Greenhouse!

Aaron is doing a wonderful job of constructing the greenhouse. I have been helping as much as I can, but he's doing most of the work. Here are a few photos of our progress:

Here is Aaron looking at the concrete we got to stabilize the poles.

It's a bit of a mess in the beginning, but this is our first pole, the one we measure all others off of. I think it's the King post or something. Anyway, Aaron dug the hole and the orange thing attached to the pole helps us make it plum.

The pole in the hole. 

The cement in the first hole. Wanda was hanging out with us and while my back was turned she slipped into the hold and made this funny footprint. It looks like a duck footprint to me. I had to carry her over to a bucket of water and wash her little foot off so the cement didn't dry on her.

Aaron checking the second pole. (The Queen post?)

All holes dug, poles lined up, cement solidified and arches assembled. This last pole could not be installed like the others because it landed between two important pipes. So I hand dug a hole and we used a mallet to drive it into the ground. That's what Aaron is doing in this picture. 

After the pole was driven as deep into the ground as we could make it go, we had to  trim the top off with a pipe cutter. That is the tool I am using in this photo.

Here I am with the pipe I just cut off.

The bones of the greenhouse.

We had to put up the middle bar. It has a name but I can't remember what it is. The photo I don't have is that I was on the taller ladder at the other end of the greenhouse clamping down the other end of the bar that Aaron is attaching to the arch.

I was able to climb down after using the clamps to keep the bar in place while Aaron bolted the bar into place.

This greenhouse will have roll-up sides, so next up is installing the baseboards and headboards for that. 

The seeds have been planted for this first round of test vegetables and I'm keeping a close eye on them. Here are the flats they are planted in:

The numbers correspond to the seeds in that section. We have it all written down, don't worry!

The rest of the farm is doing well and we are enjoying the warmer weather though sometimes I think the world will never get green again. I know it will, of course, but it just seems like everything has been gray and brown for so long. That's one of the nicer things about living further north. You get snow, so the landscape changes more in the winter. The snow we have gotten here never stayed for very long and it wasn't much. 

Last Saturday I attended a beginner beekeeper class put on by my local beekeeper association. It was a great class but it made me realize that I'm very far behind on my bee schedule, if I want to keep bees this summer. And I really do! I joined the club and through them found someone who was selling bees. I'll be getting my Queen and her ladies around May 20th. I've ordered two packs of bees. Most beekeepers with any sort of experience recommend starting with at least two so that you can compare the two hives in case something looks off with one of them. I won't have any honey to sell or share this fall, but next year I will. It takes the bees a while to create excess stores of honey and a new hive will need all they have created in their first year to get them through the winter. 

The last bit of farm news is that we found out that our sweet friend Carl the cat (of the Goon Squad) has FIV. Luckily for the other cats in the colony the strain he has is not as contagious as others. He can still share their food bowls and do grooming with his sister Lucy. The other cruddy news about Carl is that his teeth are in terrible shape. He's got ulcers in his gums and it just looks crazy painful. To clean his teeth is approximately $480. I can't afford that, so I don't know what to do. I found out about the FIV from the emergency vet, not the usual vet that we go to. So on Monday, I will talk to our regular vet and find out what I can do for him. 

So not to end on sad news, here are some recent fun photos from around the farm:

Wiley and Atticus cuddled up in their blankets on a cold night.

A beautiful sunset.

We made a fire and sat having whiskey while watching the sunset. Aaron couldn't stop fidgeting with the fire but it makes for a great photo.

Wanda and Amelia in the leaf pile. Wanda is the the up close chicken.

Amelia and Wanda.

Seed Schedule and Wanda Adventure Time

Yesterday was supposed to be the big day. I was going to do all the sowing of seeds for our first crop in the aquaponics test system. And then I woke up with a cold and ended up spending the whole day zonked out on the couch watching Family Guy and sipping chicken broth and tea. Not at the same time.

Today I'm still sick but I took a DayQuil and that has helped me get up off the couch and actually do something. I can't put sowing the seeds off much longer. I have put together a schedule of sowing and transplanting that specifically works around two trips I am taking in the next two months. The first trip, in March, is to Florida to see my Grandma Faye and my cousins Jennifer, Alex and Lily. The second trip, in April, is to visit my friends in NYC and see a play that two of my friends- Casey and Tamar have put together. Casey is the scriptwriter and director and Tamar is the producer. It's called After the Dance and is an interactive play and will be put on in Brooklyn. I'm very excited about both trips. Once I come back from NYC I'll be going at full speed here on the farm, so it will be nice to have a fun trip right before getting my nose to the grindstone.

In regular farm news, Wanda has a permanent roommate. I think I mentioned that one of the other chickens had escaped from the coop and took up residency in Wanda's place. She's been there a while and I've decided to call her Amelia. She likes to roost at night, as opposed to Wanda who usually prefers to sleep in a nesting box. Actually Wanda likes to start her night outside the front porch in the vines and bushes. So now when I scoop her up and take her too the coop for a safe night, I've been putting her on the roost next to Amelia.

Amelia has her own funny way of being. I found her resting behind the nesting box when I went in there Friday afternoon to check for eggs. It's a small space and I didn't know she was there till I heard a funny noise and she peeked her little beany head up over the top of the nest box and clucked at me. She's a funny little thing.

Wanda had a scary adventure yesterday and it's all my fault. My only excuse is that I was really sick and foggy in the head. I had trudged up the hill to the main chicken coop to give the girls some table scraps from the night before. Mostly vegetables. I noticed, as I was going up there, that another chicken had jumped over the gate and was roaming around freely. My opinion is that if they can get out, they can get themselves back in. I haven't lost a chicken to predators. The ones who adventure over the gate always return… so far.

Anyway, I was standing at the gate of the chicken run and started tossing the food on the ground. All the chickens came running, including the ones on my side of the gate. One of the chickens was at my feet and she was making a lot of noise so I nudged the gate open and scooted her inside to the chicken run with my foot. Then I walked back to my studio. (You can see where this is going, right?) Wiley had decided to stay outside and so while I was in my den area, getting ready to settle into a day of being sick, I heard a ruckus up at the chicken coop. When I looked up, I saw they were all jammed up at the front door of the coop. (A different spot than the gate) It looked like one chicken was trying to squeeze her head out of the crack in the door but down at the bottom of it. As I was watching, one of the girls jumped on the one that was closest to the door and all the chickens started squawking and flapping. Wiley came barreling up the hill from wherever he was and they all scattered. Except for one. She just stood there at the gate. She wasn't scared of Wiley and she was looking at the studio….. it was Wanda.
I raced to put my shoes and coat back on to rescue my girl! I got her out quickly and she gave me an earful. She was not injured but she was pissed. I can't blame her. I gave her extra mealworms as a treat and all was forgiven.

Spring Spring Spring!

Down here in Tennessee we can feel, smell and see spring coming. The birds are returning, the bugs are waking up, the bulbs are starting to push their way to the sky and the chickens are doubling their egg laying. And although spring isn't actually here yet- it's obviously on it's way.

I'm enjoying every moment of this part of the season and I hope that spring stays around for as long as possible. Once summer hits, it's gonna be like living in an oven inside of a sauna. We were going to get rid of the above ground pool, part of the pump broke and some pipes need to be replaced. But the more I think about how hot it's going to get in the summer, the more I think I'd like a cool place to get some relief from the heat. But before we get the pool in order, the greenhouse must be built!

This week we will be getting our little greenhouse for our test site. I'll be starting to sow the first of the seeds- indoors of course. First I have to quickly finish the quilt I started so that my work table is all ready for the baby plants. Finishing one kind of sewing to move onto another kind! We will also have to go and get our baby fish, called fry or fingerlings. They will need a few weeks in the tank to get the water full of yummy nutrition for the plants, so while they are working on that, the baby plants will start to grow safe and sound in my studio.

In chicken news, Wanda has been having a slumber party for the past two nights with one of her sisters. I've been keeping the chickens in their run a lot more lately because I'm just so tired of chicken shit EVERYWHERE. And then it gets in the treads of your shoes and then you track it indoors and though we are very good about taking our shoes off at the door, it's still smelly. Also, Atticus eats a lot of it. Which is just disgusting. Anyway, so the girls have been kept in their chicken run lately. Except for a few of them who have figured out how to get out! At first I was not sure how they were doing it- was there a hole in the fence that I missed? Door left ajar? Nope! They are flying over the gate. They flap up to the top of the gate and then flap down the other side. There are two to three girls doing this but only one decides she doesn't want to bunk with the others and has started bunking with Wanda. They don't snuggle or anything- Wanda likes her nesting box for sleeping (even though Aaron made her a beautiful perch for roosting) and the other chicken likes to sit on a shelf by the light switches. I'll have to come up with a new pen for the chickens because soon I'll need that space Wanda is living in for my chicks. Yes, that's right! In the next few weeks I'll be getting some pullets- which are young chickens a few weeks old. I'll be getting a bunch more guinea fowl too.

In creative art news, I'm still learning the art of book making and still enjoying it. There is a set process to it and I'm still working on that. I decided the best way for me to approach this was to just make little books the same way over and over again so that I master one process before moving onto a different technique. It's a challenge, but I enjoy it!

I'm also (as I mentioned before) working on finishing a quilt. I found the pattern in a book from the library and it's called diamonds and crosses I think. It's scrappy and I'm doing it in very trendy colors. I'll post a photo once I'm done.

Of course I'm still painting and drawing. Most recently I've been working on the logos and title for our farm business. Here's what I have so far:

This is what we would use for stationary and other things that just need a simple design. I think I'll flip the leaf so that the darker half is on the bottom….

This one is still in sketch form. When I'm done, it will be a full watercolor painting and I hope it will end up being our main logo on our products and our vehicles. 

Well, that's it for now! I usually have a lot of photos to share but I've not downloaded any in a while so I'll make that a separate post later. 

Something About Something

I've had the song "Too Much Time On My Hands" by the rock group Styx stuck in my head for about a week now. If you don't remember the song, here's a taste:

And I've been avoiding telling anyone about it, especially my Mother, because it's just too personally ironic for me. It would be hysterical if someone else in my exact situation had that song stuck in their head, but thinking about the irony as it pertains to ME just makes me simmer in a vat of guilt laced with a fair amount of dread. I'm unsure of where the feeling of dread is coming from. I'm not the most extreme worrier I know, but it's in my blood… hello Aunt Jeanie! Anyway, I can easily and quickly get myself whipped up in a froth about many insignificant and distant situations. One of them is about how, and to whom, we will sell our produce to. In all honestly, there are SO MANY steps between where we are right now and where we will be when we are ready to start selling to grocery stores and working with distributors; that it's truly ridiculous to worry about it now. It's not ridiculous to do research, write out promotional materials, sales pitches… things like that, which I've done and continue to refine.

This whole aquaponics adventure is such uncharted territory that it's exciting and terrifying all at the same time.

Now on to the regularly scheduled update….

As I write this, I am sitting at my new table. I had been eyeing a table at a second hand store. I'm so much like my Grandma Jan with my love of second hand shops. I could spend hours in a shop scouring it for treasures long forgotten. A few weeks ago, after a lunch in town with my brother and Mom, I begged them to go into the West Side Antique Shop with me. I saw this adorable little table that is just the right size! It's old- probably from the 30's or 40's and has a white enamel top with black edging and white wooden legs. The price was $95 and I went home and thought about it. Did I really need it? Was there another table that was just as good but less expensive out there? After a while, I decided I really did like that table and I should at least go back and look at it once more. Well, lucky me! Not only was it still there, but as I was looking at it the owner said she would drop the price to $80.  So when I went to go pay, the bill actually came out to be over $80 with tax.  I only had that much money on me and the lady couldn't take credit cards. She offered to take a check, which stumped me for a moment because who still walks around with a checkbook in their purse? Who, even, still takes personal checks? Anyway, I told her I'd come back with more money and asked if she could just hold the table for me for the day. She didn't want to, and instead just took my $80 and called it even- she said she'd take the tax out of that. So now I have this awesome little table that looks perfect in my studio and is (finally) a place I can eat breakfast.

The chickens have been free-roaming around the farm for a few weeks now. They love it. And for me, it's fun to have a entourage since they pretty much follow me everywhere while I'm outside. They have lost their initial fear of Wiley, so most of the time I am walking with a dog following me and closely behind him there is a horde of 9 chickens running along. Every once in a while Hilda will get in on the act and trail behind the chickens, stopping for her occasional grooming obsession but eventually she stalks off looking annoyed. She has zero patience for anything that isn't directly related to her eating or being held and petted.

The problem with free-ranging chickens who like to follow me around, is that they will follow me right back to my studio and then hang out on my front porch. At first it was cute and funny. Then the poop. Oh the poop! LOTS of poop. Poop EVERYWHERE. And when it dips below freezing? Frozen poop nuggets! Actually, I prefer when they freeze because then it's easier to scrape them off the deck. So the poop is just everywhere and I'm sick of it so for the past two days I've kept the chickens in their coop and chicken run, which is a huge enclosed space. It's still technically free-ranging. They have plenty of room to wander around and do their thing, which is apparently pooping a lot, but it's contained. Wanda is not so happy about this because even though the flock often freaks her out and she can't forage near them because it's all too intense or something, I think she does enjoy their company. The guineas are useless for socializing.

So I'll let them out in a few days. I just need a break from all the poop.

The only other thing I will say is that I have started to learn the art of book binding and I am LOVING it. Don't be surprised if you receive a homemade book from me sometime this year. I wanted to pick up a hobby that wasn't painting and I tried a bunch of things but this… this is great fun and combines my love of art, books, sewing and, making useful things.

So that's about it for now.


Instead of the usual photos, I'll start off with a few videos. These are ones that I have taken over the past few months and have only now uploaded to youtube. The quality isn't awesome, sorry! Anyway, the videos first:

Hilda caught a vole or something like that and Aaron was able to catch some footage of her running past him with it.

The guineas make a huge alarm call for a lot of different things. In this case, one of them had gotten himself separated from the flock.

Wanda One-Eye found a guinea feather and seems to be playing with it.

Atticus gets Wiley to play with him in the upper mid field.

Carl suns and grooms himself on the hood of my truck.

And now for just some photos:

Atticus and Wiley on a snowy day.

After a long morning of playing with Atticus, Wiley takes a nap.

The chickens are massing…..

….I think they heard me…

Spagetti squash seedlings in the back, cosmos and zinnia in the front.

My girls' egg on the left, the store bought one on the right. In the winter the chickens don't lay enough for both Aaron and I to eat so we supplement with store bought. These ones are free-range, grain fed, organic… the whole nine yards. Both eggs were tasty. I assume the eggs from the store are made by chickens of a different breed and younger than my girls. It's interesting how different they are.

Wiley wasn't feeling well one evening and so I found him like this. He pulled the blankets off of the couch and made a nest.

Another amazing sunset.

This one is a bit tough to see- but that's Chairman Meow in Wanda's coop and you can see Wanda just behind him. He was hanging out with her on a very rainy day, which was sweet because I wouldn't let the chickens out since it was pouring. If I had, they would have all taken refuge on my porch instead of the coop.

Carl and Lucy on the lookout.

All 5 cats! It's rare for them all to be having their kibble at the same time. Hunting must have been tough the night before. From left to right: Lucy, Chairman Meow, Hilda, Carl and The Himalayan. I should hold a contest to name the Himalayan. 

And that's it! Thanks so much for reading and I will be posting a map of the farm soon. Also, I welcome all feedback! 

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.