Earth Day!

Our little art cooperative/store known to us as "Stonebridge Artworks" had a table at our towns local Earth Day fair. I wish we had spent a little more time planning but it was a beautiful day and a fun activity. My camera was left at home so I will have to borrow a few photos in a few days.

We met up with someone who recognized my work from Etsy. She has a blog and a shop called speckled-egg which looks lovely! She lives in town and seemed very excited about our new brick and mortar venture!

These are a few of the little birds nests I brought to the fair along with sprigs of my happy yellow forsythia. I couldn't help playing with the photo in photoshop a bit. I was working on labels for our "store"



Below is the label I made for Stonebridge using some of the photos of the bridge I took last fall. I should go out and get a few spring photos as well but these colors are pretty.



My latest pair of wedding birds was sent off and arrived safely. They are so adorable! I love the spring colors -- perfect for a May wedding!

The cycle of a year!

It's been a full year now in keeping this little blog!

A year later finds me doing pretty much the same thing this time of year. Yesterday, my younger daughter and I sat on the banks of the river watching the annual town canoe race. Her 3 favorite dolls were sitting in the sun in my grandmother's old suitcase situated safely on the upper bank. We played along the bank, fishing with a stick, string, and a pebble and then when the pebble was lost made sand castles and told a few "swamp monster" stories.
And of course the other right of spring -- burning the brush. The blackberries are as "evil" as ever invading everywhere. My arms bear the scars of my work since it seems there is no avoiding the thorns. I suppose its a "fruitless" endeavor to contain them. Though not completely fruitless -- we do enjoy the berries! The fire was a bit scary to contain with the wind catching the dry grass on fire more than I liked.

The little flock of chickens has pretty much settled in to a peaceful bunch with only a few squabbles now and then. They are contained in the pen now and my gardens will have a good chance of growing now with out being scratched out completely.

Today we are contemplating a family canoe trip down the river or even a trip into Boston after church. It's patriots day tomorrow and a vacation day.

I'll just share a few photos of my latest projects too of course...

Pecking order...

Last evening my friend brought over 5 of her chickens and a little hen house as she can no longer keep them. We tried introducing my 3 chickens (a hen and two small bantams) to the little flock. My nice big hen turned into a mean aggressive chicken and pecked at the others so I had to remove her from the group. She slept alone. In the morning my little bantams had been pecked at a bit on their combs. But another rooster (rescued from a nearby chicken farm) had been hen-pecked by my friend's larger hens. I let them all out in the yard to relieve that poor rooster from its tormentors. I love chickens but I do hate this particular behavior in chickens (and people too). Sigh.

We are finishing up on our maple syrup and should be closing down the sugar shack and cleaning up for next year. We still have a lot of bottling to do though. This was a great year for syrup but too much work for me!

I sent out two cake toppers today and finished up this little bird I started yesterday.







These are the birds I finished last week ...