My Art Is Going to the Dogs These Days

In December, I ended my part-time job in order to focus on making art and  farming.  It was a tough decision to leave a wonderfully flexible job with great people and a noble mission--for the unknown.  After all, I do need to make an income to support my farming habit!

Amazingly, no sooner did I give  my notice than I got requests to create a bunch of paintings! Currently, I am working on a set of large, whimsical dog portraits for a senior care facility. The nine dogs (plus one parrot) are the nursing home's therapy dogs.
This is Juda, the beagle.

Dickens is a little fuzz-ball shi tzu pomeranian. (I am more of a big  dog person - not very good with little dog breeds.) It was tricky to capture his canine-ness; he looks a bit like my big fluffy cat Orange.

Bea is the most adorable  dachshund puppy.

Six more pooches to go.  This is so much fun! By the time I complete all nine, I may be the official dog-portrait artist of my community!

Murder After Murder

Nutmeg and Cocoa spend hours a day on the trail of rabbits.  Usually, we see a rabbit run by along the edge of the woods, followed a few minutes later by the dogs  hot on its trail, and a few minutes after that, the saucy rabbit has circled back, successfully eluding them.

Yesterday, one of the dogs had a rare hunting success and killed a young rabbit.  I hate that, but I admit that the garden will fare better with some rabbit population control.

This morning a bunch of crows were in the yard, feasting on the frozen rabbit remains.  A group of crows is called a "murder of crows."

Upscale Scale

Introducing our newest tool: a digital scale, which is NSF-approved for use in a commercial kitchen.

This little baby will get lots of use. Rog weighs his ingredients when he bakes bread and I weigh my sprouts when packaging them.  Occasionally we need to weigh a cut of beef or a chicken.

This scale has a rechargeable battery so we can also take it to the Farmers Market to weigh produce.  The built-in calculator will even figure out the price! 

Wordless Wednesday Eve: Wolf Moonrise

Wordless Wednesday: Tracking through the Snow

By the Light of the Silvery Moon

Another show-and-tell, our second attempt at carving spoons.

On the left is Rog's wonderful thin spoon. It looks delicate, but the buckthorn is very strong, hard wood. The end of the handle flattens out vertically (like  a muskrat tail, my friend Vera exclaimed) but you can't really see that in the photo.

The sturdy spoon on the right with the undulating handle is mine. I am very pleased  by how it fits my hand, not to mention the sensually smooth texture of the wood.

A Bit of Sunshine (Finally)

As I went out to do chores late yesterday I regretted that I hadn't spent the entire afternoon outside -- the sun was shining and there were long shadows on the snow.  At least I caught the last half hour of sunshine.  It's a scarce commodity these days.

Wovel, lying in wait for its next tour of duty.

The pasture, striped by tree shadows.

Nutmeg wants in through this gate.

Cocoa wants out through that gate.

The cows waiting  for supper. The barn looks so naked now without the huge old silver maple tree at the corner.

Aren't you going to put that camera away and feed us? This thing is empty!

The cows used to stretch their necks up to pull out bits of hay to munch. Now the snow, hay and frozen manure have built up so much around the feeder the cows must reach down to browse.  I'm eagerly awaiting a January thaw in order to shovel it out.