Farm Fresh Free Range Chicken Eggs :)

I should have added this picture of our basket of eggs. We love having our own chickens and eating and using the wonderful eggs for meals and baking. These eggs are right out of the nest boxes.

Everyone Wants to be a Mom Continued...

Remember my pictures of our chickens stuffed into a couple of nest boxes. They sat on them for weeks on end. Well we decided they had to be physically removed or they would end up dying in there. Most of the eggs had broken anyway. They weren't very happy about having to vacate the nest boxes. I had to keep the door shut so they wouldn't go back in to sit on them again. They puffed their feathers all up, looked just like mini-turkeys and stood right by the coop door. It took them days and days to get over it. In fact one is still trying to hatch some eggs. The only problem is we take the eggs out every day and usually she's sitting in an empty box. Funny girls!

Everybody Wants to be a Mom

Chicken Coop

It's not quite finished, but here is a watercolor of our chicken coop.

 

The Rooster

Well, I wanted a rooster for my birthday. So my husband, David, went on Craig's list to find me one. Now I grew up on a farm and we had this rooster who was real mean. We called him the 'Left Winged Rooster.' If he was anywhere in sight we would not go outside because when he would see us, he would put his left wing to the ground and attack us. I know just how mean roosters can be.

David kept checking Craig's list and one day he showed me this beautiful rooster. He said he sounds like a real wimp, so we drove the 40 minutes and paid the $8 to get our rooster. As I questioned the lady we were buying him from I didn't feel quite so confident that he was such a wimp as she had advertised. She said he had spent the winter outdoors and slept in the rafters in the barn. Hmmmmm! Then she tried to catch him. She commented that this may be a challenge. Hmmmmmm! Against my better judgment, we took him home with us.

He didn't make much noise on the way home and wouldn't come out of the kennel when we got home, so I was thinking that this just might work out after all. David dumped him out of the kennel. My girls were already roosting for the night. He hopped around and went right to the coop door and hopped in. What a squawking ruckus! David and I ran around to the other door to see what was going on.  I opened the door and it was like a dust storm inside. He was attacking the chickens and even the duck. To say the least, he didn't last even 5 minutes in the coop! He went back to his original owner that evening. No more roosters! Or, so we thought...

Left Winged Rooster the Second

 

We did end up getting a rooster from some friends. He has worked out quite well. He's a real gentlemen. His name is Little Rootie. I will be painting some pictures of him. 

 

Update

Broody is finished!

 

 

 

Update

I have had a couple of very sick weeks this past month - don't know what the problem is yet, but have been plugging away at my grant. Here are a couple of photos of painting I am working on.

Broody

We have a couple of hens that would just love to have a brood of chicks. I may just have to get a rooster so they can.

 

 

 





Update

Made an ad and a postcard to promote my grant project.

 

Bobbie and Esther

Here are a few more photos of some of the paintings I have been working on. It has been fun drawing and painting my chickens. They can be so quirky and fun. They are surviving the winter quite well. Not sure why those legs don't just freeze off!

Bobbie and Esther are finished.

 

Started working on a couple of group paintings. This one is of Henry, Esther, Silverbutt, Bobbie, Little Blue and Etta.

 

 

 

 

I am now working on a painting with an old Volkswagen Beetle I saw on a trip out to Colorado along with Flossy and Lydia.

 

 

December Work Update

In the month of December I have been working on my chicken series using mixed media techniques. It has been fun to play with tissue paper to create texture for feathers.

This is Indigo... She is the Queen of the coop. She is the first one out of the coop in the morning, the first in in the evening and always on the top perch. I'm not sure how she got to be the top dog so to speak cuz she doesn't seem pushy or have an attitude, but she is definitely the top.

 

 

Here is the painting of Esther and Bobbie. It is not finished. Need to add some texture and contrast, but am happy with it so far.

 

 

 

Now that Christmas and New Years are over and the Kaleidoscope gallery is closed until May, I will have more time to focus on finishing my chicken series.

 

 

Etta

We always count - ALWAYS!!!!!!

 

WE ALWAYS COUNT...well, I thought David counted, he thought I counted...

 

We were heading to Willmar so David started putting the chickens back in the coop. There were probably 4 or 5 of them in. He was having trouble getting the rest because they looooooove scratching around in the woods...

 

 

 

I saw he was having problems, so I decided to help him. It took a while, but finally they were in. David decided to let the dogs out one more time before we left. We went about getting ready to leave and when David went to call them, they were pretty busy down by that tree! He called them and Amy and Nilla came, but Hemmingway, the naughty, naughty boy, looked up with a chicken in his mouth.

 

David yelled at him and went to rescue the chicken. There she laid with both legs in the air. I was sick!!!! It was Etta. David asked, "What should we do with her?" I said, "We need to bury her - WE'RE NOT GOING TO EAT HER!" He picked her up, her eye was closed. She looked pretty rough. And then, she opened and closed her beak a couple of times! She's ALIVE! We bought an eyedropper to give her water, washed her up and bandaged her neck. David sat with her by the fireplace until she was dry. We put her in a nest box for the night and said a prayer.

 

 

 

The next day, we put her out in the chicken run. Later that day she climbed back into the coop and in the nest box to lay an egg. We were amazed how well she did. She is still doing good, but does stick around the coop - I'm sure she doesn't want to tangle with those three muttsketeers again!!!!!!!!

 

 

 



Change...

It's changed!

That's just the process of creativity - change. You start with a subject, then the drawing, then start to paint. By the end, at least in my case, the painting doesn't look anything like I had first envisioned it to be. That's what is happening with this grant project. It still has the basic bones that I laid out in my grant request, but the theme has now changed. It seems that what I wanted to portray through the 'layers of life' theme was a bit too serious, introspective and personal for me at this point. I will continue to work on it, but not for the public to see until a later time.

I really wanted this grant project to be a fun process of growth and experimentation. What's more fun and whimsical than chickens and a duck? This past spring we bought 10 chickens and 2 ducks. So here goes - the first drawing - Esther:

  

 

 

Never a Dull Moment With Esther Around!

Esther the Adventure Chicken...

I should be packing since I leave tomorrow with three cousins for Oregon - David gets to stay home. But, there's just never a dull moment with Esther around, so I had to blog it!!!! She seems to take after her name-sake, my Aunt Esther... Our pup, Nilla is getting so tall she can reach loaves of bread and other things at the very back of the counter. And, she did. David caught her so there was a half chewed loaf of very good sourdough bread sitting there. I decided to treat the chickens with the rest of it. They were all outside of their pen so I called them and they all came running. I counted them as usual, 9 chickens and 1 duck. Who was missing? Of course, Esther. So I went out around the yard and called her. There she comes running from the far reaches of the back yard, head down and legs flailing out to the side as she ran! I'm sure she must have been exploring the woods or jumping out of an airplane or something similar. She just amuses me. The world is her adventure land!!!

Our First Egg!!!!!

I'm not positive Esther laid it, but she sure did look proud yesterday!!!

 

 

And, it sure did taste good this morning!!!

 

 

Over-easy on toast.

 

 

Looks like Hemmingway wants some.

 

 

Since David has put so much time and work into helping me with the chickens,

he gets the first egg!

 

 

 

 

 

He let me share!

 

 

 

The End

 

 

One side note. It's a good thing the chicken coop is almost complete. They will have nesting boxes soon to lay all those eggs. Anyone want fresh free-range chicken eggs?