disjointed thoughts

Well first I guess I have to say that the results of last night's American Idol vote are a complete outrage. OUTRAGE. I am horrified that Melinda was voted off, I was going to vote for her to win. I can't stand Blake! Every time he does that stupid move where he turns his head to the right I want to flick him! Erg!

changing thoughts...

The horses are back on pasture turnout now, and Gwen is doing MUCH better. She's not moping around all the time, she's even been running around a bit, and she already looks like she's putting weight back on. Yay! Shylah of course only has to look at a blade of grass, or a dirt clod, or an air molecule, and she instantly starts to resemble a hippo. I'll have to keep an eye on her and maybe limit her turnout time or she will get absurdly fat.

....

My last hatch of chicks will be this weekend. I have a couple batches of eggs in there for other people though, and those will be finished up by early June. I remember when I used to hatch for 12 weeks. That means 12 weeks of brooder-cleaning, 4 brooders per week...ugh! This year will only be six weeks, so that's much better!

I am selling hatching eggs! See Random Rosecombs for more info, http://www.rosecomb.com/random.

....

I have a high school reunion this summer. Crikey. I don't know how it has possibly been long enough for it to be reunion time. On one hand it was a zillion years ago. On the other hand I still remember where I ate lunch, where I parked my car, etc. It could have been a year ago. So... what to do. Seems like about 2/3 of my friends are NOT going, and I'm pretty tempted to skip it too. $89 to get in?!?! Cocktail attire, I'd have to buy a dress... Do I really want to see everyone? Some yes, most no. I was never popular! Will I be the only one from the entire class who doesn't have a date? Quite possibly. Why does this feel like prom again? So... the message I seem to be getting from friends is they are saying "everyone I want to be in touch with is on myspace." Okay, I am the last one in the universe without a myspace thing (really do I need one more online distraction?!) but maybe it's time to do that. Would sure be cheaper than $89 and a cocktail dress, and that sinking feeling of walking in alone. Hmmmm. Maybe in another ten years when I'm a household name I'll put it on my list of things to do. ;-) HA ha.

....

So what am I doing now that the Standard is done? No shortage of things to do! I have several art show deadlines in the next couple weeks, and would like to do one more piece for Draft Horse Classic. It's time to start the new direction of chicken art, a combination of traditional and digital. I have paintings to do. I am finally redoing the art-for-sale section of the website... a new shop, a new venue. I have website clients who want major work done. No shortage of things to do!

quiet victory

Raise your glass, here's to me. I am done with the drawings for the American Standard of Perfection!!! :-) It happened at 12:59am today, the last time the pencil touched the paper for the last pair of drawings, that feeling of knowing they were complete. It's pretty weird to be done, but oh my gosh it's good, it's like being released, moving on... It's been a lot of things, an honor, an accomplishment, a headache, a frustration.... My skills and technique have improved so incredibly much, I've added a huge amount of art to my portfolio. But there have also been some hard lessons learned, mistakes made, and things I will never do again. I've learned a lot about art, about business, about my time and how much I now value that. It's good to be done. It's been years. What a ride...

I'll post the art soon, I'm hoping for feedback from one more committee member.

chickies!

I hatched a bunch of Bantam Buff Laced Polish for a friend, so that's what all the yellowish poofy-heads are!



Awww, adorable no matter how many times I've seen it!

dog fashion show

Tonight was the Second Saturday art walk, and 4 Paws Pet Boutique (where my paintings are for sale) held a fashion show in conjunction with a clothing boutique. It was quite interesting. No art has sold yet, *sigh.* I'm wondering if it would be better to just do prints and then market the bejeebers out of them and try to get them into MANY boutiques. Might be worth setting up a table to pimp art out front of the store at a Second Saturday this summer. If anyone actually showed up to see me and you got there after 8, sorry you missed me. I was hungry, it was crowded, nobody knew me, I left. :-)








It was evening, low light, I didn't want to do flash photography so I shot everything at ISO 800. It was an experiment. They are pretty grainy, but the lighting is decent.

the overachiever

The overachiever, there's one in every batch...

Batch 4 chicks

Another one of those entries that'll be way boring if you aren't into chickens... this is last weekend's hatch.

Pen #B: Golden Duckwing OExRC male X Black, BBRed, Blue Brassy Splash females = 2 GDW?, 1 Blue Brassy Back, 1 Brassy Back, 1 Brown Red
Pen #E: Brassy Black (Black sport) male X Blue Brassy Back females = 1 Brassy Back, 1 Blue Brassy Back
Pen #T4: Cuckoo male X Cuckoo females = 1 Black
Pen #T5: Black male X Birchen OExRC and Blue Silver OExRC female = 1 Black
Pen #N1: BBRed male X BBRed and Brown Red females = 1 BBRed, 2 Brown Red
Pen #N2: Black male X Brassy Back females = 1 Brassy Back
Pen #N4: Black male X Black females = 1 Black
Pen #N5: Black male X Black females = 2 Black, 1 Brassy Back (sport, this happens from my blacks sometimes)

So yeah, really small batch. Two more batches to go, 5 and 6 should be bigger, and 5 has a bunch of Polish and Old English that I am hatching for a friend.

baby horsies!

Yesterday and today was my annual springtime whirlwind trip up north to JC and DC's. You know, as if I hadn't seen enough of I-5 in the last week... Oh my gosh, you would not believe what I saw on the way home. 10 feet off the side of I-5, grazing in a field, near the Colusa County line-- seven pronghorns! What, are they stalking me now?! Before Saturday I'd never even seen one in California! It was all I could do not to drive off the road I was gawking so much.

Anyway, had a very nice visit, saw some super cute horses, made brownies, all the usual stuff! :-)

Hey look, horses!

TH Aragorn, yearling Gypsy stallion (Shylah's future boyfriend, hmm?):






Nuboso TH, week-old Azteca colt:




Torbellina TH, week-old Andalusian filly:

random thoughts

I was amazed, this weekend, while driving down I-5, how much more dry it is this year than last year. I did almost that same drive in April 2006, and although a month can certainly make a difference, it's more than just timing. It was like driving through a desert much of the way, whereas last year had been pretty green. I saw a pronghorn antelope just north of the grapevine out in what looked like maybe a wheat field. That was pretty cool, I'd never seen one in California before. I've seen them before though, somewhere, where was that... may have been in Wyoming.

Sometimes I have the urge to travel more, but I could never be one of those people who is on the road constantly, who practically lives in a motor home. It's hard to be gone for long, it means getting someone to take care of the animals. I wouldn't trade that responsibility for anything though, they keep me sane (well, sort of sane, except when they themselves are driving me up the wall). I have an opportunity to go to Idaho next month. I'd like to go, I'm just not sure I can pull it off. 600 miles of driving all alone? Can I do that in a day? Can I afford to do this at all? Hmmm....

More chicks hatched this weekend. It's a really small batch though. Two more weekends to go. There should be enough of everything, I think, and if not c'est la vie I guess. I feel pretty overwhelmed with the birds lately, even though I culled out about a third of my breeding flock a few months ago just to get my numbers down. Sometimes I really think about cutting WAY back, but I can't bring myself to do it. It takes a certain number of birds to maintain enough genetic diversity, and there aren't a lot of people I would entrust with an entire flock. Can I cut out a whole variety? Yes, I can sell the Cuckoos, I don't think I'm going to be happy with them. Can I cut back numbers? Maybe, but I've already whittled the breeding flock down to the cream of the crop. If I shipped birds it might be better, but I haven't done that for 7 years and I don't even know if I still can. It's SUCH a pain, the postal service is so picky. The weather has to be perfect, the stars have to be aligned (not really). And it's nearly two hours of my day just to take them to the west Sacramento post office, and at a time when I already need to devote MORE time to art and marketing and LESS time to chickens and whatnot, well, I just don't know.

It's hot. It's 91 degrees. I don't like this. In a perfect world it would not go over 80.

Gwen (my older horse) seems to maybe be going downhill. I can't be sure though, I don't know whether she's depressed or hurting, so I'm not getting too worked up about it yet. Probably some of both (depression and pain) because I'm sure she always hurts from her founder-related foot problems (she can't walk on the gravel at all now that's not wearing shoes, but then I'm not sure if it's worth subjecting her feet to the wear and tear of getting shoes nailed on, since I don't ride her anymore) and since she and Shylah are both penned in the corral til the pasture dries, I suspect she's mopey and depressed too. She and Shylah have a very different attitude about things. Sure, it's boring in the corral, but Gwen just gets mopey and listless, whereas Shylah manages to entertain herself watching the chickens/dogs/cats/neighbors/me and really doesn't spend any time moping. Gwen used to eat fast and then finish Shylah's food. Now she doesn't even finish her own hay, and she's losing weight again. The pasture will be dry in another week or two probably and I can let them out again. If that doesn't help, I'll put her on daily pain meds. At 19 or 20, she seems like such an old horse. When Thunder (my first horse) was in her early twenties she still seemed young and full of energy, she loved to run... until she foundered at 24 and only lasted a few months after that. If that hadn't happened I think she would have lived to be a very old horse. I don't think Gwen will make to old age. Of course, you never know, and this is certainly not the end and I would not even consider that, but it's a time when I can't help but be aware that she won't be around forever. I will do everything in my power to never let Shylah founder, it is a horrible thing.

catching up

Okay, so I've been a bit lax in the blogging department lately... It's been nuts. Where do I start? 14 hours ago I was 380 miles south. But I digress.

I was house/dog/fish-sitting for about a week out of town, though close enough that I could still come back here during the day to feed and take care of my own critters, and theoretically to work of course, but that all went to heck. My grandparents were visiting here (from San Diego) at the same time, so it was pretty hard to actually get much of anything done all week. But that's okay, I'm sure the chicken art world functioned just fine without me, and probably didn't notice my absence anyway.

We painted another one of the chicken coops during the week. It's the same "pink" (as I call it) color as the one we did a few months ago. The paint chip didn't look that pink! Apparently any sort of light reddish-brown color is going to end up pink. Oh well, I'm sure the chickens don't care.

Anyway, yesterday (really, that was just yesterday) we (me, Mom, grandparents) left here at 8:30am and drove to Camarillo, which is down in Ventura County... 380 miles away. I drove all but the first hour and a half of the trip. There was a big family party down there for their 90th birthdays. Wow! Now that's old. We were all supposed to dress up representative of some decade from the 20s to the 80s. I was sixties, peace and love man! I took this awful photo in the hotel, which was a total skankbag place, yuck! (dirty, loud, non-smoking room with cigarette burns on the beds all the way through the blankets and sheets, GROSS!!!! I was SO tempted to sleep in the minivan. As it was I barely slept at all). So yeah, the photo...I hope this never comes back to haunt me (it was a really dark pic, I tweaked it in photoshop but it's pretty awful, sorry.)

Edit: oh no, you missed the hippie pic! Ya snooze, ya lose. ;-)

Note the totally awesome turtle necklace. That's some serious bling. Totally groovy. I think I found that when I was a kid, 4 years old or so. I LOVED it when I was little, the scales are jointed, it sorta moves. Probably made of lead or something, heh... Anyway, for some reason I still have it (it's horrid, I know!) but you do have to admit it's pretty unique. The belt and dark purple beaded necklace are from a gypsy costume my great aunt made in the 50s. I actually used to wear that vest... The skirt and shirt are nice clothes, just not in their usual context here!


Anyway... it was a really fun party, I had a good time even though by the end I was barely awake, and I think my grandparents really enjoyed having everyone together to celebrate their birthdays.

We left there this morning around 9:30 I think. I drove the whole way home. I'm totally exhausted.

This is the area where the shindig was, really nice place.


I took some fun little backroads. This is hwy 34 (if I recall correctly). Mom took the pic.


Most of the drive (both days) was VERY windy. Notice the crazy leaning palm trees!


I have other things to talk about but they will have to wait til my brain is somewhat more functional. I can't believe that was just this morning I left Southern CA...

So all in all, it's been nuts, but good times (well mostly...), and life should return to normal now. Ahhhh. :-)

Batch 3 chicks

Another one of those entries that'll be way boring if you aren't into chickens... this is last weekend's hatch.

Pen #O1: Brown Red male X BBRed females = 2 BBRed (1 single combed), 3 Brown Red (2 single combed)
Pen #O2: Brown Red male (son of O1) X BBRed females = 1 BBRed, 3 Brown Red
Pen #B: Golden Duckwing OExRC male X Black, BBRed, Blue Brassy Splash females = 1 Blue Brassy Back, 1 Brown Red, 2 BBRed(?) (both single combed), 2 golden duckwing(?) (1 single combed)
Pen #E: Brassy Black (Black sport) male X Blue Brassy Back females = 4 Brassy Back, 1 Blue Brassy Back
Pen #T4: Cuckoo male X Cuckoo females: 3 Cuckoo
Pen #T5: Black male X Birchen OExRC and Blue Silver OExRC female = 1 Brown Red, 1 Black
Pen #N1: BBRed male X BBRed and Brown Red females = 3 BBRed, 3 Brown Red
Pen #N2: Black male X Brassy Back females = 2 Brown Red
Pen #N4: Black male X Black females = 4 Black
Pen #N5: Black male X Black females = 3 Black