Chicken love

I finished up this little garden sculpture/ornament that I have been thinking of. I found the blue hen at a flea market store and since it was missing its base it was so inexpensive. The little cement eggs are just cast from plastic easter eggs. The bowl is just from left over cement just cast in the sand (pretty rough). And the rusty barbed wire was found on one of our railroad track walks. I might make a cement column base at some point but the small granite stone is fine for now.

Another busy week

Well I think I have finally adjusted to being alone in the house during the day. Early in the week I finally got around to fixing my hypertufa planter that I made and broke last fall. It was so large and heavy that when I turned it over I dropped a few inches and broke off one side into several pieces. That was a frustrating reminder that patience always pays off. I had made an attempt this spring at a repair but was interrupted by a visitor and the cement mortar dried fast and basically made the situation even worse. I think it looks fine now but probably not very strong so I don't intend to move it. Its really too heavy to move anyway and I know my husband hasn't enjoyed moving these planters around too much. I love their rustic earthy look!

I also played around and made a few cement mushrooms but the paper towel roll bases in my first attempt were much too small. So I made a rough cylinder form with some cardboard and tape that should make a sturdier base. I am hoping if I "plant" them in a shady spot I can get some moss to grow on them a bit. A buttermilk and crumbled moss mixture is a good starter for that.

This is one photo of my lopsided cement balls. I just filled in with concrete a few deflated balls the kids broke. I peeled off the plastic ball early so I could smooth it a bit too.

I took a bunch of photos of Mexican stone carvings down at the Museum of Natural History in NY this summer and would love to try making something like them in hypertufa. I think I will avoid some of the interesting "fertility" sculptures that might get too much attention from the kids though. They seemed amused enough at the museum!


I am busily working on my little birds and finished this one this week.


I just had to make something for Halloween and made this little display of pumpkins.



Take a look at this cute Etsy Treasury! Its called "I do ... do you?" by terbearco.

Caught off guard...

Every year around this time I am always surprised by that first threat of frost (the days seem so comfortably warm). We live near a river and our vegetable garden is down a hill in a low lying area. So we get a rather early frost compared to our neighboring towns. So (this year being no exception) last night I was running around "like a crazy chicken" covering all the plants I wanted to keep a bit longer. Just when the morning glories are so beautiful along comes a frost to kill them and turn them in to a brown tangle of vines. But for the most part it looks like the last night's temps stayed above the frost mark and we are given a brief respite before fall is here and winter comes marching along.

We have some huge pumpkins in the garden this year and I would love them to get even bigger. We have never had such big ones and after last year I was almost going to give up on them. The kids were so excited when they found them yesterday. I made a VERY tall stick trellis out of branches we cut. This week I will work on a second one. I also spent a few hours on Sunday with my hands in a bin of cement to make a few cement mushrooms. I also took two popped balls to fill with cement too. I basically took over my kids sand pile to do this project. This summer I had no time to do this since any free time was consumed by my custom orders from my shop.

I started up a list of links on my blog side bar called "who loves chickens". I would love to add more links too so if anyone has any to share please let me know. I found several last night and added the awesome flickr groups I love.

Little Sunshine explores my garden treasures

I love overcast mornings so much for photographing items for my shop. It makes such a difference in the photos. I brought my little yellow bird, named Sunshine, out for a photo shoot early this morning. Instead of struggling to get 5 good pictures almost everyone I took was pretty.

Here she is sitting in my hypertufa bowl amongst the moss. I love the rounded stones we collected up along the coast of Maine. I still haven't filled in this bowl with plants yet but the moss is slowly spreading outward.




Here she is exploring my cement cast split leaf philodendron. This leaf was difficult to cast but I gave up on trying to get the slits and cast it as a solid leaf. I love how the green algae is filling in the indentations.




Here she is eying my hypertufa Tibetan stone. I love the rustic carving on this cairn. Eventually I would like to make a larger stone for one of the gardens. The creeping jenny that is dangling down the stone walls are so beautiful too. They are spreading like crazy too!


I think she likes the nasturtium as much as I do! I have them planted in an old metal chicken waterer (that rusted out and leaked). I planted some sedum in the ring at the bottom.






Sunshine has discovered my pitcher plant terrarium. Last fall I scooped up some of the pitcher plants my husband gave me for my birthday and planted them in this terrarium so I could enjoy them during the winter. They needed to be misted regularly (with rain water I collected) but did amazingly well. Collecting rain water during the winter was a little fun though! Of course they are loving the outdoors now and are doing so well that I decided to leave them in the terrarium. Every now and then a big rainstorm drowns them but then I just drain it out with a little tube (siphon).


I love these these bright red Impatiens that brighten up the garden all summer long. Sunshine is sitting in another leaf casting while she admires the garden.






She has found my bright blue glass globe and copper waterer. I love the blue on this copper sculpture. If connected to a hose water will come out the copper ring and everything will rotate as it sprinkles the garden. It was handcrafted by an artist in Maine and we bought it at a town craft fair as we were driving through.