and he just keeps going. I'd say she looked embarrassed, but she's a chicken and their default expression is generally one of startled embarrassment. Except for Wanda- she always has a happy and curious look to her.

Speaking of Wanda One-Eye, she truly is our farm ambassador. Everyone who drives up gets greeted by Wanda. In fact, we had a man from our propane company come and check the line the other day and Wanda was the first to run up and greet him. He was surprised and it put a smile on his face. He told us about his daughter's class project of raising a chicken from egg to mature chicken who lays her own eggs. We thought it was a great class project for children.

Also, now that the chickens are all free-range during the day, many times I find them hanging out around Wanda's coop. There are still two or three chickens who are mean to Wanda, but for the most part, the flock is generally really nice and friendly to her. She still prefers to roost away from them, even though she has every opportunity to follow them into their roost up the hill. None stay behind to roost with her, which just makes me think what a special chicken she is that she is an independent thinker.  (I'm sure there's a much less anthropomorphic reason)

In other animal news, Wiley and Atticus are doing really well and playing together really nicely. Today they even shared a branch to chew on, which is a huge step for Wiley.

The Depths of Winter

We made it through the big chill here. All chickens, guineas, dogs, cats, and humans are doing well. The chickens had the best deal out of all the outdoor animals. Even though their roost is ugly, it's very sturdy and does a great job protecting them from the elements. As long as they didn't have cold wind blowing on them or snow falling on them, I knew they would be just fine. They cuddle up together and fluff up their feathers to trap all that body heat between them. The biggest problem with the chickens was their water kept freezing. I'd have to go up and replace their water a few times a day because it kept freezing. Wanda, who doesn't roost with the riff-raff, had her own cozy suite in the barn right next to the cats. She often has kitty visitors stop by, so even when I had to keep her indoors during the day, she wasn't too lonely. And when I did let her out, she spent her time sitting outside my front door (which is all glass, if you recall) watching me and pooping all over the place.

The cats did just fine. Most didn't go out much, but the bolder ones kept to their hunting and territory checking routines. I made sure that their area of the barn stayed dry and free of draft as much as possible.

I honestly wasn't sure if the guineas would all survive. I gave them wild bird seed to help keep their energy levels up. I figured foraging for bugs and seeds would be tougher in the deep freeze. But, as it turns out, I underestimated them and they are all alive and doing well.

Wiley on my porch during the first night of snow.

Overall it's been a quiet beginning to the new year, but here are a few updates:

Wanda One-Eye, or as some have started calling her, Wanda the Wonder Chicken; continues her attempts at getting into my studio. I am part of her flock and so she wants to follow me wherever I go. It's so funny how she casually tries to just stroll right in. As opposed to the cats who are crafty and sneaky and dart in when I'm not looking. Wanda is just clueless- she has no idea that if she actually gets inside, her friend Wiley will cease to be her friend the second her big ol' claw passes the threshold. She and Wiley actually do fine outside. When one of the other chickens tries to bully her or if the guineas are chasing her, she'll often run to me. But sometimes if Wiley is closer she'll run to him. He, of course, couldn't care less and only takes cursory notice of her. But it keeps the other chickens and definitely the guineas at bay. As Aaron says, she's only got a couple of neurons firing away up in her little head, but I like to think she's got one more than the rest of the fowl on the farm. The other day I watched her playing with one of the shed guinea feathers. She seemed to be having great fun!

Carl is almost 100% recovered from his mouth ulcers. He looks like a brand new cat! His fur is softer, his eyes are brighter, and he's much more active. I see him out roaming the yard often. I've even found him playing with Chairman Meow and some of the cat toys I left out on Christmas. He and The Chairman have become quite good friends and it's a great thing for them both. The Chairman is now getting along with all the cats except for Hilda. She hates them all and bullies them when she can. She's a sweetheart to humans and tolerates Wiley annoying her, so she's not a bad cat or anything. She is who she is. 

I did have a totally chaotic event with her and Wiley a few days ago. She had snuck into my studio while I wasn't looking, but Wiley saw her and the chase was on… right into my bedroom. Yay. He attacked, she retaliated… hissing, snarling, claws, teeth and blood. I should not have gotten involved with my bare hands. I should have grabbed the broom and started swatting at them. But I wasn't thinking and my experience with cats vs. dogs is limited. Anyway, I grabbed her thinking, "Hilda loves me and is gentle with me. She won't hurt me if I just pick her up and take her outside." Silly me. As I learned the hard way, a panicking cat tends to stay panicking even when it's favorite human picks it up in the middle of the panic. So now, of course, my hands and arms are covered in scratches and I even have a few scratches and one bruise on my legs. Because as I'm holding the wiggling panic cat, the jumping panic dog is using my legs as a partial ladder to get at the panic cat and nip at it's hindquarters which only makes the panic cat ramp up it's panic to a full-on frenzy.

The other event, that only sort of involves animals, is that my pipes up at the studio froze. First I lost my hot water and then I lost all the water. Luckily the water was still working just fine in the main house where Aaron lives. I had to shower there and use he bathroom there. When we were about to go out and find some equipment for the Aquaponics system, Aaron noticed quite a lot of water pouring down the hill from the corner of the studio where it meets with the cat barn. It was a full on pipe burst and we couldn't find the off switch for the studio's water supply. So Aaron had to run down to the other side of the main house along the fence and turn all the water off for the whole property. The cat barn was partially soaked but Wanda's suite was just mud. We finally found the shut-off valve for the studio and got a plumber out to look at it the next day. 

Because the studio wasn't built by professional builders, it's very slap-dash in it's construction. Much of it doesn't make sense. So when the plumber tried to find the pipes that needed to be replaced, they were not where they should have logically been. They turned out to be in my closet. It also turned out that there was more than just one section of the pipe that needed to be fixed. We had to rip holes in the wall to get at the pipes and we discovered the insulation was sopping wet and the pipe looked like it had exploded. One section was cracked and one broke into 5 different pieces or so. A dead mouse was also discovered… what was left of it: the spine and tail. We also discovered mouse droppings which infuriated me. 

With Aaron's help, I put down some snap traps after the plumber had fixed the leaks. Then next morning I had my first kill! The mouse was killed very quickly. It was a very pretty mouse actually. White belly, light brown stripe along the sides and a dark gray/brown on it's back. I showed Carl the mouse and he was very interested, but I didn't let him eat it. We had found some mouse poison left out by the previous owners the day before and there's no way to know if this mouse had eaten any of it or not. I'll assume not, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. Especially when it comes to Carl. 

Lastly, here are some pretty pictures Aaron has taken over the past two months. All were taken with his iPhone and most he used the panoramic feature when shooting the photo:

A view from Post Oak Bridge Rd. This is looking north from the southeast part of the property.

This is an early morning view looking South along Post Oak Bridge Rd.

This is the back barn (you can see Atticus sitting in the field) and the fence along the right side of the photo is where our property ends. So everything to the left of that fence is our property. It goes all the way down to the tree line in the distance and if you turned left at that tree line, you would be facing Post Oak Bridge Rd. 

Aaron's new jeep with Hilda sleeping on it and Wiley on the lookout.

Aaron likes to walk Atticus along the road and he got an up-close meeting with the mules that live nearby.

Hilda hiding out in an old sink vanity on my porch. We are going to try converting this sink vanity to a regular one. I think that's what it was originally. My parents gave it to me. It's from the guest bathroom in their house.

Aaron took this from the southwest corner of the south field. The gray barn is the structure you see on the left. Behind Aaron is the creek.

Aaron took this photo from almost the same south field as the photo above. He was a bit closer and more to the middle of the field when he took this photo. This is the older photo. The one above is more recent.

Progress

Just a quick update!

Here you see we have nailed railings on top of the grow beds. In this photo, you can see one of the pipes not yet installed.

A fuller view of the above photo.

We cut a hole in the side of the liner where the hole in the grow bed is. Then we attached the pipe fittings.

Here is Aaron tightening the fitting.

Attaching the first part of the pipe.

Here you can see that Aaron has just cut a hole in the liner and is now getting the fittings together to install them. Each grow bed has a hole at either end for water to flow in and out of.

Inside the shed you can see the 100 gallon tank we will use for fish. We have to do some calculations to determine how many pounds of fish we will use.

Here is Aaron inside the tank doing some adjustments to the hole toward the bottom of the tank where the water will flow out.

Aquaponics Update and More!

Aaron and I have finally been able to get the liner into the grow beds! We were waiting for the rain to stop and luckily it did this week. Here are some photos and explanations of what you are seeing:

First, we rolled the liner out on the ground next to the grow beds. You can see the other half of the liner  on the ground behind Aaron. We cut it so we would have 18" on either end. Here  you can see Aaron measuring it to make sure it's laid out on the grow bed correctly.

Second, we started stapling the long edge on one side of the grow bed. Actually, Aaron had to do this part alone because of my continuing wrist and hand problems. But I followed behind him and made sure all the staples were tapped in tight with a hammer and also I helped make sure the liner was lined up exactly along the edge. One of the things that was key about stapling the liner down was the order and placement of the staples. It was really similar to stretching a canvas, except with a lot less pulling.

Here is a second view of Aaron stapling down the first side of the first grow bed. The goal is to have a bit of a U shape between the two long sides. The liner should not be flush with ground. This allows for the water, once it's introduced into the system, to hold the whole thing together tightly. 

At this stage, both sides have been stapled and then we started on the short ends. I don't have any photos of that process because I was doing it and didn't think to stop and take a few shots. But the corners are folded like you would wrap a gift and the short ends of the grow bed are the only place where the liner is flush with the wall of the bed and ground.

Here is the first one all finished. It's not perfect, but it will work great! Once we get all the piping laid out, we will be cutting holes in the trough liner so that the pipes can deliver the water into it. You can just barely see a hole already cut into the outside of the short end of the grow bed in the foreground. There is another at the other end that will go to the second grow bed in the background.

My finger got in the way here, but you can still see Aaron posing next to the second grow bed where we have laid out the liner.

Both liners are done. Installing the liners was a very quick step in the process.

The next step for us was doing what we keep referring to as a "dry run" of the pipes. Really what it was, was the two of us standing around (me with the notepad) and talking out how all the pipes will lay out and where. We came to an agreement and then went over the parts that we had and what we would need to get. Then off to the True Value Hardware store in Sparta for all the various fittings and things! 

And well, that brings us up to date. We had to pause the production because Aaron and Atticus have their puppy kindergarten class at Petco. Speaking of Atticus, here's a recent photo:

I suspect once he's full grown, he won't be able to sit under the table so easily.

For size- Atticus is now the same size as Wiley…. and he's only 5 months!

We had some snow here- like much of the country. I was able to snap a few photos:

A Mule in the field across the street peeking at me while he chewed on some shrubs.

The red barn at 7AM.

Wanda One Eye finds the safest place to sleep!

This was last night as the snow storm came in. Aaron agreed to help me winterize the cat's section of the barn. Of course, while we were in there, Wanda had to be there too. I picked her up get her out of the way and she decided she really just wanted to perch on my hand. I made her move to my forearm after this photo was taken. She doesn't weigh much, but my wrist and hands are already in bad enough shape without me taking silly risks…. like letting pirate chickens perch on my fingers.

Later, when we were finished winterizing the cat barn, Wanda refused to leave, so I put together a makeshift roost and put some extra plastic tarp under her to catch all her 'night droppings'. (Chickens do a great deal of their pooping at night) The cats didn't mind and it wasn't a big deal to clean up after her this morning. If she felt she needed the extra warmth and company, I'll happily indulge my little friend. 

You might be wondering how we winterized the barn. Well, all we did was measure the doors, the width and the length of the space. Then we picked up 2 rolls of inexpensive plastic painter's tarps. One of them we unrolled in the house and cut into quarters. Those were for the doors. The other roll was for dropping the roof of the barn to help trap some heat. We just used the staple gun to attach it to the doors of the barn and to the rafters as well. The barn is now much better than it was before. It's not toasty, but it's not drafty anymore and a few degrees warmer too. For me it was important too, because I have turned the cat barn into my workspace. So when I am in there, doing the random things I do, it's much more pleasant. I'll try to remember to snap a few pics.

Lastly, here are just a few photos I thought you might enjoy seeing:

A beautiful sunrise I caught when I slept over at my Parent's house a few days before the new year. This is the view they get from their living room!

Wiley soaking up the sun in the upper field. He's looking towards the red barn, in case you were curious where he is exactly. Just over the ridge to his left is the street and beyond that, the field where the mules sometimes come to.

Chairman Meow chillin' on a beach towel with sneaky Wiley in the background looking surprised at being caught in the cat barn.

The Goon Squad… Carl and Lucy taking a nap on my front porch. 

I leave a folded up towel and fleece for them to sit on out there. Lucy is the cat on the bottom and Carl is on top. This was just before I took him to the vet. We found out that he has a lot of ulcers in his mouth, which could be a symptom of something really bad or just a virus. The Dr. gave me some medicine and now Carl is looking and feeling a lot better! He's softer, brighter eyed and a lot more active. He now goes out every morning and evening for hunting. His medication is still being administered and I look forward to not doing it anymore. It's not fun for anyone to give a barn cat 2 1/2 cc's of medication that he doesn't want to take. 

The last sunset of 2013 as seen from the farm. I snapped this pic as I walked down the hill from my studio off the red barn to Aaron's main house.