New Artwork and New Chickens

Well, I have let several months go by without posting! It's been pretty busy, but I have managed to get a few small paintings finished that I'm pretty happy with.

First, here's a picture of our sweet, silly chickens chillin' on the swing about a month ago:



About a week after I took that picture something got into their pen and killed every single one of those chickens. They were due to start laying eggs sometime this month and were most certainly pets for us. We were really crushed to find them all dead that Sunday morning! Gosh, it was sad.

A few days later, our neighbor gave us some new chickens for David's birthday! They are now about six weeks old. They are Barred Rock chickens, which are one of the few varieties of chickens that you can tell what gender they are by their color when they are tiny. We have ten hens (pullets) and one rooster (cockerel).



A couple of months ago, the friend who gave us our first chickens gave me a photo of one of their roosters- the father of several of ours. I really enjoyed doing this little painting from that photo- what a beautiful rooster!



Several weeks ago, David and I went to the northern part of the state and spent some time there with my parents. Jon was sick and had to stay here! One day while we were there, we went down to the river and let David swim. The rest of us sat in chairs by the water and chatted, and I painted this little painting of a boathouse across the river. I loved doing this painting and am really happy with it!



A couple of weeks ago, I did this little painting based on a photo I took several months ago of some flowers in a flower show. I can't remember what they were, and I've changed them quite a bit. I love the colors in this!



I hope the next few weeks will be a bit more relaxed; I hope to do some more painting. I have to say, though, that I have painted quite a bit more this year than I realized! It has been a blessing.

Have a wonderful October!

Deer, pickles and a bunny

Deer in the back yard on Saturday! If you look carefully at the last one, you'll see six deer running out of the yard. :)




Last week we made pickles with cucumbers from our garden, added to those our neighbor gave us!! YUM!!




Monday the three of us went for a walk on the land behind our garden. We came upon a rabbit before the walk opened up to a beautiful view of a field. What a beautiful world we live in!





David found an overlooked zuchini. Wow, look at the size of that! :)

We've decided to let him have his own blog and he created his first post today. Please visit and let him know what you think. And if you know how I can change the profile on his and still keep it connected to this blog, please let me know!

http://snakeman-david.blogspot.com/

Recent Artwork

I haven't posted much artwork lately, but I have been painting. Two of the most recent ones are gifts to the two people who responded to my "Pay it Forward" post, and I wanted to finish them both before I posted them. I intend to put them in the mail this week. :)



The dogwood painting is for my high school friend Mona Helen in California. She said she misses the dogwoods the most, so I'm sending her some of her own!



The pansies are for a fellow artist, Deborah, in Michigan. I have to apologize to each of these ladies for taking such a long time to get these to them. I haven't forgotten but life has gotten in the way!

I've done a couple of fun sketches completely different from my usual style, and they were fun. :)





A couple of months ago I picked the white iris and just had the urge to do something different! A few weeks later a friend and her kids came over, and we walked across the street to the lake. The children fished and Marie and I visited while I did this rough sketch of the lake. I didn't have the courage to put the children in it. Maybe next time!



I did this one last week after finishing the pansies, and I love it! It's different, too, but it was a lot of fun.

Last Friday I participated in Summer Night, an outdoor art evening in our local downtown area. Quite a few artists had their artwork on display and for sale, and many stores remained open extra hours. I saw lots of folks I haven't seen in a while, and enjoyed myself very much!

Garden Update

Two interesting things happened this week (without pictures): 1. We had a black racer (snake) dash off across the yard one afternoon while we were sitting under a pecan tree and reading. It must have gotten impatient waiting on us and decided to head out! It was under the tree and we didn't see it until it started heading towards the woods. 2. Friday, David and I were reading under that same tree and saw a turle laying eggs in a flat spot under a crepe myrtle next to the house! What a surprise. Interesting to watch, too.

Well, I promised some garden pictures, and so here they are! They aren't terrific because I took them early afternoon. They are too bright. I hope you enjoy them anyway!

First, in the last several days we've seen a ton of beautiful May Pops, also called Passion Flower, in the field around the garden. I haven't seen these in years!!!

Here's a baby canteloupe, one of several that have started developing. I have never grown one all the way to an edible size, so I'm pretty excited to watch this get bigger! It is about softball size right now, but the rest are coming along behind.

This is a watermelon, one of several also about softball size. I've never grown a full-size watermelon, either! I'm eagerly checking on the melons daily, praying they survive and we'll get to enjoy them!

I also planted sunflowers at David's request. They are a small variety and a pretty lemon yellow. All that greenery around them is tomato plants with lots of little baby tomatoes.

Here's one of our chickens, getting bigger all the time!

Here's a picture of some apples growing on the tree I walk under on the way to the garden. I absolutely LOVE apples and am having a hard time refraining from picking these already. I love little green apples...

These are what I've picked in the last couple of days. We've already made pesto 3 times with basil from the garden, and have eaten some squash and cucumbers in salad. How wonderful!! We feel so very blessed.