The Front Porch Swing

[LBejaran]

Laura! I just checked out your painted eggs! You do a really great job! I love to paint, but I'm not sure I could paint on a small egg like that. Good Job!

Thank you! I don't know how the heck I got into it, but I guess I've just managed to get better and better. My first egg was actually this Little Red Riding Hood egg that was actually a game hen egg, so it was smaller than average and I just painted on it until the picture made sense. From there, I tried abstract eggs, geometric eggs, and eventually moved back to my full-image eggs. It just feels better for there to be an entire story on an egg. I didn't get that same feeling of satisfaction from the other styles. Well, I did with one, but then my cat jumped on my drafting table and knocked it off, breaking it into pieces.

Still haven't quite forgiven him for that...

x2 Laura, why not get some ducks. Give you a greater canvas.

Hehe, I have a muscovy duck who has been providing me with a few super huge eggs, but I just haven't blown them out. I don't think I've ever blown out duck eggs before, to be honest! I know cracking them is a different experience, though. The shells don't seem to shatter, but they kinda stick onto the membrane and they just don't really break like normal eggs. Wonder how that will change my blowing process.

By the way, here is egg I just finished. I worked on it last night and this morning. I only have today to finish the other egg so Mom can give it to her friend at school. I really hope she likes it!

 

[LindaB220]

Absolutely nothing to do with chickens but I came across this funny today. It really made me laugh.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=273434869502558

 

[heartsizedfarm]

This was nice to catch up with everyone. Nice to have your news and stories to read with a cup of tea after two gruelling days work.

We decided to build a swan pond for the injured swan who came to live with us last winter. My vet and a swan sanctuary lady said he is a poor candidate for re-release into the wild because he's quite elderly and arthritic and has lost some webbing to turtle bites. So he hangs out with the chickens.

So yesterday morning a man came to dig a big hole in his yard, nice sloped sides, and yesterday afternoon a man came to dump a load of gravel in the bottom of the hole. Well the gravel man got stuck in the wet ruts left by the digger man and so he dumped his load of gravel on the side of the hole. DH is away for a few days so guess who got stuck shovelling the gravel into the hole with Eddy the swan looking on and honking with impatience.

Then it started to rain and I got soaked while setting up hoses to run from the rain barrel into the pond and from the tank that takes the run off from the barn roof downspout.

But he looks happy! I'm going to go into the woods and dig up some edge of pond vegetation as soon as it stops raining. And collect him some duckweed. Anyone want a picture of Eddy in his happy place?

 

[enola]

 

[Tomtommom]

But he looks happy! I'm going to go into the woods and dig up some edge of pond vegetation as soon as it stops raining. And collect him some duckweed. Anyone want a picture of Eddy in his happy place?

You have to ask? Ofcourse!

 

[heartsizedfarm]

Somewhat of an upgrade, I hope he's thinking.

 

[perchie.girl]

Somewhat of an upgrade, I hope he's thinking.

OH he soo needs a girlfriend. What a handsome dude Good job HSF

deb

 

[Beekissed]

Got a busy day today so I'll be popping in and out, and likely be "mostly out". Every year Cowley does a town wide cleanup for a week. That's when we can all set stuff out on the town right of way and our town crew picks it up and hauls it off for free. They take everything but tires, batteries, paint and bricks, and refrigerators must be freon-free. Other than that the sky's the limit - and believe me sky high is how big some people's stacks of junk are! All the town wants the homeowners to do is separate the stuff in the piles...metal, windows, wood, trash...for the recycle truck. Lots of people use this time to go searching through stuff that others have discarded too, so that helps get some of it recycled too. It's a fun time here despite the work. Then on Saturday we all meet at the Log Gym, don our orange vests, and divide the town into quadrants.

Each group takes a quadrant, works it by cutting tall weeds that have sprung up with the warmer weather, trash, trimming tree branches for our older folks, checking for broken sprinkler heads on Main Street's "green belt", and just generally cleaning up Cowley from winter's messes. We all meet back at the Log Gym and check in, and those who were out cleaning get their tickets for the free barbecue. And we give away trees too. Lilac bushes, cottonless cottonwoods, etc. for anyone who wants them. This year we also ordered some aspens, so I'm gonna grab one or two of those myself. This year will be odd for me. It's the first year I haven't been physically able to wear the vest and walk a quadrant, but I'll be helping with the barbecue instead.

We'll be cleaning out the garage, getting rid of stuff that's accumulated around it, and the junk that's tucked into the corner of our fence line out to to curb today. The garage will be the worst because Ken is such a pack- rat. And I can get rid of our old stove, a hopelessly trashed lawn mower, some of the kids' outdoor toys that have been played to death and can't be fixed one more time, and boxes of old junk that wouldn't bring a dime at a yard sale. Jenny already did theirs, and right now her place looks terrible with all that junk out in front! LOL Tammy didn't have much this year, but hers is already out too. We're the late ones in the family so I need to get on my cleanup clothes and get busy.

I wish every town had such a thing as this! Getting a town to agree on such a plan of action and then having them delegate people to implement it is nothing short of a miracle! Wish I could live near a town like that.

 

[heartsizedfarm]

OH he soo needs a girlfriend.    What a handsome dude  Good job HSF

deb

I may have to resort to that. He is, as they say of some of the dotty old gents in my mother's retirement community, "exit-seeking".

And the local coyotes are hoping he will succeed, so creating contentment is the order of the day. Bingo, shuffleboard, cribbage, classic movies, dancercize, tai chi, whatever it takes right?

 

[TexasLisa]

Quote:

Somewhat of an upgrade, I hope he's thinking.

Wow, he is beautiful!. How lucky you are to get to keep him.

Lisa