Ah, I spent the afternoon at The Farm today and once again my soul is restored.
Roxi followed Dad & I through the woods around behind the Big Pond to see the new beaver dam. It was around 50 degrees and everything looked beautiful and wintry but it felt wonderful.
This is at a little creek that feeds the pond where we used to-no
still do-go netting for crawfish and salamanders in the warmer months. We saw this
big deer sign. He must be a monster, especially for this area, our white tail don't usually get too big.
We grew up riding horses through these woods and everywhere else. It's a kid's, and a dog's paradise! It's also a grown-up's paradise. I can't imagine life without this little piece of Heaven, don't want to anyway.
Here is Miss Roxi checking out the newest beaver dam. She loves going in and out of the water, it must be the Lab in her! She's growing up just like me; weekdays in town, weekends at The Farm, and she loves it just as much!
Where you see the horizon in this shot used to be woods, until very recently. It's still hard for me to "compute" the new landscape, the old familiar landmarks are all changed. Well, not all of them. We all decided to be happy about it when "The Old Butt Hole" who owned the dam side of the pond died and it was sold off to a farmer who cut his trees for crops. He was nice about it; he could have cut every last tree on his property where it meets ours but he didn't. No use crying over spilt milk. Besides, last summer while floating around out there I thought how it somehow makes the whole pond look bigger, and cleaner having some trees cut.
Here is a beaver lodge; Dad stomps on it to see if he can scare the beaver out but they don't fall for it today. They are nocturnal and
very crafty. Dad hunts them at night all winter until they're usually all gone. It's simply a matter of keeping the pond intact; oddly, all their efforts to dam up the pond to make it bigger would wind up causing the "real" dam to break and all the water would come rushing and gushing out.
The "real" dam is right here where this beaver lodge is located. We used to ride the horses across the dam to where the beaver dam is and take the horses swimming. Then muskrats moved in and started honeycombing the dam with these holes. They're so numerous now it would be impossible to ride a horse along here without the likelihood of him breaking a leg in one of these.
Now, you would think the beaver would concern themselves with the business of patching up all those muskrat holes wouldn't you? But they don't, they stuff sticks down in some but not all of them. Now that would be a neat symbiotic relationship, well not in the strictest sense, but it would be cool if the beaver would at least make themselves useful while they're busy cutting down trees!
Here are some of their "works in progress":
This picture is taken from the dam, the flat land you see here used to be woods until recently. Do you see Roxi out in the cold dead duckweed? She's sleeping in bed with me tonight, and I'm too tired to bathe her...that's the beauty of short haired dogs, they're self cleaning.
She was tuckered out the whole ride home. Doesn't she look perfectly clean? My little sugar toed princess! Here it is, 10:30 on a Saturday night and we are both ready to hit the hay. I can go to sleep with visions of woods, deer, beaver and muskrats dancing in my head...
She has the good smell of the farm & the pond. You know how smells take you back in an instant? When I put my nose in her fur it's like I'm 5 years old, in Dad's old Smokejumper's dark green down filled sleeping bag camped out in the springhouse, listening to a deafening chorus of robust bullfrogs and tree frogs, the smell of pond muck still on my hands...
I'm going to pull Roxi close to me tonight so I can dream of Farm things.
It's Halloween time again! Isn't it festive? I just love the vintage Beistle look. It's not an exact copy, the original has a cat head! I'm partial to skulls myself.
...isn't this creepy and delish?
Here are some little tombstones after texture and gesso waiting to be painted. I am really looking forward to that part! I'll get to it tomorrow for sure.
But I got sidetracked making a 10th birthday present for Zoe. I wanted to cobble together a super cool Halloween necklace for her. I have a few pieces made waiting to be put together like some glass circles with pictures of skulls or black cats decoupaged on. Wait, this can be like a Richard Scary book...can you find one near the scissors and the other near the needle nose pliers?
It's really getting past my bedtime but I let my creative mind wander and now it will take some doing to get my mind ready for sleep.
.The great thing about having a dog is, she won't let me lay around too long. She's well mannered about it, when she thinks we've layed around long enough she sits up in bed like this. She doesn't pester me, but she looms over me until I give in.
It's been one of those days where you never shake that sleepiness. I guess that's okay for a January Sunday. But sooner or later even I will myself to get up off my lazy butt and get something made.
I'm using dry florist foam, it's so easy to cut into and shape, I just have to keep my shopvac at the ready to suck up all the little "dust" it creates. I cut, then vacuum, cut then vacuum; a friend of mine would pick on me about this saying I am being OCD! But I can't deal with all those gritty green little particles everywhere, it's unsettling!
I made a urethane mold last year of some skulls and now I can pour plaster casts of them to my heart's content! These are the perfect size to adorn the tops of some of my tombstones. I have a few different styles, inspired by Charleston's oldest graveyards.
We grew up riding horses through these woods and everywhere else. It's a kid's, and a dog's paradise! It's also a grown-up's paradise. I can't imagine life without this little piece of Heaven, don't want to anyway.
Here is a beaver lodge; Dad stomps on it to see if he can scare the beaver out but they don't fall for it today. They are nocturnal and very crafty. Dad hunts them at night all winter until they're usually all gone. It's simply a matter of keeping the pond intact; oddly, all their efforts to dam up the pond to make it bigger would wind up causing the "real" dam to break and all the water would come rushing and gushing out.
The "real" dam is right here where this beaver lodge is located. We used to ride the horses across the dam to where the beaver dam is and take the horses swimming. Then muskrats moved in and started honeycombing the dam with these holes. They're so numerous now it would be impossible to ride a horse along here without the likelihood of him breaking a leg in one of these.
Now, you would think the beaver would concern themselves with the business of patching up all those muskrat holes wouldn't you? But they don't, they stuff sticks down in some but not all of them. Now that would be a neat symbiotic relationship, well not in the strictest sense, but it would be cool if the beaver would at least make themselves useful while they're busy cutting down trees!
This picture is taken from the dam, the flat land you see here used to be woods until recently. Do you see Roxi out in the cold dead duckweed? She's sleeping in bed with me tonight, and I'm too tired to bathe her...that's the beauty of short haired dogs, they're self cleaning.
She was tuckered out the whole ride home. Doesn't she look perfectly clean? My little sugar toed princess! Here it is, 10:30 on a Saturday night and we are both ready to hit the hay. I can go to sleep with visions of woods, deer, beaver and muskrats dancing in my head...
She has the good smell of the farm & the pond. You know how smells take you back in an instant? When I put my nose in her fur it's like I'm 5 years old, in Dad's old Smokejumper's dark green down filled sleeping bag camped out in the springhouse, listening to a deafening chorus of robust bullfrogs and tree frogs, the smell of pond muck still on my hands...
I bought four Blue Willow divided cafe dishes over ten years ago envisioning this very meal served from them; the meat in the largest section, the peas and mashed potatoes nestled snugly in their own segregated compartments. Wow, these dishes are truly from the era of segregation; you don't want your different food groups touching each other!
My best vein has finally scarred up so I don't use it anymore; too bad, it's the most comfortable site to stick. Now we're using the one on the inside of my right forearm; the "junkie vein" as I think of it! It kind of grosses me out, plus for some reason it hurts more than the crook of my elbow did. I know that sounds bad, but this spot always conjures up images of heroin junkies with their forearms all purple and infected. Grody.
Anyhow, it went smoothly except the part where I had to wake up from my short nap. I told myself I was going to go home and get in bed, but I didn't. I don't trust myself to nap at home, I'll end up sleeping 4 hours.
