Robin Arnold Art

The last few days have been gorgeous in Ohio; so gorgeous that the bullfrogs are lined up all along the bank of the pond enjoying the sun. They know that soon they'll be buried in the muck until spring so they're taking advantage of this bonus weather. I sketched this little guy near the back of the house along with his snaky friend. The drink is swamp juice, a replacement for orange juice in northwest Ohio. The frogs weren't the only ones basking in the sun. This is Susie and Harriet, two of our 8 week old hens we bought from a hatchery in Polk, OH. Susie, on the left, is a Barred Rock and Harriet is a Golden Laced Wyandotte.

I wrote this in a notebook while "babysitting" in the chicken coop on Friday 10/2/15. I'm sitting on the bottom roosting pole in the chicken coop surrounded by six curious, lively baby chicks and one cranky older hen that Robin calls "Godzilla." She's giving them the "evil eye" while scratching and digging in the bedding and tossing it around, trying to scare them. Today, they seem less frightened by her, although they are still wary and scatter if she approaches too close. They're trying to scratch in the shavings just like big chickens; some of them are even flapping up in an attempt to perch on the roosting poles. They're a little shaky, but they'll catch on. We've been watching the babies, trying to sort out individual personalities so we could give them names. Some of them were easy: Amelia Earhart--the blue Ameracauna who was trying to fly at the age of one day, and Maggie--the other blue Ameracauna, a real sweetie who k...

This has been a tough spring here. Unlike other parts of the country that are having severe droughts it has done nothing but rain where I live and trying to keep up with the mowing has severely cut into my carving time. As you can see in the following photo I have a few that need to be finished. We are supposed to get up to 3" of rain tomorrow which means our place will most likely be flooded. I can't mow through standing water so maybe I'll get some carving time in this weekend. I've also had to cut back on  my carving because of two additions to our small flock of chickens. Last Sunday we were given two black silkies...a rooster--we swore we would never have a rooster again--and a hen. Black Silkie Rooster Meet Thor the rooster. Thor loves to protect his kingdom by hanging out in front of the coop which  is not good because the hens are terrified of him and can't get into the coop to lay eggs. Meanwhile, Thor is terrified of Keetie, our guinea, so he ...