Give Thanks

 All of the girls, myself, and Chigger wish all our American friends a very happy Thanksgiving!!  I am very thankful for several things this year.

 I'm thankful for little improvement in some of my health issues.  Well.... mainly knowing what they are now and hoping that from that I can improve things.

 I'm thankful for loving companionship.  Wherever it comes from.

 I'm thankful that I finally figured out that Gertie here had an ear infection and that I was able to successfully treat it.  She had me going for about a month but I finally figured out the problem through a lot of research.  We cleaned her ears out, which is as hard as you might imagine, gave her some meds and she is back in the game!  Running around biting everyone like she so enjoys.  And she's able to sleep on the roost again!  No more sleeping in a tub on the floor.

 I'm thankful I've been able to try my hand at a new art and craft.  I'll try to show ya'll soon what new stuff I've been working on.  I'm having fun with it.  Maybe I can make some money with it too.

 I'm thankful for old friends and new ones too.

 I'm thankful for food growing in our garden despite that horridly bad drought we are in.  Here's really hoping and praying that drought ends soon.  It's seriously getting really bad.

 I'm thankful for the ability to see beauty in everyday things.

I'm super thankful that I was also able to help my sweetie Peepers.  She had developed a really bad pendulous crop and food was not getting through her system.  She had started to lose weight and everything.  I took a couple of pairs of socks to chop up so I could make a suitable "bra" for Peeps to wear that would hold her crop up and close to her body so that it could empty. For about 10 days we went through a routine of making her drink water with digestive enzymes and massage, because her crop had gotten very hard, since it could not empty correctly.  She did not enjoy this to say the least.  Even less than she enjoyed wearing her bra.  But, one day while massaging I felt a 'goosh' and I think the plug clogging her crop flushed on out and it started emptying.  It took another 5-6 days but her crop finally emptied totally and she started pooping real, solid poops!!  I know ya'll are thrilled to read about my chicken's bowel movements but I tell you, I was ecstatic!  After about 2 weeks or so I took her bra off and she's been okay but I am keeping an eye on her.  I think she may be prone to this problem, especially if she loads up to too much scratch feed.  So far so good though.  Sorry..but Peepers, Pumpkin and Zuzu are my sweet little spoiled babies and I'd be heartbroken if something happened to one of them.  It hurts me if I can't help ANY of my girls but some of them are just extra special and friendly.
So, Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Fall and hope everyone has a great weekend!!

Pick Up The Pieces

 So I promised to show ya'll a few photos of some actual work I have done around here.  I was never really enthused about the idea of painting this bar wall, so when it hit me to sheath it in pallet wood I jumped on that. Allen had been scrounging pallets for me for months and I had stripped a lot of them down to usable wood where they were just waiting for finishing.  So, I finally bit the bullet and sanded, stained, painted, sanded again, and patched for two days to get enough planks to do these 2 walls.  I didn't make a lot of effort to hide any patches, dents, or bangs in the wood.  I mean, it's obviously pallet wood and obviously reclaimed, so there's the "charm".  Ha! Anyway, I thought it came out rather well.  The corners are done in 1 1/2" angle iron and these make helluva good corner guards..  The iron is just stuck on for now because I'll have to take it back off and cut to fit when I run the finish floor and baseboard.  In person it looks better.  The color is a bit washed out in this photo because, due to low light in the warm months in my house, I have a devil of a time getting decent photos.  I often have to use a flash and it just doesn't look right.

 This photo is a little better but it's a little washed out too.  Anyways....I finished this counter top and back splash and wanted to run a little of the glass tile just to see how that was going to look.  I'm very pleased with this but please note; the tile has not been grouted yet, so it will look a little different when finished.  This gives me a lot of motivation to keep going.  I'm very anxious to get the kitchen finished because I think it's really going to be awesome.

 However, I had to take a break from all that and take advantage of the fact we are in an extended drought.  I have needed to fix this basement wall for years after I discovered just how much rain floods down the mountainside during the winter rains.  If the rest of the house were built this area would remain dry but.....we all know that has not happened yet so....I have to treat this as if it is forever an exterior wall.  Which meant chopping the bottom 2 feet off of the wood framing, forming a 4 inch thick wall and pouring it in concrete.  Here you can see the girls inspecting my forms.  It came out real well.  I even played around and did a faux board formed look on the outside.  This 11 foot section is a little less than half of what I need to pour but it's the worst part of the problem.  I admit I should have done this to begin with..but I did not realize the amount of water etc. around here.  And I was under the supreme delusion that the rest of the house would come along soon enough. Ha!!
Anyways, this form has been dropped, the wall sheathed back, and also insulated and covered on the inside.  Snug as a bug!  I'm now running multiple shelves on the inside in an effort to better organize the basement and my studio there.  I'll rub the exterior of the concrete here, below grade, to produce a smoother finish, then waterproof heavily and backfill.  There is still no sign of any rain anywhere in our near future so I shouldn't have any issues finishing this in the dry.

I also thought I'd take advantage of the drought in other ways!  We have ample dried foliage, leaves, flowers, grass and any things else you can think of here, so I gathered up a armful of stuff, a couple handfuls of feathers via some molting chickens and threw together this autumnal wreath.  Not too shabby I guess.  Certainly was cost effective.  haha!

Low Profile

Thought I'd share a few photos of some sneaky critters that I've spied around here lately.  I know I've been laying low too.  Not felt real good these past couple of weeks, plus, my old decrepit desktop 'puter finally gasped it's last breath and so I've had to transition over to my laptop that mostly sat unused.  It had been acting up for some time, so I had enough sense to get all my photos off the desktop and onto another drive but had not quite cleared all my documents off when it finally gave up the ghost.

I had a few more pics of these dragonflies but they have been misplaced somewhere in the move.  And...although I was able to transfer all my photos to this laptop, it somehow (or I did) just dumped ALL of them (a couple thousand photos) into one big folder, all jumbled up.  On the desktop I had everything in various folders, such as all chicken photos and so on, but now everything is just in a wad.  *sigh*  I may never get all that straightened out.

So anyway.  I'm here.  I am slowly making progress.  Some days I feel better and some days I feel like hammered hell.  I'll try to post again soon.  I do have a few little things to show yall.

Oh, and if there are any locals that want to drop by, I am selling the last of my pottery!  Some good deals here!  Well, no sales tax anyway..Haha!  I have mostly dinnerware type stuff...bowls, plates, a few mugs etc.  Let me know if you wanna come take a look.  It may be the last stuff I make (pottery wise) for a looong time.

Hunting Bears

 Over the last several years I've read quite a bit about numerous wild animal species making comebacks in population or starting to appear in areas that they previously were though to be gone from.  Not necessarily extinct but just far removed from those original areas.  This is all good news to me.  I'm happy to see many wild animals growing in population.  I know when I was a kid we never saw deer around the area I grew up.  That was something that existed far, far away in other parts of Alabama.  Now, when I go down in the pastures when I visit Mama, deer trails and tracks are a dime a dozen.  Unfortunately, coyotes have come with them, but so far they tend to stay far away from houses.  Fox are common now, as are ground hogs and various hawks and other wild fowl.
Knowing all this did not prepare me for what I recently found in my driveway though.  A couple of weeks ago, on my daily trek to the mailbox, I spied some very large and very deep claw marks right in the drive, which is hard-packed chert and gravel.  I came back and took several photos, as you see below.  At first I thought, it must just be a very large dog.  But after measuring them....I thought, that'd have to be one big ass dog.  There were four claw marks with the outer ones being a good 4 inches apart and about 1 1/2" between each claw.  That's just the claws, you see.  The paw would be even larger.

 There were actually several marks but this was the one most clearly defined.  The scratch was over 2 feet in length also and, as I mentioned, in some very hard gravel and dirt.. We had not had much rain in a while when this was done and the ground was just baked.  In fact, we have had several very heavy rains since I took these photos and some of the marks are still slightly visible, they were so deep.

 I suspected it was a black bear but figured everyone would think I was nutty.  I mean, Alabama does have black bears.  They travel quite frequently through our state on their way to and from the Smokies and Florida.  But they normally stay over on the east side of the state because they can make a great deal of the trip within the confines of the Talledega National Forest.  It's a little unusual to see them over this way.

 Then, I found this tuft of hair not far from the claw marks a few days later.  It's very matted and coarse.  I suppose it could very well be dog hair but it just didn't seem like it.  So.  I got all my stuff together and paid a visit to our local county extension officer.  He's real nice and likes to chat so we dropped in his office and I showed him all my evidence.  To be honest, I expected him to laugh at me.  But...he looked over everything and said, 'Yep, looks like you have a bear!'  I wanted to not be thought a nut but I also didn't want to know I had a bear on my land!  Mainly it scared me for my chickens and for Chigger.  I don't think she's courageous enough to go after a bear, by any means, but I encouraged her to stay up by the house as much as possible and made sure the girls were locked up way before dark.  The county guy said he figured the bear had well moved on by now; that it was probably just passing through, but I wasn't so sure.  I haven't seen any signs of anything lately though, so hopefully he's right! 

In other rare sightings, I actually won 2 prizes at the art show that I was recently accepted into!  I got 2nd for the metal sculpture I showed ya'll a few posts back and got an Honorable Mention for another small sculpture.  I won a little money with that too, so that was nice!  I was very happy and grateful to finally have some success.  At the end of the reception, the judge (a professor from the U of A in Huntsville) made a point to stop me to talk and compliment me on all my work.  He claimed to be very impressed with the welding, which I thought was kinda humorous.  However, he did understand that it's a bit tricky to weld cast iron to mild steel and he appreciated my efforts.  Of course, I told him who my professor was that taught me how to weld and he understood then.  Where I went to school, craftsmanship was of great importance, as it should be.  Didn't matter how great of an artistic concept, if it looked like shit then it was shit in their eyes.  "The craftsmanship should always be appropriate to the piece".  I might as well as had that tattooed on my forehead as often as we were told in school! They weren't kidding either.  If you couldn't muster the craft of building things (or painting etc), there was none of this, "oh, it's the concept of the piece blah, blah, blah." They would tell you to get your shit and get out of their class.
At any rate, from this show I was also offered two other opportunities to exhibit my art and I am very excited about that.  I'll tell ya'll about that in a later post.

Let Your Love Grow Tall

 The garden as a whole has done very well this year Some things, like the squash and zukes, have about pooped out at this point and are not as full as this photo shows anymore.  In fact, I've pulled up about half of them.  The corn there is much, much taller though.  The corn in the new expansion has not done as well but that soil is new and very lean, so that's not unexpected.  I am getting some corn to eat but it's not real full.

 The stuff in the concrete block is still doing well but must be watered often.  We were in a bit of a drought there for a while and were watering practically every day.  Fortunately we have gotten some relief lately and are not having to water as much.

 The cukes have slowed way down but are still producing some.  Maybe I should have staggered their planting a bit.  They have been very tasty though, not bitter at all and I've heard a lot of folks complaining that a lot of the cukes from the farmer's market have been very bitter.  Lack of water I guess.

 So, we have been getting a great harvest this year, especially with the blueberries. They have been fantastic! and I've kept them all to myself!  haha!  Actually, we have given some to my mom and other family but I have frozen a bunch.  The cucumbers are Marketmore btw.  I'll grow them again I imagine.

 The tomatoes have been a mixed bag, literally.  The Snowballs are great! (that's the cream-colored ones). Very tasty, mild flavor and I don't seem to react to them badly.  The Golden Jubilees are great also but I've grown those before and knew I liked them.  In fact, I've been so happy with these because they are from seeds I saved.  The Green Zebras....well...I'm not even sure if I got the correct thing.  What I think is the Zebras taste okay but I'm not real impressed with them either.  The Black Cherries are great as usual (old favorite) and I have some other red ones that honestly...I don't even have a clue what they are.  Every plant (that's red ones) looks totally different.  The tomatoes I mean.  One plant kinda looks like Cherokee Purples or Black Krim, one looks like giant Black Cherries and then one other is just a nondescript red tomato.  Who knows?

Anyway, they're pretty!  So, social media to the rescue!  Facebook certainly has it's drawbacks but I have found it's great for selling stuff.  So...I just put the word out on the weekends and so far I've about sold out every Saturday.  I'm not making a ton of money by any means but it's paid for some of the stuff I bought to improve the garden this year.

Of course, I am keeping most of the fruits of our labors for ourselves. In fact, tomorrow is a big canning day.  I've got peas, beans and salsa ready to go, so tomorrow morning will see the ol' pressure canner in action once again.  We still have a fair amount of jams left from last year so I don't know that I'll do much more of that but I might make some pickled okra to give away.  Sadly, I really can't eat it anymore but I know several people that enjoy it and we are getting a good bit of okra this year, so...!  It's an easy gift.
How goes your garden this year?  Or do you depend on the farmer's market?

Been Caught Stealing

Hey Folks!!  it's really me!!  I am back for a little post.  I have a little bit of an excuse for being away so long this time, as we did a little more traveling and I've been busy doing a few little welding projects for other people.  But other than that I've just been a turd for not writing. lol!

I wanted to address a certain question I was asked in my last post and then I hope to get back to posting about the goings on around here (our garden is doing real well this year) and some stuff I've been up to.  But first, the question and reason for that title.
One of my longtime, faithful readers asked me if I could share more images of my art (such as what was in that last post) and if I could make the images larger.  Okay, I have no idea how to make the images larger.  When you do a post, Blogger gives you 4 different sizes of images to pick from.  I always pick 'large' so it shows up well in the posts.  I have tried 'x-large' but for some reason that makes it where the image is so large it bleeds over into the text and side stuff.  Sometimes if you click on the image it will take you to another page where it enlarges it and sometimes not.  I have no idea how to make them any larger than what Blogger will allow me here.

Now, on to the trickier answer for the other question.  I know my longtime readers are on the up and up as far as my images go and most all people are actually.  Many of you have asked me for permission to use my images for backgrounds and what not and I'm perfectly fine with that.  However, I have learned the hard way, and not just on the Internets, that you can't just blindly trust.  So, I will probably not be sharing very many images of my sculptures.  Pottery is one thing, because it is so individual.  It's extremely hard for even good potters to throw just like someone else.  Other art is different.  Now, I am not under the delusion that my art is SO wonderful that people will want to steal it or try to copy it.  However, I have had some crazy things go viral from my images here that I never would have guessed.  For instance, the post I did years ago about the rebar handrails I made; that has been shared and pinned literally thousands of times (best I can tell) on Pinterest and a number of other sites dealing with houses, DIY, etc.  Not one person ever asked my permission to share my images or information.  It never has bothered me a whole lot because, for one, the rebar handrail was not my original idea.  That's been around for a while.  And two, all of the pins and posts I have followed always linked back to my blog, but who knows how many others did not.  There was one other post I did that has also been pinned a lot but I can't remember what it is right now.  It may have been the stained glass window I made for the bathroom.

Anyway, the image below is part of the answer also and just goes to prove that some people will steal anything, either in real life or online.  This is a rock I used to have that I found here on my property.  I loved it because, as you can see, it is perfectly heart-shaped and was rather large.  Probably 6 inches across or more.  It sat in a very prominent location in one flower bed because I liked it and liked to see it every day.  Well, after a visit by some "friends" one day, I noticed shortly thereafter that the rock was gone.  Very few people come to visit me here so I remember things like that pretty well.  I remembered the rock well because I liked it so much and it stood out because of where I placed it.

I cannot prove those people took it and I will admit I may very well be wrong....but I have looked everywhere for months and months and it is nowhere to be found and the timing would be a very odd coincidence. 
When I was young I was very trusting (naive) and then when I got out into the real world I learned some hard lessons.  Not everyone that calls you friend, is.  And what's more, they think you don't notice.  Even people that claim they love you dearly will deceive you.  Repeatedly if they can and no matter how much they know it will hurt you.  And now, in a world with the possibility of total anonymity via computer, you really can't trust anyone.  Hell, disagree with a person on Facebook (or in my case, prove their false propaganda wrong) over even some trivial matter and some of them are so psychotic you will have to pull out all the cloak and daggers to get away from them.  I do not want to make my blog private due to the large amount of construction information that it contains.  If there is the possibility that could help someone out there I'd rather have that.  But that means I have to limit some other information from now on.  I will not be sharing any plans for the future either other than just very general stuff (see Facebook reference).  I do not mean to implicate anything about any of my long time readers.  On the contrary, it's the people that have never made their presence known that would probably be up to something.  Or those that just happen by.  In this day and age though, I just think it's best to be prudent with certain information.  I hope you all understand.

Cherry Bomb

 Well, once again I did not mean to stay away so long from posting but things have just been a little bit of a struggle lately.  I'm making a little progress on the allergy front but not much at all on the arthritis part.  Still a lot of pain.  I did go for a week or so with very little brain fog so that was nice; I was very excited about that.

 On some good news though...the garden is doing great!  We even had enough cherries off the tree this year for me to make a small cobbler with.  Wooo doggies!  It was good.  The chickens really love the cherries too and fortunately the tree is actually in the garden where they cannot get to it.  I suspect I would find them up in it otherwise.  I give them the fruits that the birds have picked on and they just go nuts! Even going so far as to physically knock each other down to get to the cherries first.  They are so funny.

 The peas are doing well although at this point they are kinda on the downhill side.  Being a cooler weather crop they are not lasting long in this hotter weather.  That's fine though.  I've frozen plenty and I'll pull these up and plant green beans in their place I think.

 The cauliflower and broccoli did real well also. We had enough to freeze some also.  I'm slowly pulling up the spent stalks to give to the chickens and am not sure what I want to plant there next.

I didn't realize until I went to do this post that I haven't really taken much of any photos lately; especially of the garden so ya'll are just getting a few scraps, so to speak.  I'll try to get out there and get some new pics soon.

And I had promised ya'll a photo or two of the new art work I am working on...so here is one new piece.  I've actually been doing a series of these and have one more I want to do.  My new direction is not going very well though, although I am very pleased with how my new work is coming out.  I've been turned down by absolutely every show I've entered this year; photography, sculpture.... everything.  But I will not get discouraged.  I like my new work.  Hell, with the setbacks I've faced over the past few years, this is nothing.  I do need to transition to something that is going to make money on a regular basis but I will keep on with the sculpture too.

Cinderblock Garden

 Our garden this year is off to a great start due to the early spring and my actually getting off my butt this year and starting quite a lot of things from seed, rather than waiting on the local stores to get stuff out.  Seems they are always late.  Plus, they don't have the greatest variety of plants.  This is my first year growing radishes and I am stoked!  They came out so beautiful and SO tasty.  I've been making a radish/ cucumber salad that is to die for.  I mean seriously good.

 I wanted to experiment with more raised bed gardening so we are slowly transitioning over to large concrete block beds.  We get the blocks from a local concrete company as seconds (although I can't see much wrong with them) so it's much more affordable than buying new block.  Not the most attractive things in the world but you can make them look okay.  Beautiful plants like thins growing in them makes them much more attractive!

 This is the old strawberry bed that never produced a whole lot and was terrorized by moles and wild violets.  I dug the whole thing out, laid mole barrier in the bottom, refilled it with enriched soil and now it's got a bumper crop of broccoli and cauliflower in it.  We have a local farm that sells the best strawberries ever, so I'd just as soon buy from them.  They are reasonable and organic.

 Seems we'll also have a bumper crop of blueberries this year too.  This is especially great because blueberries are very anti-histamine and I've found a recipe for a coconut milk, blueberry, mango smoothie that is wonderful!  I have one several times a week now so I'll be freezing quarts and quarts of these these beauties this year.  Not so much jam but that's okay.

 I was attempting to till up the okra space but the girls commandeered it for bathing.  They thought it mighty kind to make that bath space just for them.  They have all been through their spring worming and are laying pretty good right now so they deserve a few treats!

 One view of the new raised bed area.  I've planted most everything that you see in those starter pots and it's all well on it's way at this point.  Still have not finished planting the main garden but we are getting close.

We are also experimenting in planting in double size concrete block.  Seems to be going okay at this point.  This is an old photo and these sugar peas are well over the top of the fence now and making little peas!  If we have enough stuff we are also going to try selling at the local farmer's market this spring.I'm all for it though, if we can produce enough stuff!  I think we'll have some different things, more heirloom veggies and stuff but whether that appeals to anyone in this area remains to be seen.  Anyway, we'll have lots of fresh veggies and fruits and it's very gratifying to grow so much tasty food!

Sorta Silent Sunday

 Just a few scenes from this beautiful spring we are having here.  I hope the weather is nice where you are.

 I am trying to get together a post on more of my allergy findings and treatment.  The past few days I've been dealing with one of my headaches though...so it's going a little slow.  I am making progress with the allergies but there is a lot of backing up and punting going on as I learn!

 I'm very excited about some new sculpture I've been doing and I'll show ya'll soon.

 I'm also trying to get over the idea that I have to post a long, drawn out literary work every time I want to put something up here.  I think that's why so many bloggers get drawn away from blogging and over to Facebook.  A few photos here with no text is just fine too.

A favorite spring delight!

Mind Over Matter

 Gertie was enjoying her sun bathing until Marlena flopped down on her head.

 Just a few random photos for ya'll to let you know I'm still here.  Most of this past week we had the most gorgeous spring weather and it was very much enjoyed by everyone.  We've been very busy with the garden and such and I've been busy trying to get set up to do sculpture now instead of pottery.

 It is just a complete struggle for me to come up with anything to post about though.  I fear that I have totally lost my mojo in that department along with several others.  I was doing pretty good but have slowed back down to a crawl lately. Not sure why.  I just don't seem to have much enthusiasm for anything anymore.

 I still see the beauty in things around me though.  I exercise every day that I can.  I'm trying to find new outlets for my art.

I love to sit out with the girls on sunny days.  They make me happy with their chatter and one or two always want a hug and petting for a while.  I guess their attention to me makes me happy.  Funny how even a little critter can make you feel loved.