Stella's Social Club

[Cynthia12]

My skin cancer wasn't even a mole. It was a flake of skin that was reddish and kept flaking off. Tiny little thing on my nose. It was squamous cell and beta cell cancers. Yikes. They did the mohs procedure and half the top of my nose was gone. They brought flaps from the cheeks up and covered my nose. Always get checked esp. if you were in a family of farmers or worked without a hat. A dry flaky spot is sometimes as bad as a mole. Now back to our chickens.
I just ordered 3 hens and a roo from piglet , they are buff orphingtons. Yeh!!

Buffs are always a pretty bird in a yard of chickens.

 

[1muttsfan]

Rinda, your kids, goats, ducks, chickens - All lovely.

 

[lonnyandrinda]

Rinda, your kids, goats, ducks, chickens - All lovely.

Your new profile pic is awesome, too! Our hives are packing on the honey, we had a slow start with a cool dry spring but the last week we have had frequent small rainstorms interspaced with bright sunny weather. It's going to be a good honey season!

 

[1muttsfan]

Thank you - they are loving up the dandelions like crazy. Love to see them zoom into the coop with their big pollen britches.

The crazy teenager chicks are finally starting to get a little more social. Since they hatched they have had fits of hysteria whenever I am around, but now the SFH's are starting to get curious. I think cooping them with my little Silkie hen has helped a lot, and she is very happy at not having to tolerate the rooster's amorous advances.

 

[1muttsfan]

Awwww

http://themindunleashed.org/2014/05/watch-happens-mrg-reunited-donkey-friend-jellybean.html

 

[Happy Chooks]

Broody #1 has hatched, 6 new barny chicks.

I thought you were going to switch her out and give her Icelandics?

Our hives are packing on the honey, we had a slow start with a cool dry spring but the last week we have had frequent small rainstorms interspaced with bright sunny weather. It's going to be a good honey season!

I hope we have a great honey season too! I have my 2nd super on my hive now, they had already finished most of the first super.

 

[Happy Chooks]

My Broody #2 is an olive egger that has never hatched babies before. She did squish one baby a couple of days before hatch and it didn't make it. But she hatched 6 yesterday and is doing wonderfully with them. (5 welsummers and 1 barnevelder) I moved her to the "private" broody area last night for her to teach her chicks eating and drinking. In a week or so, I'll let her out in the flock with her babies.

 

[robhuncor]

So glad to hear about all the bee-keepers here! I don't have any myself but I love honey bees. For several years we had honey bees living in a hole in our big white oak and they swarmed several times. I couldn't get anyone to come and collect the swarms.

They left and I don't see any around here anymore, just pest bees. My "chicken buddy" friend in the next town just started her own hive a few weeks ago so I'm excited about that.

 

[The Sheriff]

My Broody #2 is an olive egger that has never hatched babies before. She did squish one baby a couple of days before hatch and it didn't make it. But she hatched 6 yesterday and is doing wonderfully with them. (5 welsummers and 1 barnevelder) I moved her to the "private" broody area last night for her to teach her chicks eating and drinking. In a week or so, I'll let her out in the flock with her babies.

Good girl!

 

[The Sheriff]

My food photography class is over.

This week's assignment was light painting. We had to shoot in a totally dark room. The only light we could use was a tiny penlight. The shots were set up and focused with the lights on then we had to turn the light off, open the shutter on the camera for 20-30 seconds and paint the light on the food. It's hard! really hard! I got light all over the place. You also get double and triple shadows ( bad) so you have to be careful how many times you illuminate one area. Anyway, here are my shots. I'll condense George's comment because he went waaaaay off into technical stuff for the rest of the class, referencing photos in the lesson.

I told him that my backdrop fell on my scene and ruined the food and I fed it to the chickens. The last part of his critique was suggesting supports I could buy to keep the backdrops in place. I thought his last sentence was cute!






My critique:

Hi Mary

Your styling and composition, just as in your previous images, is very well done. The image of the fruit tart needs more light coming from the side or rear, to accentuate the fruit on top. If you look at the crust you can see some shape along the sides, but as you get to the center it flattens out. With something like this, I assume, you want the eye to be drawn to the top. However the eye is naturally drawn to the brightest part of the image; in this case it is the crust. Light painting takes a little practice and, in time, you will get the hang of it. You have a great eye. Your work is very impressive. Keep working with this method and in no time at all you will be seeing outstanding results!

PS I use backdrop stands such as this, http://www.adorama.com/PH83430.html to either hang material/backdrops from. For smaller items I'll use a reflector holder similar to thishttp://www.adorama.com/WEPBRH.html. It has clips on each end that you can lock in a thin piece of wood or foam core board. Although none of this info is going to make the chickens happy!

George