Pet Picture Day

I was thinking I really should make an effort to post again this week, and since every day is pretty much the same lately; computer, painting, laundry, cooking, driving to town and back again x2 or even 3, I decided that a pet update is always a good diversion from mind numbing sameness. Heh.

So a few months ago, I noticed that our little pumpkin was getting chewed up, and assumed it was some sort of critter that was getting at it at night. Then one day I noticed the chickens were crowded around it and well, duh! They had been pecking at it and we all had a good laugh about it after we realized that carving pumpkins would not be necessary this year:


They didn't bother with the big pumpkin until they had decimated the small one. Now I wish I had charted their progress on it, it has been pretty interesting to see how much pecking they can do in a day.


I am liking these big gaping holes that they have fashioned in our home grown pumpkin:

Nice form, don't you think?

The flock seems to be doing pretty well since our rooster died, and it seems that this scrawny old hen is the replacement 'rooster':
I see her rounding everyone up, clucking behind the stragglers and she is the last one to go into the coop every night. She is always very talkative with me and comes rushing up to me everytime I come outside. No attacking, just chit chat. Still miss the rooster's crow each morning though........

The weather here has been so mild that the dogs are still spending a lot of time outside each day and I got this shot of the dogs just as the sun was hitting the porch the afternoon:



Mr. Wilson is about 2 1/2 now, but it seems like he will forever be a puppy. Even though he only weighs about 4lbs, he is brave enough to pick a fight with any or all of the cats, who each weigh about 15lbs. Mr. Wilson pesters them, they smack him, he whimpers, then starts it all over again. Silly pup.

The cats are just cats. Fat, sleepy, hissy with each other and did I say lazy? I can't get them to do anything around here (although they are good at keeping track of all my shipping supplies):

They do like to find all the sunny spots:
warm places (this chair is next to the fireplace):
and guess who is coming to dinner?

So there you go, folks. Pet update, another post in the can, oh and a gratuitous image of a painting that I just finished for the upcoming show in Williamstown.
Turning At The Edge, 2009, Oil on Birch Panel, 18x24

And PS. Keep an eye out for my Happy Birthday To Me post this Sunday, k?

Burn Out!!!

Well, I guess I should just admit it. I am a bit burned out on blogging. And not only have I slowed down on posting I am also not keeping up with my lovely blogger friends either, which makes me feel very sad.

I am not going to say I will post more often, because I don't really think that I can right now. But I don't plan on quitting either. So I guess posts will continue to be a bit sporadic until I get my mojo back. Just so you know. Heh.

I am getting ready for a show in August so I will at least try to post progress images of that, k?

In the meantime a crazy cat picture is always fun. I bought these baskets for the kids to keep their excessive bathroom stuff in. Almost immediately the cats hijacked them and no one wants to put anything in them now because they are all covered in cat hair. Today though, I had to laugh when I saw Jones and Dorrie. A rare tender moment between brother and sister.....

The Sanctity of My Studio Has Been Breached

Church, 2008, Oil on Gessobord, 5x5

It's been such a pleasure to have a pet free studio. No cat hair floating around, no hairballs, no little paw prints running across the wet gesso, it's like heaven now. I do allow Mr. Wilson to come up with me in the mornings for his nap, but we have a strict rule that he must stay in his cushion next to my desk. He is NOT allowed to walk around smelling things, which always leads to him having to lift his little leg, usually at the corner of a very expensive birch panel. heh.

Once in awhile the one cat or another (we have four) tries to come up but I immediately send them packing. However a few nights ago, Jones must have slipped by me, then had to spend the night after I closed the door for the night. I almost felt sorry for him when I heard him meowing desperately to get out the next morning, but then I was just ticked off after I found that he had left me a smelly gift. Yuck! Guess he just couldn't hold it all night.

I used to be able to leave my door open a bit so that I could hear what's going on in the rest of the house. Now though, I am keeping it closed tightly, so that I don't have to start keeping things put away like I had to do in my previous studio which was open to the whole house.

Jones has ruined things for the rest of us...

Dogs, Cats and Chickens Everywhere

So Mr. Wilson is unbearably cute. He is much fun, and it hasn't escaped me that it's been just like having a toddler in the house again. I am forever fishing odd things out of his mouth, he LOVES to be held and carted around, and house training is taking way too long. He does sleep way more (and through the night!) than any of my kids ever did though. Heh.

He has folded nicely into our household however, and the other pets tolerate him quite well. He tries desperately to play with the cats, but they just stare at him like he is deranged. Once in awhile if he pesters them enough, one of them will turn and bat at him with a (declawed) paw, their version of playing and he completely overreacts by yelping and whimpering. I call him a drama queen. My kids correct me and say he is a drama king, since he is a male. They don't understand certain subtleties yet.

Anyway, as you can see in the photo, Mr. Wilson is in dire need of a haircut. There aren't any pet groomers in our town, but a friend of mine was able to get Mr. Wilson in with her dog next week. Some groomers in the area aren't even taking new customers. Good grief, who knew?

Penny is coming around. At first she completely ignored him, but now they interact and I think she enjoys his constant adulation. He follows her everywhere and when we go on our walk Mr. Wilson finally has a good shot at keeping up, because they are both on leashes. Sometimes the constant licking and pawing at her face is too much and Penny very politely stands up, ensuring that there's no chance that Mr. Wilson can continue bothering her. He keeps trying though!

Our new chickens will soon be laying eggs, I think. There are eight-three Buff Orpingtons and five Araucunas, which are the ones that lay blue or green eggs. I have been keeping them in a dog kennel, separate from the other hens until they were big enough to go into the other hen house. Before we left on our vacation I put them in with the other hens and things did not go well. The older hens harassed them so badly that they huddled in the hen house and wouldn't go outside, but we had to leave them there because we needed the kennel for Penny while we were gone. When we got back the new hens had managed to crawl under the screen under the roosts (where the poop falls through) and were all crammed in there, totally terrified. We got them out and put them back into the kennel. A couple of them actually had chunks of skin missing from their backs and one had a terrible gash on the back of her head. I was very disappointed in my older hens and told them so. Now I am trying to figure out another solution. I have a few things that I can try and if all else fails then we will just set up a more permanent, separate hen house. The good thing after all of that is that the new hens like me better now (I saved their lives, after all!) and now approach me and let me hold them. We are patiently waiting to see our first blue eggs.

The older hens clearly have their pecking order established and the new rooster in charge is much nicer than the previous one (Penny killed him) was. He never attacks me, which is a definite plus, and with the exception of rough sex, he is kind yet firm with the ladies. Ok, the rough sex is bad, all of the hens have bare spots on their backs from where he um, holds them down. BUT, I have been recently letting them free range in the late afternoons and I have noticed that many of the hens have feathers growing back in. I guess he has other distractions now. We didn't let them free range before because of Penny, but we spent a few days working with her, making it clear that the chickens are off limits (she is very smart) and now she just sleeps on the front porch while the chickens are just across the road running free. We don't entirely trust her though, everyone knows to keep an eye on Penny and/or the chickens while they are out. I love seeing the chickens wandering around the property though. It seems right.

Oh, and the cats are exactly the same, fat, lazy and shedding everywhere. Once in awhile they get all worked up, chasing each other around the house and knocking things off the tables and shelves. Then they collapse and nap until feeding time. Typical cats.

Hairballs

Having a studio that is open to the rest of the house has a few risks, especially if one is a pet owner.

This morning I went to get to work (at 9am, thank you very much!) and I found that one of our four cats left a memento on the chair at my easel. Clearly, the offender didn't have enough time to get to their usual spot for barfing up hairballs, which is usually on the hand made persian rug in our office or right outside our bedroom door, where Doug invariably steps on it first thing in the morning.

So a little scrubbing had to be done, a towel located to sit upon, and then to work.

Gessoed Hair

Normally it's cat hair, brush hairs or a variety of other kinds of annoying fuzzy things that end up in my paintings. Most of the time I get them out before the paint dries.

This time though, one strand of my hair landed in the gesso, unnoticed (look closely, it's on the left). No chance of removing this one, so I will just pretend it is added character. At least it fell into a very graceful line.

I'd wear a hair net when I gesso, but frankly, I am just WAY too cool for that. Heh.

My Name is Tracy and I am a Chicken Killer

Two of a Kind, 2007, Oil on Panel, 8x10

It's true. I killed one of my chickens. One of the chickens whose beak I dipped in water to show her how to drink when she was just two days old. One that I have worried about, checking in the middle of the night to make sure there was enough warmth, saved from a cold night outside when the little hen house door accidentally slammed shut, leaving the flock outside, blinded in the dark. After climbing over a 10 foot snowbank twice a day for almost a month, often in subzero weather to make sure she and the others had enough food and thawed water, not to mention doing a number of things in order to save two of her sisters which included making a chicken regurgitate the contents of its crop and bringing another one indoors for almost a week.

Last week I noticed that another chicken had the same symptoms of the one that died in a cage in our laundry room about a month ago. I knew I had to remove her from the flock and resigned myself to setting her up either in the garage or in the laundry room. But I also knew she would die, no matter what I did to help her, just like the other one did. So I started to consider euthanasia. Not uncommon at all on a farm of course, but not something I wanted to do either. I am sure that there is no way in hell that I could snap its neck, like a neighbor suggested. Nor did I want to hit it with a shovel like my very mild mannered friend did to her rooster when it attacked her one too many times, beating it to death. Although, I have to add here that our Number One Rooster In Charge is getting closer to a meeting with a shovel every time he attacks me. Anyway, I decided to slip it into a Tidy Cat cat litter bucket (which are the handiest things ever when it comes to chickens-I use them to carry fresh water out to the coop each day, to carry out scratch or feed. I would like to kiss whoever invented them), snap the lid shut, and leave it outside. I felt horrible after making the decision, but when I put the chicken in and she didn't squawk, fight or even react, I knew that this was the best way.

So five days later the bucket is still sitting outside, next to the garage. I assume she either suffocated or froze to death (we are having a cold snap) within a few hours, maybe less, given how sick she was. Not particularly humane I suppose, but maybe not so bad either. Anyway, seeing it every day makes me feel awful. On Wednesday I will put the whole thing inside a garbage bag and put it out for the garbage man to collect. I admit that the perversely curious side of me is considering opening it up to see what's doing in there. However if I do that, I'll have that picture in my mind, along with the picture of her going in still alive, giving me the eye. Not sure if I need both.

Coincidentally, I took one of our cats in to the vet on Friday and described the symptoms of both chickens. He said that it sounded like a nutritional deficiency, despite the fact that what I feed the flock is an appropriate diet. It could have been a deficiency particular to a certain breed (both chickens were the same breed) however. So I felt a bit better, knowing that it doesn't seem to be a flock problem, although I will have watch the others closely.

So much for taking a break from writing on the blog this week, but I just had to confess.

A Sick Guest

We have a new house pet today. One of the chickens has been invited into the main house.

She's not been right for a few days and so finally I decided to bring her inside to see what I can do to save her. She was kind of out of it the first night and couldn't seem to move or walk normally. I put her in a cage the first night, pretty sure that she would be dead in the morning. I didn't sleep well, waking up often wondering if there was a DEAD CHICKEN in the house!

But she was still alive in the morning and seemed to make some progress yesterday. She seemed more alert, ate and drank water and even walked around a bit. I spent a lot of time on the internet trying to find out what she might have and although she does have symptoms for a few common chicken aliments, they don't seem conclusive for any of them.

Today again she doesn't seem well. I am getting used to the idea that she may not make it and that I am going to have to deal with a dead chicken body. I am not sure I am cut out for a farm life that includes livestock, as I find this part of it to be fairly stressful. I am also reconsidering our plan to get sheep and maybe a few goats. The last few days have made me feel sure that I can't and don't want to handle this stuff.

Wait! I need to remember to just buck up and deal. Of course I can handle this. The benefits far outweigh the drawbacks with animals. Our cats are the best lap warmers ever, Penny follows us around with complete devotion in her eyes. I love watching the chickens and their antics, their eggs and how they are so happy to see me each morning. Even if it is because I bring food.

So I will keep the chicken inside until she either dies or gets better. If she were suffering I would probably put her down, or to be more precise, I'd get someone else to do that part, but she isn't yet so I am just going to see what happens. I never considered myself to be such a bleeding heart when it comes to animals. But we have these animals and now I find myself washing off chicken butts, clipping hamster teeth or holding a cat's mouth closed until they swallow a pill (that's a story I haven't told here).

I managed all of that just fine, I guess.