I Now Have a Beautiful Longbow!

This past week, I have been at a 1-week class in bow making. With only hand tools, we (the bowyers-in-training) transformed planks of wood, artificial sinew, and linen into a functioning bow, and we still had time after that to make an arrow, learn different kinds of draws, learn how to move stealthily in a forest, and have epic battles with foam arrows. Also, our main instructor was a kilt-wearing man. It was awesome. Wish I was as brave as a man wearing a kilt.
It was an intense week, all of it, but my main enemy was the rasp. I probably spent one full day in all just rasping and rasping and rasping some more. But seeing my bow strung and ready to use for the first time was so worth it.
Here is my bow. It is backed with linen and it isn't the prettiest bow ever made, but I love it all the same. Its name is Artemis. For those who don't know, Artemis in Greek mythology is the goddess of the moon and the hunt, and protector of baby animals. It's an appropriate name for a bow.

So true...

We Have a Butterfly!

I have yet to sex the little bug, but I've called my neighbor over and am waiting for her response to my text. Here's a picture, through the screen of the monarch's hatching enclosure. He or she is still drying their wings, I think.

More later.

Monarch Chrysalis

When I visited and gave an egg to one of my more interesting neighbors just now, she in turn gave me a little monarch-chrysalis-raising kit and asked me if I would like to raise a monarch butterfly. Of course, I enthusiastically agreed and she gave me direction on how to raise my little butterfly friend. When she showed me that little chrysalis, I was in awe. I have never seen such beauty come from one little insect. It looks like an intricate pendant that one might wear to a fancy dinner party. It is exactly the color of jade, with big swirls all over, and it looks like little gold beads have been inlaid in the perfect places. And it is all made by one little caterpillar.
The chrysalis should hatch within the week, and that is why I post now, on a weekday, because this way you can watch the drama unfold its wings and fly off into the sky.
To end this post, picture!

It's not high quality, but you get the gist. Beautiful.

Marina, Kidnapped part 2

Marina ran. She ran into the woods, dagger in hand, gasping for breath, before she came to her base. Marina’s base was one place that absolutely nobody knew about. Not her parents, not any princes, not even Marina’s kitten, Boots. It had leather clothes, an extra sword, another dagger, and even a spring nearby. The crude shelter was made of sticks and mud stuck together, built by Marina. She had learned how to do that when she ran away from home with a traveling hunter for a week. Again, that is another story for another day. In this story, Marina entered her base. She threw the jewels, the silk, and even the corset off of her body. She put on a pair of leather boots, a leather tunic, and her favorite belt, the one that held her sword and dagger snugly at her side. As she did this, she kept muttering to herself “It’s not like I’ll be going back there any time soon.” Marina decided that she would go gather some calming berries and herbs, and she needed them, because she was seething. She had been dancing with a prince that kept telling her that she was doing the dance wrong, while he was the one that was actually messing it up. Now, Marina hated dancing, but she hated being wrong even more, and even more than that, she hated being told she was wrong when she was actually right. Marina had far more education in dance than she cared to have, so much that she probably could have danced with the man that composed and choreographed “The Blue Waltz.” Then, her mother just had to come over, while stuffing her stupid face with fatty food, and reprimand Marina for eating too much duck.

                From all of this, Marina was in a terrible mood. She drove her dagger into the bark of a gnarled oak and slashed her sword through the air. Except it wasn’t air. Marina hit something that felt like a sand bag and heard a loud grunt. Thinking what she hit to be a wild boar, Marina whirled around, eyes wild, preparing to kill the boar if it was aggressive. Instead of a boar, a hand seized Marina’s shirt and whirled her around to face a gruff face. It was the face of a thug. Marina had seen “wanted” posters with that face on them. That giant scar on his cheek was hard to miss. His name was…Marina couldn’t remember. She did remember that this man was dangerous – a murderer and kidnapper. One thing Marina had not seen on the poster was the cut on the man’s belly. It was bleeding. Marina realized that she had made it with her sword. Her sword! She thought of it too late. The weapon was in the man’s calloused hands already. He chuckled.

More next week, because I like to keep people in suspense. Thanks for reading! Any current critiques, comments, compliments, corrections, curiosities or questions should go into the comments below and they will be answered shortly.

My Weekend

It has been a fairly productive and fun weekend for me. On Friday, I spent all my free time working on the chicken coop and run. Since I use the deep bed method in my coop, I only need to clean it out once a year, and in preparation for the hot summer staring me in the face, I cleaned out a year's worth of old, dusty bedding. When using the deep bed method, instead of cleaning out the coop once a week, you just add another layer of bedding until the annual clean-out. The deep bed method means that the bedding on the bottom is composting. There's the obvious benefit of stuff to add to the compost pile that's already slightly composted. There's also the fact that the compost releases heat, which can be a huge help in the winter. But in the summer months, it's best to keep the coop as cool as possible, so it gets cleaned out before June begins. If you are curious about the deep bed method, here's some reading for extra credit.
Anyway, I did my yearly clean-out of the coop and I swear, if I never inhale another smidgen of pine dust mixed with decomposing chicken coop, it will be too soon for my lungs. Unfortunately, I will inhale more in my lifetime. But, it's for the greater good of chickenkind.
After that, I cleaned the nest boxes, which wasn't too hard, but it was still work.
Then I planted some spearmint covered in chicken wire so that the chickens could munch on it when it got bigger. Apparently chickens really like spearmint because they stuck their heads through the chicken wire and stripped all the leaves off of the poor plant.. But the stem and roots survived, so hopefully it will grow back and after that grow bigger.
I refilled their giant feeder and their water bowl. If anybody reading has done chicken research, they'll probably tell me that I should use a waterer instead of a water bowl, but waterers don't really work for my flock. A normal waterer is too shallow, so my flock kicks dirt, poop, bedding, anything really, into their supply of water and it gets badly clogged. I also tried doing a nipple waterer, and my chickens were too dumb to figure out that water comes from the shiny thing when you peck it. Now, my water bowl isn't perfect. Some dirt still gets kicked into it. But it's not enough dirt to keep my chickens from having fresh water at all times. If you know of a better way to supply chicken water, then by all means tell me and I will probably give it a try. But for now, I have to be content with my little water bowl.
Finally, as the grand finale to all my hen-keeping activities, I made a DIY grit and oyster shell feeder of my own invention. It's not perfect, but it's certainly an improvement, because before, I'll be honest, the little plastic containers they were in got kicked all over, and then I would forget to refill them, and then I did not have happy hens. Here's my design.

It looks very precarious, and it's not a thing of beauty, but as long as the dowels stay on it should be fine. I'm putting it in a place that's sort of out of the way, so hopefully it will stay intact. Here's how to make it:

You Will Need:

2 small plastic containers, or 2 big plastic containers with the bottoms cut off, or one of each. Or 2 small glass or metal containers. Doesn't matter. You just need containers.

1 fairly large dowel cut into 4 sections that are about as tall as you want the feeder to be. My dowel was cut into 6 inch pieces.

1 hot glue gun

grit and oyster shell

The Steps:

1. Figure out which container should be the top and which should be the bottom, and which supplement should be put in each container. I put oyster shell on top and grit on the bottom, just because I would rather my chickens kick dirt in the grit than the oyster shell. They are more likely to find grit while free-ranging than oyster shell, so that's my reasoning.

2. Glue the tops of the dowel sections equidistantly on the bottom of the container you want to be the top. That's bamboozling, probably. So, if you're talking about mine, I would be gluing the dowel sections so that if you drew lines between them it would be a plus sign. And I would be gluing them to the bottom of the clear container. If your container has that little ring on the outside that helps it stand up, glue it inside of that. Be liberal with the glue!The way I glued my dowels was to put the glue on the tops of the dowels, then put the tops of the dowels on the container and hold it there. You have to do them one at a time though, or they'll get all messed up and you'll have to do it all over again.

3. When that glue has dried, put a dab of glue on the side of a dowel and make it slant. Slip your second container in and glue the side of the dowel to the side of the container. Repeat with the rest of the dowels. They should all slant outwards like in the picture.

4. Fill with grit and oyster shell and give to the chickens. Enjoy the amazing beauty of your new creation! : p

 

 

To finish off Friday, I had a riding lesson on a horse named Gunner. I couldn't have Dolly because the poor horse has an abscess on her leg. But Gunner was a fun challenge. I thought Dolly was stubborn...

On Saturday, I mainly sat around with my eyes glued to the laptop screen. I did to some research on keeping quail, though, so it wasn't a completely wasted day.

What will I do today? So far, I've woken up at 11 and done absolutely nothing! Fun, right?

Dance Party!

Insert your favorite dance song here!
I love my yootoob videos!
Now dance.