The ladies and the lads are getting bigger, and their feathers are starting to grown in! I made their pen larger today. We’re all looking forward to them going outside in a few more weeks!
Chicken coop almost done!
After several iterations, This is the final first portable chicken coop!
Although I built the coop from scrap materials, it features a purchased metal roll-away nesting box.
PROJECTS
Two projects have been at the top of my list lately: chickens & the wood stove alcove.
Heritage breed mutt chicks, hatched from a neighbor’s flock! In this pic, they’re one week old.
This year (finally!) I have all my garden beds, so I don’t have to build more. Now I have time for my newest yard project: chickens! Our HOA allows 6 hens. It’s looking like 3-4 of the 9 chicks will be roosters, but a neighbor outside the HOA can take the guys. As the chicks spend their first several weeks inside a pen in the temporary shed with Jasper and I, I’m finishing up their chicken tractor coop and have ordered the electric poultry fence to keep them safe from predators.
In progress! I try to do an hour or so a day placing large rock facades sourced from a neighbor, interwoven with smaller rocks sourced from the beach.
I should have all the alcove rocks placed in a few more days, and can then cut the wood trim surround in a neighbor’s woodshop when he returns from vacation, do the final grouting, place the wood stove and fire it up!
My bathtub arrives tomorrow on the water taxi. It’ll be a joy to heat the space while I’m working on the plumbing!
Winter Snow Days, Inside & Outside
Two days of snow the other week here. Here’s what J-dog and I were doing then!
The past week we were visiting family on the mainland, so I’ve been busy utilizing the mainland high speed internet to update the online shop with many new paper prints and new canvas prints.
More video adventures!
Reminder that I’m uploading recent short video adventures as my limited internet allows!
Winter Slow down
We’ve had freezing temperatures and clear skies for the past few days and for another few days, before we get back to the more typical overcast rain. A great excuse to stay inside, crank up multiple space heaters and get some artwork done! I’m working on an island summer deer-in-forest habitat piece that I began several years ago, but has sat in the flatfile drawers for several years while I was consumed with the home/studio build.
Mama and fawn. Possible Papa is also part of the scene, but not pictured.
Before the big freeze, I gathered goodies to make one last winter mushroom medley.
Mostly Laccaria, with some white coral fungi and black earth fingers, green lichen and (I think) yellow sulphur tuft mushroom centers.
House build update: Stairs!
This is the most challenging thing I’ve ever built: winder stairs to code. To meet code, measurements can only be 1/8” off. I’ve built and rebuilt each of the main components 3 times, sometimes because I got a measurement wrong, sometimes because I’d realize I could stuff more storage compartments inside. Whew!
New Year Forest find!
Three winters ago I was bushwhacking through the forest and came across a small patch of 4 winter chanterelles. I crumbled them into bits and scattered them in the area, hoping to increase the bloom in later years. Yesterday I checked the area. Boom! A bigger bloom! I’ll be making these for dinner tonight along with onions and garlic from my garden, and salmon I purchased a few months back from the reef net fishermen on Lummi Island.
Happy New Year!
For the past few weeks, I’ve been uploading short videos to my new YouTube channel. Little slices of life out here, taken from phone footage from the past year. The latest installment features a neighbor’s saw mill.
TODAY'S FINDS!
Been busy working on the final floor plan for my home/studio build, but did manage to take a wee walk with Jasper this afternoon to see who was blooming!
Laccaria in the middle, along with yellow witches hats with dark grey gills, a mini orange-gilled hygrocybe, earth corals and white-tipped black wood fingers.
Late winter nights planning and replanning the home/studio floor layout, consulting Pinterest & drinking tea!
Purple!!!
There’s a certain spot on the island I found years ago that has a fantastic reliable bloom of purple-gilled Corts (cortinarius species) every year. Well, except last year. We had so many freeze-thaw cycles that the corts refused to come out at all last year. I’ve been obsessively checking the spot this season and was thrilled to see my purple friends popping up once again, although this year they are more pink than purple!
Purple Corts, and a few blooms from the garden.
Been Busy!
For some reason my laptop is the only device that I can update this blog, which I don’t use much these days! Telegram is easier for me to post to on my phone. Anyhow! This past holiday weekend my sailor sweetie and I went out on the sailboat. SO dreamy. I even began little watercolor paintings!
MORE!
Well I thought I’d uploaded these here already the day I made them, but now I remember that iCloud wasn’t working for me that day. That’s what happens when you live in the sticks and your technology is made for city people with abundant internet connection!
Always exciting to find those red hygrocybes and yellow earth fingers!
Earth Corals! Yeah!
between the storms
Yesterday afternoon we had high winds and then driving rain, so it was an inside kind of day. For weeks now I’ve been cleaning and sorting everything in the shed, the house, the outbuildings and the yard. The last two years have been a blur of collecting materials and building, so it feels good to take a break from those two activities to sort and assess what I have, and figure out what I still need going into this next build year.
By first light this morning though, the winds and rain had subsided so Jasper and I went out to explore some of the human forgotten parts of the island within walking distance from our place. I collected many interesting specimens, made a few medleys, and took lots of short videos. One of my winter projects is to begin a YouTube channel of short nature videos showing my process. Hopefully it’ll debut early in the new year, stay tuned!
Two huge stropharias, anchored by two blewitts with lots of other found bits and bobs!
Resting and Creating
Now that we’re heading into the darkest days of winter, I’m sleeping much more and generally resting and recuperating. I’ve been tinkering with new market product display ideas, drinking lots of tea (Jasmine green or Jasmine white are my two favorites), cuddling with Jasper dog, and going on low key walking adventures together. Here’s a round up of several recent medleys and happenings.
Medley made for my 92-year old widow neighbor.
Sometimes I get paid to make piles of things and set them on fire!
Found around the garden.
Jasper had to sit right there while I made this one!
Plentiful!
Another medley! Gathered these gems while Jasper and I walked the neighborhood. Last night was our first one below freezing. When mushrooms freeze they dry out and the gills get wavy. You can see this clearly on the second stack down from the top. I arranged these finds in one of my nasturtium flower beds, which will turn to goop once the freeze thaws and turns to rain. I’ll miss these sunny blooms!
Another Medley!
I’m taking advantage of the non-rainy weather to get some yard work done around my place and a few island client’s places. I’m finding mushroom and other nature gems as I do!
Hardy fuscias and hot pink sorrel from my garden, maple and cedar leaves from a client’s grounds, plus mushrooms from everywhere I’ve ben!
And... I'm back!
Oh hey, hi! Well as usual Summer Manic Season got the best of me trying to balance weekly trips to town to vend at Farmers Markets, work for islanders, keeping up with the garden, and trying to get some work done on my build project. Now the summer work season is over and it’s quiet once again. Time to nestle in, rest, recuperate and go on low-key explorations!
I went to my sweetie’s family’s annual elk camp in NE Oregon last week. While the guys were out hunting for elk, deer, turkey or grouse, I explored miles of forest service roads and old logging roads for my bounty of choice. Here are the results of my hunt!
The forest floor was littered with pine needles, elk and deer dung.
Made in a switchback creekside meadow on the way to Horse Shoe Ridge.
Found this deer shoulder bone nestled in among the kinick-kinick.
Just as we were packing up to leave, the hunters scored a turkey! I brought home the tail and wings to commemorate the turkey that will be enjoyed on Thanksgiving. Isn’t my new Passion flower glorious?!
August in the garden
FRIDAY FRIEND FOCUS: Local Divers (& Stickers)
How cool is this? I received an email from a new virtual friend and fellow nature nerd Bethany the other day:
“I bought four of your Resilient stickers to recognize members of our dive team (WDFW Shellfish dive team), for their efforts in our annual May fitness challenge. We call it “Don’t Be Lazy” fitness challenge. Haha. We dive all over the WA waters of the Salish Sea. Here’s a picture of two of our divers in front of Allan Island about to get in to do an urchin survey. We love to put special stickers on our personal gear boxes - you can see my sticker on my box here.”
Turns out the team dives to check on our Pinto Abalone stocks as well, so I’m sending a few of those stickers along for the team to enjoy!