New old painting

I have been working on this painting for a while. I think that I started it sometime in late winter or early spring of this year. It has taken me a while to finish because of work and all of the "chores" that I have to do to get my garden going. Spare time is hard to come by in the spring and the fall around here. Only because we have a fairly short summer and it is always a race to get things in the ground and a race to finish all of our summer projects before cold weather starts. So, it took me a while to paint this and now the trees are just beginning to show the first little signs of fall. So I thought it was a good thing to post to remind me of the upcoming changes. The changes that I am not ready for.

Bumble and Zippy

Just another picture of the lovely couple. They were actually helping me get a good shot of the mushrooms.

Orange Mushrooms

On a recent walk down the driveway to check our giant pumpkin crop, we came across these beautiful mushrooms. I have no idea what kind they are, but they are pretty. If you know what type they may be, please let me know. They are about 6 inches wide and are growing at the base of an old chestnut stump. Our recent rain has helped the mushroom population here. I do not eat wild mushrooms as I have no clue what is deadly and what is edible. Well, I do like morels, but they are the only ones that I can identify without killing myself.

Birthday play

Zippy had a birthday party with Bumble. Since Bumble is the only dog besides Merle(neighbor's dog) that will tolerate this wild Bull Terror. Zippy does not play well with others. Other than Bumble that is...

Bumble's thought on digging

Well, I do not like it when Zippy digs....he gets dirt on me while I sleep.

More Zippy

Another Zippy post....I can't help it. He is just too cute and a little strange. I was also trying out a feature on my camera for shooting sports or fast action. I did not realize though that I had the exposure setting too dark until later. I would also like to mention that tomorrow, Aug. 18th, Zippy will be 6 years old. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZIPPY!!!!

Slow Motion Zippy

A fun little slow motion of Zippy doing what he does best. The noise in the background is Bumble chewing some grass.

Bird in Grass

This is my newest carving. I wanted to do a bird themed carving for my grape trellis for a post topper.

The new and improved Raven

After my first disastrous attempt at carving a raven, I feel much happier with this one. He is holding his wings up and laughingly enjoying his little grape.

Yard

I really like some of the features on my new camera. This is a panorama of my front yard using the scene stitch function. You can still see where it stitched the pictures together, but with a little work in Photoshop, you can easily fix those problem areas.

Bird carvings

I am making a grape trellis for the three grape plants that I purchased this spring. The posts will be concrete faux bois and the tops of the posts will have bird finials. I may also add a bug or two. For some reason, I keep thinking that a praying mantis would look good on the top of one of the posts. The raven was my first attempt at a bird and it is a little sad. Looks more like a chicken to me. I gave up trying to get him "right" and his feet are very large and his beak is too long and his head is too round.....Back to the drawing board! The owl is better...more stylized and he/she has a meaning. During our concrete workshop with Elder Jones; we had a very nice person from the NC Raptor Center come up and release a barn owl. That was an unexpected treat for all. It is not every day that you get to see one of these beauties that close.