foxfeather

I guess it's been forever since I posted any art here, so I will post a bunch of more recent works! I will post others soon. I'm backlogged again on travel photos - I have all the pictures from our Alaska trip and some other recent adventures, just have to get them organized and posted - eventually!

Wolves (these and the other yin-yang designs have been printed on t-shirts, you can find them if you click on the image!)

Foxes
( Lots of art under the cut! )

In other news, the farm has been keeping us really busy - the garden was doing fantastic and providing us with tons of amazing produce. I've been experimenting on fresh from-scratch tomato basil soup and I've finally gotten a recipe down to where I'm really quite happy with it! We had our first experiments in canning - making pickles. They turned out too sour, I'm not really sure how that happened but will have to try different recipes next time. I didn't realize making pickles was such an event of black magic - no wonder families guard their recipes like gold!

I've been picking up shows again, just finished a local all breed dog show, and plan MFF for the fall and then a large avian trainer's conference in the winter. I'm really looking forward to that one - bird people are made full of awesome, and these are about the birdiest of the bird people that exist.

Have some friends who will be visiting next month, very excited about that! I wish our garden was still going but a random heavy freeze (mid September??) killed most of the plants which were really just starting to produce for the fall - our pumpkins, melons, squash, basil (which grew like crazy but is apparently super not frost hardy), and a lot of other things are just goners. Bummer! Will hopefully be planting earlier next year as well as putting in the orchard. Going to prepare beds this weekend for a bunch of types of heritage garlic - very excited about those! I can't wait till we can move out there and work the land every day.

In our search for what livestock are right for us, I heard a lot of good things about yak. These Tibetan relatives of the typical cow are quite beautiful and unique! Like buffalo, they have leaner meat and can produce a useable milk. I was delighted to find out that Hooper’s yak ranch, home of one of the largest herds in the U.S., was in Minnesota. Thanks to the graciousness of John Hooper, we were able to visit and meet the yak this past spring. I can’t wait until we can get our own babies and start a small herd! It's still a few years off but I'm excited already.
( Lots of photos under the cut! )

I have gotten quite behind on posting photos from our recent adventures - in large part because of what I'm showing you now - our land, part of the Devil's Coulee region (in the Bluffs region of eastern Minnesota), which we've been working on almost daily for months in between our other jobs and commitments. There is something incredibly zen and amazing about working on the land, physical labor, surrounded by birdsong, biting bugs, and sunlight dappled through the forest trees - it's made time flow by in such a fashion I'm not altogether sure where the last few months have gone.

I will share some of our first photos from our land, mostly taken last December and early this year. I will continue in another post with adventures of trout, chainsaws, giant gardens, and deer skulls.

The old barn before we cleared the trees around (which were all overgrown, weedy box elders which made me feel a little less bad about cutting them)

( Many photos under the cut! )

He wouldn't let me take the picture without him. (Rocky posing with a commissioned whippet drum) - he's such a ham when he sees the camera!

( Lots of puppy pics under the cut! )

Carolyn, our local falconer friend, alerteed us to a wonderful seminar hosted by wildlife photographer Neil Rettig and his harpy eagle, Cal.
It was my first time seeing a harpy up so close outside of a zoo. They are such spectacular birds!

( Lots of photos under the cut )

Catching up again on some photos from our recent travels.

Mbala's parents are so adorable. This is a snapshot strolling down a road in his hometown, Ceske Budejovice.

Stellar's Sea eagles at the Prague zoo.
( More photos under the cut! )

Happy holidays to everyone - I hope that the New Year brings you much peace, prosperity, and good health!

(The image is a collaborative piece between my husband, mbala, and myself. I sketched the image and he finished the design and then hand printed the resulting woodcut to create the final piece. )

Cliffs of Moher.

Jerpoint Abbey – Cistercian Monastery.
( Continue with me under the cut (many photos!) )

If I could only draw one thing ever again - one subject and nothing else, it would be owls.

Owls.

That is all.

I think just about everyone knows that factory farms are atrocious places. That mass-produced meat is everywhere, though, and it is really easy to just grab a package of chicken or beef at the grocery store, a burger at a restaurant and not think about where it comes from. The 'organic' meat on the shelf is often twice as much and usually doesn't taste any better - most if it being for the most part (very unfortunately) a scam (misleading names/descriptions/etc.). So... you love animals, but you enjoy eating meat. It's easy to just kind of push out of your mind where the meat comes from because life is busy and money can be tight.

I would like to offer an alternative - take a peek at http://eatwild.com/ :) It is a great listing of 'beyond organic' type of farms - places where animals are raised in a more sustainable, environment friendly fashion. Chickens are actually out roaming, eating insects. Cows eat grass and not corn and sludge. Often times the meat is the same price (or close to it!) as that of the grocery store and requires very little extra effort to acquire (most of the farmers may not live too close to you but many deliver into various cities all month so you can meet up and pick up products). I promise the food tastes much better, and you make a stand to support local businesses and people farming the 'right' way - instead of giant animal factories.

I also highly recommend the book 'The Omnivore's Dilemma' - it's a great look into the overall structure of the current American food ag industry. http://www.amazon.com/Omnivores-Dilemma-Natural-History-Meals/dp/0143038583/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1283185737&sr=8-1
It's got a lot of eye-opening information in it if you haven't read about factory farms, organic, and 'big organic' before. I found it to be not preachy or in your face, but a more objective look at the way things are here, how they got here, and what your choices are for supporting one industry or another.

I visited factory farms when I was younger - they really are as bad as described and more. It turned me vegetarian (and vegan for a shorter span) for years. I admit I do like eating meat, and though I try to eat less of it now (and many more veggies!) I enjoy it and take responsibility for that. I hope to someday raise my own meat animals in the best possible conditions - but until then I've moved over to buying my meat from sustainable family farms. I'm getting a heritage, free-range turkey for Thanksgiving this year. :) If ethics don't sway you, try it for the taste... these birds are so incredibly full of flavor you'll never want to touch a Butterball again. :)