White-tailed Kites

There is a pair of White-tailed Kites nesting along the creek. I think they may be working on the second brood? I've seen some around that I can ID as juvenile, and yet there is still a bird sitting tight on the nest. I like them.

A Kestrel, a Red-shouldered Hawk (heavily molting!) and a White-tailed Kite all in the same pic!

This is a juvenile Kite:

a day in the life of Olin

8am:

9am:

10am:

11am:

12pm:

1pm:

2pm:

3pm:

4pm:

5pm:

6pm:

7pm:

8pm: (outdoors)

9pm: (outdoors)

10pm:

playin' 'possum

OMG, I'm so far behind on blogging.

Last night a little before midnight, Angus (who likes to spend some time out back before he comes in for the night) was growling at something in the yard. I poked my head out back and could see some sort of pale shape on the lawn. Hmmm, odd. It wasn't the cats and it wasn't moving. I went back inside and grabbed a flashlight, and was quite surprised to find a very large opossum in the yard. Angus was pretty excited about it, but I'm pleased with how he handled the situation. He growled and barked some, but mostly just walked around and around it, very curious, but not attacking at all. He did go up and sniff it, but I told time to leave it and he backed off. I don't want him going after animals without permission (ah, the good old rat-hunting days with Jessie and Nellie!).

Anyway, I wasn't quite sure what to do about it. They're not real high on my list of predators to be worried about. I'd only ever seen one around before and it was after eggs. But the chicks are young enough that they are still sleeping on the ground, and that might prove pretty tempting even for a bumbling 'possum, so I didn't really want it around. I have no ill will toward opossums (yet?). So I dragged Mom outside and instructed her to keep the flashlight shining on its face so it wouldn't wander off. Meanwhile, I went out to the barn and grabbed a chicken cage, walked right up to the critter and plonked the cage down on top, then shooed it to the other side of the cage so I could tip it upright and shut the cage door.

I took it for a drive this morning, found a long lonely stretch of road with some trees and fields and a ditch full of irrigation water. Looked like a good place for it to live and not pester anybody's chickens. I let it go, and it ambled off into the bushes. I thought it was almost kind of cute all curled up this morning with its paws on its face. Then again, they are kind of like giant rats, and oh what big teeth they have.

more changes...

Yeah, I just changed the template again. I know this is getting confusing, but I kinda have to let the blog "try things on" for a while.

Here's what it looked like a few days ago:

And then I changed it to this:

I really liked that template a lot until I changed the banner, and then I didn't think the template worked with the new look.

Ack!

Maybe that shouldn't be a comma in the title? A semicolon? Nothing? Another dot dot dot?

well?

Okay, trying out some changes. Can you live with this? It's a big change, I know. And lest a certain engraver read this and think he can take all the credit for me changing it, no. I've been wishy-washy-ing for months. That was the last straw though. ;-)

Saturday's ride

I went riding out at Jan's place (and adjacent properties) on Saturday morning with Al and Cheryl (Sara the mule's new owners). They wanted to take two of their horses also, and graciously asked if I'd like to ride Sara that day. Certainly! :-) She was great, of course, so calm and steady and totally unfazed by anything. And such a sweetie. They love her so much, she's really a perfect fit in their family. I hadn't ridden her since two years ago when she was living in Idaho!

Thanks Jan for the pics! :-)




I had an interesting chat with another engraver this afternoon, and he mentioned the title of this blog. Yeah... that might kinda tip things over the edge so that I really do change it, if someone who didn't know I was thinking about changing it thinks I ought to change it. I even made a pretty cool new banner for it today. Hmmmmm.....

August 3 work in progress

August. Cripes.

So, I'm not totally in love with working on Mother of Pearl. It's weird. Very brittle and chippy. You can hear it "crunch" when the needle goes into it. I'm used to hearing a tap, not a crunch. It's an odd sensation. It doesn't take ink well unless it's TOTALLY clean. I need to make a point to keep my hands super clean and super dry while I'm working on this. You know, no eating French fries at the bench or anything (hmmm, when's the last time I had French fries... early June I think? Mmmm, that actually sounds really good. I need to go down to A&W for fries and a frosty, it's been ages. Yes, that's one of the downsides to no longer taking bellydance classes is that I don't drive past A&W every week, sigh.) Sorry, tangent...

Anyway, I'm intending this to be a color image, but I'm not sure yet how well that'll work just because this feels so different from ivory, I don't know how well I can layer the colors, and I don't know how well the other colors will stick. Right now it only has black ink on it. We'll see!

it's all about comfort

As Olin so often demonstrates, it's important to be comfortable. My little packing-peanut boy... Yes, that's a roll of bubble wrap. With 3 yards of very fine silk that happens to be sitting on top. Yes, he climbed up there all by himself, he is mysteriously drawn to comfy places.

I neglected to mention on July 29 that it's been TWENTY-THREE years since I got my first pair of fancy chickens. Good grief. I really sound like an old timer when I say that.

OMG, it was exactly a year ago that I accidentally whacked my left thumb with a hammer and dislocated it (I'm not convinced that I didn't actually break it, but whatever). Wow. Time flies. It's not "normal" but it didn't start out normal, so I guess it's good enough. It's now affectionately known as my "dumb thumb."

I started a new scrim today on Mother of Pearl. It's a weird surface. Brittle and chippy, totally unlike ivory. We'll see how this goes... if I can pull it off it'll be rather pretty, but I think there's a limit to what sort of image can be done on it. Definitely no super-saturated dark colors, the surface won't take that kind of treatment. I won't show you anything yet because I'm not convinced it'll turn out.

the finished horse scrimshaw

"Waiting for the Boss"
scrimshaw on pre-ban elephant ivory
1 x 1-7/8 inches

For sale, this piece will go to Jackson Hole with me in September.

Love it! :-)

The Lion Knives!

I have to say a word about these photos... and apologize for the fact that they don't show the engraving on the bolsters well at all. I have major stuggles when it comes to photographing that darn shiny metal stuff. I can arrange and light things to show the ivory well, or the metal well, but I can't for the life of me figure out yet how to photograph the WHOLE THING well. (That's why there are professionals who do this, right?) So, apologies to the engraving, but I'm giving the scrimshaw priority when it comes to the picture! Actually, they're not really photos, they're scans. My photos were pretty bad. I don't know who did the engraving.

The black and white knife is 4-3/8 inches long (the whole knife, not just the scrimmed area), and the color one is 5 inches in length. This was a custom commissioned project, so they are both sold.



I am pretty much thrilled with how they turned out. When I get a chance to update the website, I'll put some closer-up images on there.