Wholesome Outdoor Projects and Dog Harnesses

Bob and I spent several really nice days recently enlarging Maggie's horse field to include a few random corners of property (like down by the pond) that actually give her more grazing. As the fence is electric, it's pretty easy to move the posts and restring the three lines of wire; you just have to remember to disconnect the electricity first. Maggie seemed happy to have an expanded world view and more square footage to explore and chew down. We are looking at re-seeding the horse field with pasture grass, as there is a lot of moss and the grass has been eaten down.
And this certainly reinforces how lucky we are to have such a nice piece of earth to wander on and call our own. Happy Earth Day!

Strangely, there was a hawk sitting on the grass down by the new area two days ago. I just hope the hawk wasn't scoping out our mallard duck, who likes to hang out on our pond. We also have a visiting Blue Heron that enjoys the amenities of our swampy little pond. Sometimes I wish the pond wasn't there and that corner was solid ground, but then I remember how birds (and other things) call the pond home... like bull frogs and peepers and little fish.

A view back up through the trees towards our BauHaus Chicken Coop. I am admiring the slanting rays of a Spring day- a full moon and spring fever to boot! I think even our little dog (who's not such a small puppy- I call her "The Big Puppy") is experiencing spring fever...
And a new harness! Robin (somehow... don't ask!) makes me think of an astronaut, ready for adventure, when she has her new harness on. My generous sibling and her partner (aka Beatrice and John) gave Robin the Good a gift certificate to an pet store. I suspect that lil' Robin would have liked a toy (to destroy and dismember in the space of three minutes!) but I thought a harness with which to introduce her to the delights of walking together was a better investment. (Probably made her think like we would of socks for Christmas!) But it's been a hit and she doesn't strangle and choke when pulling on the leash.

(Quite the tongue!) But here's Robin the Good modeling the harness. Here's another shot:

(No, she hadn't collapsed from exhaustion; she was merely fidgeting as I tried to fit her harness on her.) Another possible use for the harness arose the other morning at breakfast when I told Bob that if Robin was very bad while I went to work, he could attach a leash to Robin's harness and hang her from a hook on the ceiling. Hahahahhaaha. Only kidding Robin!

Touching the Fence

 A new garden is born! I have been meaning to begin developing a serious shade area, as opposed to a small cluster of shade plants at the end of one bed. And for my birthday, I received a new hosta (Sum and Substance) and that was that! I began digging... (Doesn't look like much yet, but you'd be surprised at how many weeds and junk I pulled out. And rocks! Here's just a partial sampling:

The area that I selected for positioning the shade garden is majorly infested with poison ivy. While I have been careful (whatever that means) I invariably develop at least one case of what can only be deemed "heroic" poison ivy every year. Here's this year's offering! And of course, it's during the hottest, stickiest time of the summer, when I'm already crabby and battling evil weather. Like last Thursday. Bob and I were supposed to go to New York for a show that I am in. "Supposed to" being the operative words. Sanity prevailed as half way to the train station, I asked Bob if he thought it was totally stupid to be going into New York with storms threatening and it being just generally polluted and nasty out. We decided to not go and the skies did open and we missed nothing, except my being in an opening with 110 other artists. I'm delighted to be in the show, but feel like a minute carbuncle on the ass of the art world. Or should I capitalize that? ART WORLD. Carbuncles? You want to talk carbuncles? Just look at my arm...

 

So today I was in a foul humor, despite having several great art ideas on my morning ramble with Jules. I spent several productive hours in my studio, and still I feel sort of at odd ends. It might have been the tremendous thunder storm that we had last night. It woke both Bob and I with one of the loudest claps of thunder I have ever heard. So my present joke is about "touching the fence". You may remember that several months back, I was having a terrible day. Nothing seemed to be going well, I was out of sorts and just not my usual chipper Little Miss Sunshine self. And then I accidentally touched Maggie the Horses' electric fence. Hey Presto! It was as if a jolt from the sky re-routed my personal misaligned electrical field because everything was fine after that. (Perhaps it was a mild form of electro shock therapy?) Anyway, my standing joke now is that if the day sucks... go ahead: touch that fence!

The Wild Kingdom

The Gods of Completed Electrical Circuits and Bringing the Equine Home must be sour on Bob n' Rita as we have had nothing but really egregiously hard times since we embarked on this last major project of 2011. We spent several days stringing electric line (wires and tape) (and humming Glen Campbell's iconic rhapsody "I am a Line Man for the County...) and have yet to determine why we can't get a shock out of the system. The box clicks and the red light pulses. Bob got shocked (accidentally) when one of his smaller sculptures touched the postive and ground terminals so the box must be okay. I called Tractor Supply and received what seemed like good intelligence; we had neglected to complete a part of the system and still no go. Then I discovered a wire touching a post and we worked that out and it STILL didn't work. Baffled and defeated, we turned to ripping the floor boards out and finishing the stall. I'm outside and Bob is ripping the boards when he erupts from the building... turns out there's a skunk under the floor he just removed. I mean, we have been noisy as all get out. Skill saw running, we're moving wood and stomping around; you'd have to be deaf not to be disturbed and this partcular skunk is asleep? Just our luck.
We went next door and borrowed a HavaHeart trap and procured cat food to bait it and our older trap with. But we can't really complete our floor removal until skunk removal is done. This project is progressing too slowly! Bob actually turned to me and exploded wtih "Maybe we SHOULD eat the horse!!"
I know how he feels.