January Chicken Report

Just a quick post on my chickadoodles. The are lookin' good. The molt is over and the the feathers are in.
Here's the Roadie...

She is our attack chicken. She's just one gene short of being a rooster. I don't trust her. She tends to walk alone and she jumps at the coop door in the morning when we come out to give the chickens their scraps and fresh water. Red is pushy and disagreeable but she's a good brown egg layer... and she is looking really good right now.

Then there's the Plymouth Rock. This is our big bird. She is a great hen and a good layer. She lays a large  light to medium brown egg with a touch of pink. and she seems to mingle well with the other big hens.

Her only bad habit is that she picks on Squeekie, our Bantam hen. She doesn't really harm Squeek'.  It's more just her size that makes Squeekie run. The Rock kind of walks around  with an air of, "I'm the biggest and I don't have to fight over anything. I only have to walk up and take what is rightfully mine."

 The Ameraucanas follows the Plymouth Rock around and get along with everyone. We have two of them. The Ameraucana's have tails and muffs unlike the Araucana breed. The all lay blue or green eggs.. or somewhere in between.

All the big hens are looking really good in their new spring feathers.

And then there's Squeekie, our sweet little Bantam hen.

I want you to know that this is her 10th year. She is a little old hen with a charming personality. She doesn't lay eggs anymore and she's dragging one of her feet. She must have had a little stoke or something. But this doesn't stop her. She free ranges with the other hens and can keep up with any of them.

She is a beautiful Belgian Bearded d'Uccle Bantam that, possibly because of bad breeding, does not have a beard and she is not booted. (consist of long feathers covering the legs that look like boots.) Squeekie is a mille fleur variety of this bantam. Mille Fleur describes the plumage associated with this bantam. It's very beautiful and  distinctive, The Mille Fleur plumage consists of  dark, brown feathers divided by a black bar and tipped with white spangle. I should have named her Milly, but Squeekie is more accurate. Her sister, Henny Penny and our Bantam Rooster, Napoleon, are gone. She is the lone survivor of the bantam flock.
I love this little hen. She is a chicken in a million.

Squeekie was checking out the cat box in the garage, the other day.

Yes... our outdoor cat has her own cat box in the garage and uses it exclusively... and she likes it kept clean.
Squeekie checked out the cat's box and Annie watched her the whole time. But Annie never went over and discussed it with Squeek' or chased her away. I guess the have an agreement.. an understanding. Looking is OK, as long as Squeek' doesn't try to use it.
Annie is very patience with the chickens. I think she is a little afraid of them. She sits and watches them. She will even follow them around sometimes, but always at a distance and always with caution.

So the hens are laying again. The molt is over. We got three eggs a day this week and today we got four. Four eggs a day is plenty for us and the neighbors. So what do I use these beautiful eggs for, you ask?

Well, today I made some cookies.
Mixed up the dough...

And then... before I cooked them...
I ate some cookie dough.
It's tradition. Fresh eggs allow this indulgent behavior.
A bad habit that, in 50 or 60 some years, has never made me sick.

Thank you Chickadoodles.
Keep those eggs flowing.

Small Cactus... and Lemon Martinis

The Prospector decided to start a Cactus garden this year. Just a few cacti in some pots. I don't have a problem with this, but they seem to be multiplying. It started out with two cacti in one container and now...

We have many different kinds of cacti in three containers. Where will this all end?
I will admit that I have had nothing to do with this. He bought them, planted them and arranged them on the  small stand, on the front porch, that I was under-utilizing anyway. I'm not complaining. They are very pretty. So different than flowers... more rugged and defensive, but interesting. He waters them, feeds them and seems to enjoy his little grouping of succulents. I just never know what this man is going to find delight in and worthy of his interest. Life is short... we all need to find small things that make us happy. He has found an attraction to these prickly plants.
I like to take close up photos of them. They are symmetrically beautiful. Maybe that's what he likes about them. I will ask. Whatever it is, they make us both happy. It's a small pleasure.

For Christmas the prospector bought me a Meyer Lemon tree. He knew I wanted one and when I actually told him that I would really love to have one, it was almost a guarantee that I would find it in the living room on Christmas Day. It's a dwarf and he's building a big planter for it near the deck. We decided to keep it up near the house where we could protect it (instead of the vegetable garden) because we can get to it more easily and cover it on freezing nights.
We have not had many freezing nights this winter, but we do once in a while and I have lost a couple of citrus trees because we didn't protect them on cold nights. In fact, the weather is so mild this winter, it's like Spring right now. Warm days... cold (but not anywhere near freezing) nights.  All the plants and trees are a bit confused. They are all getting little buds of growth. The lemon tree is no exception.

It is ready to bloom and start its little lemons. I hate to think what will happen if the weather turns on us. Guess we will have a little lemon tree in the livingroom at night. I have big plans for this tree and its lemons. I'm not loosing the tree to carelessness this time.
 I'm personally waiting for these lemons in anticipation of lemon pie, lemon shortbread, fresh lemonade and lemon gelato, homemade Limoncello and... listen very carefully... Lemon Meringue Martinis.
 Yes, Lemon Meringue Martini. Doesn't that just roll right off of your tongue?
We're talking, Limoncello, whipped vodka, half and half and crushed graham crackers around the rim of the glass. Who says you have to be sad when life hands you lemons?  Life is short and when my little Lemon tree hands me lemons... I will be ready.

Speak to me of love...

Before Christmas my sister and I decided to make a "box" for each other as a Christmas gift. I'm finally getting around to showing you what she made for me.
Will you look at this...

She took a plain wood box and created this beautiful piece of art for me.
The most amazing thing about it is that she used one of my favorite poems by Mary Oliver. It's called How I Go to the Woods. She knows me and understands how I feel about solitude.
She wrote the poem all the way around the sides of the box...

And the last amazing lines of the poem are on the top.

The box is covered with lace and shells.

A butterfly is watching from the corner.

In the moss... a small bird and a nest that she made, with pearl "eggs" in it.

There is a photo of us with a heart attached.

This is a very special gift.

Thanks Sis. I'm so lucky to have a sister like you.  I will always take you with me into the woods, because I love you very much.
Here is the poem by M. Oliver... one of many that speak to me.
Have a wonderful day.

How I go to the woods

Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single
friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore
unsuitable.

I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds
or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of
praying, as you no doubt have yours.

Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit
on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds,
until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost
unhearable sound of the roses singing.

If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love
you very much.”

~Mary Oliver~

The Addiction of book altering

My sister, Lisa, was here last week. She left on Thursday and we miss her.

Carl too...

It was her birthday. She chose to spend it with us.
We shopped the thrift stores in town for old books.
Let me tell you why.

When I went to see my friend in Isleton, for her birthday. I gave her a book on folding book pages as art.

It was filled with ideas like this,

and this...

I was so inspired that I got on line and found out how to start folding pages and I made my friend an altered book as part of her gift. It was really fun to do. Very simple... only done by folding the pages and using a little glue in some places.

She was delighted and I was inspired to make more.
When my sister arrived, we decided to devote most of our week to making one of these books. That's when we headed to the thrift stores to find some old books that would work for this project.

Wonderful old books that we didn't have any attachment to and didn't cost more than $1.50 a piece.
I showed Lisa the video that I had watched. I shared my vast knowledge (Ha!) of book page folding with her and off we went, into the land of creating art from old book pages.
She started off a bit faster than I did. . She sees an idea in her head. I see the start, but never the end. She sees the process. I see the "Oh, my gosh... look what's happening?" as I move through the concept. We both started folding pages. She couldn't wait to start painting and shaping the idea that was already forming in her head. I was content to fold triangles different ways and found it soothing to bend and fold each page.
This was her beginning...

But, I didn't get a clear photo of her final piece. I will get one from her and show it to you in another post. It's wild and whimsical with extra pages shredding and flying out of the folds like fireworks. It's beautiful and creative. I was trying to work on mine as the same time and I thought I had some decent photos of hers. but I didn't. Wait until you see it. WOW!
Mine started out with basic folding and then I started snipping the edges of the triangles.

And folding them in different directions.

 I also took words and sentences from the story and added them to the blank pages on the left an right side of the book.

Then  I stained the pages with a wash of Vandyke brown and some nickel Azo gold acrylic paint to make it all look old.

The painting was done with layers of different colored paints that I let dry as I layered.

I finished the lighter colors and then added some brown and black to one side. The book is about a war in England when Rome invaded southern Britain about 44AD.The Romans were pretty brutal and so were the Druids. So I wanted one side of the book to look like it had been through a war. I painted the left side with dark brown and black as if it was burnt. I also use a red paint to signify blood.

Since these  photos were taken, I have added more "blood" and I'm thinking about burning some of the pages on the left side to really give it more battle scaring. It's amazing how much you can do with paint  to add darkness to the pages.
The right side is about coming through the war and starting to recover... seeing the sunrise and finding human emotions like love again.

There is no burning and blood on this side... only recovery and healing.
At one end of the arrow that pierces the pages, the red feathers say

wounded beast... through the darkness... exhausted and battered... terrible injuries. When it comes out on the other side it says, "Oh, I see... an arrow." as if the arrow has no where to go and becomes lost in the air. Losing its power, it's then caught by the bright sun before it can do any more damage.

One side is dark, black and bloody filled with, "Fragments that penetrate the human body." and  "approaching enemies". The right side is filled with a night sky washed with the pale glow of dawn, where a man comes home to breezes blowing through the forest and his woman is waiting for him.
I enjoyed working on this. Wish I had read the whole book before I altered it. I kind of read pages as I was pulling them out or when I was cutting them up.
It's not quite done, but almost. What do you think about burning pages on the left side... just a little?.

I've started working on a new one. It's an old hymnal with lots of old Christian songs.

This is becoming quite an addiction.

( The war book was called When the Eagle Hunts, by Simon Scarrow)

Annie in love?

It seems that my cat, Annie, is in a serious relationship with the mountain lion statue.
I was coming up the road, from my walk, and there she was touching noses with the statue. She saw me and the silliness began.
"Who's your friend Annie?"

When I said this, she rubbed her face on its head and got kind of goofy....

she started rubbing back and forth like animals do when they like each other. 

I think it's time to get her another feline companion. She's having fantasies. She has been alone too long.

Revival of an old Chinese building

Do you remember when my friend first moved to Isleton and I took some pictures of some of the buildings on the main street in town? One of the buildings was the Bing Kong Tong Society Building.

And this was the condition it was in until the beginning of last year. 

Well... take a look at it now.

This is what a few dedicated people can do with the help of ...

... its local Historical Society, stabilization grants, SHRA(Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency ) and The California Cultural and Historical Endowment (CCHE).
The inside still needs to be finished but this may be the beginning of saving these old buildings from falling into decay.
This building has been restored to its former historical splendor, with gold leafed wood symbols on the second floor that were meticulously recreated by a local artisan who lives in town.

The attention to details was considerable, right down to the light fixtures and metal siding.

This building now represents Isleton's history with the respect it deserves.

Wordless Wednesday: Birding on Staten Island Rd near Walnut Grove, CA.