Sometimes You Just Have To Paint An Elephant

Worn and weathered, a little like me, 

sometimes you just have to spruce up a little.

I painted a latex house paint base

added details with acrylics

and stained the entire job.

Looking much better now.

Catching Up

seems to be something I'm not doing very well lately.  I did, finally in the month of June, change the top bed cover to something lighter.

I've almost finished with painting the outside of the house.  The paper wasps have delayed me.  I painted one as it emerged from a crack between wood and rock at the top of the chimney.  It fell but another followed it. I decided to stop painting until I get wasp spray. I'm allergic or I would just try and work around them.  

Between the rains and up and down the ladder, I've weeded and picked up limbs and moved rocks from the water garden so I could fit the ladder next to the house.  I've become braver and more trusting of my ladder placement judgement.  I have very few spots left to paint, just the trim.  Almost done!!!  The high spots will be done from the tractor bucket.  All with a two inch brush, too.  I'm kinda proud of my work.

It is hot and dry now.  A couple of afternoons were triple digits. Some that weren't felt that way with the humidity.  My painting follows the shade and in between I've picked cucumbers and onions, sprayed the hungry bugs with hot pepper/mint/Dawn tea, and moved things from my sister's house she sold.  Along with my regular "chores" I've stayed busy.

The old doe with a fawn thinks the garden is hers.  She likes the bean tops and the lettuce best.  The dogs were keeping her out but she convinced them to stay away the day they sniffed out her fawn.  The deer gave them a good stomping.  No one was harmed but the dogs let her graze in the garden now.

I've mentioned Pit Vipers or poisonous snakes have a smell.  Well, let me tell you something (the way Mom always started a wild story) I've been smelling something strange in our tool closet.  Told Hubby we either had a Copperhead or a skunk under the floor.  He said, Naw, the dogs would have gotten either.  They did one day...tore up jack shit as some would say.  I couldn't tell what was going on.  Had to take a piece of siding off to see under the floor.  There it was...a monster of a Cottonmouth snake.  The dogs did good.  Sad part is I think it got one of my Koi....and to think I've been moving those rocks, digging around, standing barefooted, never having my mind on a poisonous WATER snake.  Well, I'm thinking and watching now!

At night when I sit with ice packs on aching muscles and joints I try to read.  My latest book was A Parchment of Leaves by Silas House. I would like to share a line that struck a chord with me "That's all anybody can ask for, if you think about it-to have somebody love you and depend on you and take care of you when you're sick, and mourn over your casket when you die."

So, just like a letter from home, I've caught up through the times I've failed to post.

Happy Father's Day and may the rest of June be wonderful to you.

Oops! Paint

A few years ago I discovered some paint departments have an Oops! section.  Perfectly good paint that has been returned because the color wasn't right or it didn't suit the purchaser.  What ever the reason, their loss often became my gain...at a greatly reduced price!  I just have to not totally dislike the color.  I find the same product works even if the color might not be my first choice.  Oh, and colors can and do get mixed after they go home with me.  Not a drop is wasted.

Christopher Lowell's Tangerine

Cyber Green

Concrete and block sealing paint in various colors still stop the seeps

and you can get cartoonishly creative in the basement.

Rustic Red exterior stain with sealant

makes the sandstone rocks pop!

Work with what you have.  Be creative.  Check out those odd colors that someone else didn't like. After all, it's just paint, you can paint over it.

A good basic black is never boring.

Browse in the duct tape section

to create area rugs from carpet pieces.

Oh, the joy!  

Kinda sad, isn't it??

Plowing Through Life

has done it now!  Martha has invited me to answer eleven questions and tell eleven random things about myself.  She tried to bribe me with an award but it didn't work! or did it?  I have no idea what a Liebster is unless it's a Canadian lobster...kidding.

If you want to meet an interesting lady, dedicated mother and an over-the-moon-in-love-with-her-husband woman who also has a brain and a good sense of humor, stop by Plowing Through Life.

And so my elevens begin:
1] Which literary genre do you prefer?
I love a variety.  I read the book that calls my name.  I lean toward mysteries and horror like King but shy from sappy romances and porno.
2] Why did you start blogging?
We had moved to the farm a few years before to help with Dad after Mom died.  My sister suggested I blog as an outlet.  I have been blogging almost eight years.
3] Order or chaos?
I crave order with flexibility.  I am usually surrounded with chaos.
4] Where would you like to live?
Have never given that much thought...always felt at home here surrounded by nature.  Two other places have touched me but so different from here and from each other: the desert Southwest and Savannah, Georgia.
5] Starry sky or sunset?
Sunset since there is still enough light for me to take a picture.  I love to view both.
6] Paper book or e-book?
Without hesitation, Paper!  There is just something about the heft of a book, the smell of a book, that is all part of the reading experience.
7] What is the writing for?
I had to really think about this one.  Now, I don't know the answer.  I used to have grand humorous stories to tell about farm life and life in general.  I used to think of myself as a writer...was born with a pencil in my hand.  Now at sixty-one I ask myself the same question. 
 8] TV or not TV?
I can live with out.  Senseless tv watching is a mind killer, I think.  I do have a tv but I rarely sit long enough to watch a movie since I'm always thinking of something else to do.
9] What do you think about social networks?
Blogging and emails is as socially networky as I get.  I have seen too many idiotic things go on inside social media...not my cuppa tea.
10] Favorite food?
My favorite flavor is chocolate but I have no favorite food.  I love Chinese cuisine.  I cook for family the things they like.  If it were just me I would eat what ever stopped my stomach from growling, something I didn't have to cook.
11] Favorite music genres?
I enjoy a little of all.  I love some of many styles but not all of any style.  I lean toward rock and roll and blues.  I've yet to wrap my head around the nasty rap songs and do not plan on trying.

or you may not know about me.

 1.  Elastic is my best friend.  Any kind of restrictive clothing drives me crazy!

 2.  I like honesty and prefer it to bull.

 3.  I am squeamish doctoring a human but can do anything with an animal, including suturing a wound.

 4.  I have been told I am an empath especially with animals.  I basically "feel" their thoughts and work with that.

 5.  I love all things in Nature except scorpions and ticks and mosquitoes and cock roaches and slugs. I don't have anything against them just don't want them around or on me.

 6.  Like Martha's sleep paralysis, I have experienced a few things that were not explainable.  These experiences fascinate me but I do not seek them.  My mother had the gift of "seeing" so maybe I have a touch of that or maybe I'm just "touched".

 7.  I can't believe Martha and I do the same thing with food!  I find my favorite flavor in a plate and invariably save that for a final delicious bite.

 8.  I feel closer to God or The Creator in the middle of the woods far more than I do in a church.

 9.  I am bullheaded, impatient, creative and determined.  I work hard and have no patience with slackers.

10. I am never, ever bored.  I write.  I paint.  I imagine.  I create.  I sew.  I crochet. I quilt. I explore.

11. I love history of the land, people and places. 

Well, Martha, thanks a lot.  This has been fun. 

Be sure to visit Martha and the others she has awarded challenged to lay it all out for every one to see.  The purpose of this is to meet new bloggers with common interest and, in my case, you can laugh at my answers too.  I forgot to say I do have a sense of humor.

I Love Ironing Boards

not because I love to iron but because of the wonderful promise of an empty canvas. I'm not talking about the wooden ironing boards your great grandmother had.  No, save every one of them and cherish them. I'm talking about the ugly metal ones we cover with fire proof pads to help the iron glide while we're breaking our backs.  I personally try to avoid using one at all costs.

I've never heard of one breaking.  Luck came my way.  My daughter had a broken one and was going to throw it away.  No, no, no!  There's a lot of potential in that piece.

There's always a good use for holey flat metal so I took it to the shop.  I beat and banged and twisted until the broken legs were removed.  It could become a tool rack for the shop, a pan rack for the kitchen, hold thread and supplies for sewing...endless uses but I settled on one and began to play.

With paint and brushes I began.  

You can tell the notes aren't true but bear with me.

The term abstract saves me again and again.  Back to the shop I hammered in a cabinet handle then I decided it needed some bolts.  I threaded nuts onto three different funky bolts that fit into these holes and tightened them in place by adding another nut to the back side. So far so good.  Abstract.

Old drapery hooks clipped right into the holes and it became a jewelry keeper (the black circle off the board is a necklace, not paint off the board).  The bolts became a shelf.  A small hidden rolled piece of duct tape keeps Stevie Ray Vaughn's photo safe in a music loving teenager's room. A big bonus is magnets work too so keepsakes can be added and changed.

I added this little display on another wall. The worthless cd's hold the collector albums in place without damaging them.  The entire album with cover can be slipped out when needed.

He may start locking his room!

A Redesign

I can't help it!  I can't do one thing and be done.  Remembered when I moved my bottle tree?  (Making room for my dragon) Well, I didn't like it after it was moved so I added some limbs, gathered some more bottles, dynamite wire, soldering wire, glitter, and paint

Instead  of hanging the bottles upside down, as is standard, I turned mine right side up but not before some changes. 

I covered the opening with foil to avoid paper wasp building and water standing.  I added paint and glitter inside the bottle.  The bottle chose its own look by the way the paint ran. The glitter is very sparkly in the sunshine.

The tops were wrapped in soldering wire or dynamite wire for hanging.  The soldering wire is very easy to bend and adds some shine to the look.  The dynamite wire is thinner and plastic coated.

I added my holey rocks or Crone Stones or Fairy Rocks...whatever you prefer.  Legend is you can look through these holes and see the fairies in their realm.

No bottle washing for me.

That will be up to Mother Nature.

The top bottle is soldering wire, the bottom dynamite.

Even Hubby asked how those bottles turned that color!

I added Dad's spark plugs since I had a bucket full from cleaning his shop.

I think it's an improvement.

I may change it again tomorrow.

I Paint

More and more I seem drawn to the daily prompts at Mindlovemisery's Menagerie.  There is a new and varied prompt every day with an open link for a week.  This is my favorite part because there are many times I write something only to discover a link is no longer active.

Jumping In

I paint

A lone figure
Armed to create
Heading to a nebulous copse
There's no menace
I exhale

No infections
Except the atavistic influence
That flows through my veins
Cranberry pastel
Bony fingers paint

I came to create
With canvas and brush in hand
I step through the door
That births art
Dipping my brush in Ichor

I paint

Horses...

have a way of showing up

even when I'm cleaning brushes.

I'm guessing

they always will.

A Job On Every Front...

I've had a favorite snake for years.  A plaster snake who has seen better days.  I could not part with him even if he was broken.  Hand painted by me, he has aged far quicker than I have.

So last night I thought of a solution.  Cobra was broken at the base but still had a solid rod through the center of his body.

The idea hit!  Gorilla Glue and DryDex Spackling might just work.

In the center of my room, I began.  Gorilla Glue was the first ingredient.  Gotta make those edges stick.

We don't live in the land of cobras but people still step back just a little when they run into one.
Knowing me, you can guess I move it around a lot...or I did before he was broken.

I've missed my little buddy. Hiding in some flowers or just sitting at the end of a sofa, he rarely goes unnoticed.

So repairs progressed.  Spackling and glue drying on my hands.  A little sanding, some carving of snake scales, and a new creative coat of paint and Cobra will rejoin my collection of fun.

Please note the ingenious use of scissors to prop him in place while it dries in the perfect snake position.

This gentleman is probably twenty years old a simple plaster cast on wire but he is dear to me. 

Next time you see him, beware, he will blend in very well and my fun will continue.