Triumph . . .

Me and my 2004 Triumph Bonneville T100

No, I could not resist.  After posting the pic of me on my new bike on facebook, I could not pass up one more opportunity for people to comment on my complete and utter awesomeness.  I apologize in advance.

Bats, we got 'em . . .

Before I get a collective 'ewwwwww' from everyone, let me say that bats are not blood-sucking rodents that attack cows and people and grow up to have teenagers swooning over their washed out and pale good looks.  Those are Hollywood Bats.  What we have are what we have been hoping to  attract them into our barn all summer.  Here's the deal.

15 feet up - here batty , batty

A couple of photos of the bat house we installed that is designed to hold 50 bats or more (I know! jam-packed!) and we're reeeeaalllly hoping they take up residence.  Please, please, please.

From the Bat Conservancy website in Austin, Texas (where people gather every evening at the Congress Avenue Bridge to watch the bats), bats will eat an unbelievable amount of mosquitos, garden and farm insects every day.  A good thing around the farmette.  

Bats are NOT birds - they are little flying mammals and give live birth to one little pup a year that weighs nearly what they weigh - imagine that, moms.  Take a moment and ponder.

Cute bat : what we have

For the bug thing alone, we've been hoping for bats to take up residence in the barn and a few nights ago, we were putting some things into the old stable portion of the barn when a bat flew in, made a couple of laps around the  light, a few laps around us and off he flew!  We were so excited that we were nearly giddy!

By the way, do you have any idea how hard it is to find cute pictures of real bats?  Completely unphotogenic.

No worries - we don't have nearly this many

Trying hard not to complain . . .

The depths of the drought are worse for the farmers than they are for me but, like most people here in the rural Midwest, we've given up on beautiful grass and lush plantings for 2012.  Unless, of course, you are willing to risk a dry well and most would rather sacrifice the green for the ability to take a shower or a drink once in a while.  Easy trade.

The possibility of sounding depressed is imminent but I must share some photos of the Bowes Farmette from this 4th week of temps over 100 and no rain since mid-June.  Bear with me, please.

with rain in May

without rain - August

with rain earlier in the summer

When you hear of the drought being hard on farmers, believe it.  It's bad.  Corn is damaged beyond even silage with low to no moisture content so this doesn't just affect your plump cob of sweet corn.  It means that cattle will have little to feed on, produce fewer calves which, in turn, affects milk production.  The list goes on.  Soybeans - same.

without rain - August

Sometimes blogging is for no reason than to chronicle everyday life and this is one of those times.  We can't be pink sunshine and happy rainbow thoughts day in and day out as life has a way of intruding.  Rain.  Pray for rain.

Working through it all . . .

Not that you asked, but I have some serious artist issues to work through right now and something tells me that I'm not the only one.  I call myself a metalsmith when anyone asks what kind of art I do but maybe that's not fair to me.  And to say that I do a lot of 'stuff' isn't fair, either.

Lately I have found that my hands are itchy for something different.  Maybe to get back to what I started doing a gazillion years ago when a drawing instructor gave me such high praise that I started believing that what came from my hand and eye was, well, good.  Not worthy of having my name on the front of my work quite yet (and that's another story - the lesson of which is to be careful what you tell students as it lasts forever) but certainly worthy of hanging for critique and learning to accept praise from peers.  Whew!  Was that a lot of 'heaviness, man' to work through for an 18 year old art student!

So here I am feeling pressure from a gallery or two that new metalwork is needed and old metalwork has to be exchanged for the new.  What I 'heard' is that my old work isn't worthy anymore.  Ridiculous, no?  I internalized and brooded for a while and then began to work out some old issues and found that it's time to take a break from the hardware and metal for a little while (I'll come back to you, I swear) and to get back to the satisfyingly soft work of drawing and color.  This weekend I took up a few colored pencil drawings that I had started (I'm ashamed to say) a few years ago and I began slowly finishing them.  I began to work with more intensity and fervor and, believe it or not, JOY!  My eyes are seeing things fresh and my hand is translating as well as ever and, can it be?, I'm excited to sit at my drawing table surrounded by pencils and toothy paper and just freakin' draw.

As I work out some issues, I'll be back with brilliant insight and a few more completed drawings.  I'm not begging for praise here but am satisfied to show the world that I'm more than metal.  What is an artist?

And what kind of an artist are you?

Loading up the shop . . .

It's an experiment.  I am sending out six gift certificates over six consecutive weekends in giveaway bags.  These bags are going out as prizes at a local racetrack and as a 'thank you' to fans and supporters and will, of course, contain more than just my gift certificates.  In fact, people will be encouraged to pass along what they don't intend to use and I'm hoping these certificates will eventually get into the right hands.  So today was spent taking new pictures and listing listing after listing on etsy.  Fingers crossed.  We'll see what happens next. 

If Minnesota was always like last weekend . . .

 I'd move there, I swear.  However, I understand they get a little snow so I'm not convinced the temps will always be in the 70s during the day and 50s at night.  Still, a temptation . . . 

I

We had a wonderful airshow weekend in Granite Falls with our friends Rob and Janie (Rob is the chief pilot for Fagen Inc.).  Ron Fagen now owns my gorgeous old airplane, my 1941 PT-22 and I had the chance to fly it in the every-other-year WWII airshow.  What a weekend.  This time, hubby Ed flew it - winds were stiff - but no matter to me as I had the chance to take these pics against an unbelievably blue sky.

taxiing out

Just look.

fly by - just look at that grass runway
like carpet

okay, not particularly flattering but Ed's and my reflections
in the baggage compartment skin

And so it begins . . .

Yep.  Daylily bloom time once again.  Rather, daylily bloom time FINALLY.  Lots of things are in bloom at the Bowes Motor Speedway Farmette right now and the green things are lush but nothing, no nothing, beats daylily bloom time.  srsly.

Mystery Daylily and Oprah
surveying her domain

I'm only posting one here so as to not distract with other lovely daylily blooms as this one outshines all of the rest and will likely be moved to a showcase spot for 2013.  (Oh my, did I say 2013? Too soon, too soon.)

I bought this daylily fan from someone I 'friended' on flickr in one of the daylily groups and I'm sure I started a stampede.  He said it did not have a name and was a volunteer crossbred plant - not sure what its lineage is but just feast your eyes on this heavily veined beauty.  Colors are exactly what you see here and the veins are beautifully prominent.

No further comment required.  Behold.