So I finally took down the scarecrow and his ghost mantel. Rather than store the whole kit-n-caboodle somewhere inside, I removed the hat and clothes and set the chicken wire frame up in the woods. Not just any old where, but sitting on a branch, waiting for next year. The gray wire is really hard to see in pictures, so I took a video too.
from the poultry-geist.
It is the last day of October and the last day of #inktober! Everyday this month I have made an ink drawing using the official Inktober prompts (of course my theme was chickens.) The daily practice definitely helped improve my ink drawings (especially when I decided to use pencil first!). I experimented with different pens, lines, shading, even filling in the background with ink using paintbrushes and paper towels. The practice was good, but ink is still not my preferred media.
Here is my best and the worst, and if you want to see more, hop over to Instagram and search #inktober. There are many amazing artists posting some eye popping work (figuratively and literally). And if you want to see mine, they are at @carynjhall.
Happy Halloween!
I probably went a little far wrapping the plied yarn around this spindle, but I was determined to get it all on. Me? Stubborn? Ha.
I was determined to get it on one spindle so it would be easier to use my wool winder. It was easier, and the cake made by the wool winder is easier to draw yarn from than a ball (for me that is).
I can’t help myself. I find bits I can use to make spindles, then suddenly I have made another spindle. Or two.
The whorls on these are made from either post oak or cedar elm (we have both on the property). I took a branch that has been sitting my log pile for about a year, cut slices, then sanded the slices into donut shapes. The shafts are store bought dowels, with one end sanded to a point and the other end has the diameter reduced slightly to hold the whorl. They aren’t perfect, but they function ok and are pretty. It does make me want to get my lathe up and running again so I can make perfectly round whorls.
Update on Tigger: After Tigger freaked out and injured herself during the coop clean out, she went into isolation for two days. We wrapped her foot, which made her limping worse, took off the wrap in the morning, and that evening she perched all night. I let her out in the morning and she seems right as rain.
Update on Navi: Although Navi is gaining weight, her crop is large and squishy again. So she went back into isolation with copper sulfate drinking water. One bird out, one bird in.
I modified this idea from Lisa of Fresh Eggs Daily. I used the cut-off bottom of an old water bottle for the cup (because I didn’t have tuna cans), and I made a twine net to hold the wine bottle. I cut four long pieces of twine (about 8 feet each), and made a loop in the middle. I stacked four loops together, then used half-hitches to secure the circle (this is where the neck of the bottle will go).
I put the twine circle on the bottle and made square knots using pairs of twine, then alternated the pairs to make the next row of knots. There are four knots in each row.
I knotted 13 rounds, which nearly covered the bottle (the netting will stretch, so I didn’t want it too long). I attached the netting and cups to pieces of oak board, attached screw eyes to secure the top of the nets, and anchored the bottom of the net with a screw.
I secured the oak boards to the legs of the work table with screws at the top and bottom.
Putting a bottle full of grit upside down is a recipe for disaster, so I put a cork in until I had the bottle in place, then took out the cork so the grit could pour into the cup. Then, yay! The dispensing stopped when the cup was full. Phew!
It is nice to have a DIY project appreciated by the recipients.
Critters and Craft 