TWO!

My little miss turned two... that seems very hard to believe as it really does (cliche aside) seem like only just a tiny little while ago that I was sitting here typing up the post annoucing her arrival a few hours after her birth. Time has literally flown with her - she was an easy pregnancy with an easy-peasie birth who later proved to be an easy baby and one thing just seems to flow into the next with her till she's become my easy, sunny kid. Mind you she knows her own mind and if you manage to actually rile her she's got a temper that's spectacular to witness and a stuborn streak a country mile wide!

Her birthday itself was a quiet one as she's not been well nor have I. But even sick we got a few smiles... sorry for pic quality, this is off my mobile.

Instead we celebrated a few days after with a lovely day of just mum and Lily (and dogs of course)


Before having her birthday picnic at Emerald Lake Park

And of course, the cake... it doesn't quite show it but it's choc with turquoise and orange.

Happy second birthday to my gorgeous girl!

We may have created a monster...

It's no secret Dr. Who is a popular thing in this house and we've got a running list of cute little incidents involving it and the kids.

La bringing home a drawing from school which he proudly told me was, "The Doctor. And his TARDIS. And his sonic screwdriver!" and explaining why the TARDIS is orange with a smug little "I FIXED the chameleon circuit!" was just plain cute.

Lily started recognizing the Doctors and chirping, "Doctor DOOO!" at 18 months old we mutually agreed was all kinds of adorable.

When La spent the day dancing around chanting "I. Am. Your. Soldier!", quoting lines and speaking everything in an electronic halting voiced Dalek tone and I had to explain to his teacher what he was on about it was a tad embarrassing.

The number of times I've had to endure debates over some point of cannon from my five year old and his thirty year old father made me reflect that with his parents normal was never really going to be on the books anyway.

When Nic had on the scene where Bad Wolf decimates the Daleks and Lily glanced up from her building blocks, notices them being atomized out of existence, waved and innocently chirped "bye bye, see ya later!" we both snorted our drinks.

The fact that Laurent, having nabbed a colouring marker and scrawled a green slash across his forehead, spent the afternoon informing people he was "Slitheen" and about to emerge from his skin suit while making farting noises was a bit much but still... it was cute, in a geek!Pride kind of way. To be honest, we always rather suspected he was possessed and one day the mother ship would one day return for him... so a skin-suited Raxacoricofallapatorian wasn't too far a stretch.

For the past week though my darling little spawn latched onto a pen he asserts is a sonic screwdriver (and dang if he hasn't mastered the "you've dribbled on yourself" look if you try and correct him) and steadfastly started REFUSING to do a dang thing unless he first sonic screwdrivered it. Food? Not edible unless it's scanned and analyzed first. Going anywhere? Not unless it's the direction the sonic screwdriver is leading him. Clothing? Not unless he's checked it's not an alien in disguise. Twenty. Four. Hours. A. Day.

We MAY possibly just have gone a smidge too far in indoctrinating the children.

Hello world...

Meet our new little sweetlings, who arrived last night -

Two little ginger tabbies, one with colouring similar to our own Jasper and one with a white blaze and boots

a little blue tortoiseshell girl

and a blue-silver tabby baby with white blaze and boots.

They're just beautiful and doing very well with their mummy. La is over the moon, chattering about what we're going to name them and how many new toys he wants to buy them in a few weeks when they can play in between cooing over how gorgeous they are, how cute the little milk squeeks and slurps are, praising mummy for being brilliant and repeating everything he's ever been told about kitten development. I feel very sorry for his teachers in the following weeks as they and the class will undoubtedly be hearing ALL about every detail and factoid that he recalls. Nostalgia has hit BIG time, as he recalls our litters of foster kittens and Emi from last year as well. He still remembers each of them. He's not the only one nostalgia has hit either admittedly!

In the meantime, Hopie had a good time at the Hastings flyball comp and was doing a great job. I had an awesome time, given I had Nic minding both kiddos both days - which meant two full days of no kidlets and all dogs! I love my kids to bits but sometimes it's nice to miss them and just be myself without having to worry about what fresh chaos La is getting into. After a week of Lily having a sky-high fever for several days and did this all day so long, at least so long as she was being held...

as well as craptastic sleep and La having a few days where he was alternating between mad-hatter hyper and tolerating things badly this was especially welcome!

(La in an insane-but-happy moment. And anyone reckon SickLily has got the sad puppy dog eyes mastered? Just a bit?)

Last but not least a picture I'd meant to post awhile back. For those who don't know the back story, Shadow came to me from his owner via Maremma Rescue Vic. His owner "fudged" his history, saying he was used to sheep and poultry. Shadow quickly demonstrated he had some pretty significant issues with wanting to be predatory. He had us absolutely in despair over it and at my wits end because nothing seemed to work for well over a year and even when Jodie came over she couldn't see him acting with much guardian instinct. Not being safe around them here wasn't even an issue limited to our own animals safety but presented a major risk if he were ever to escape as not only would neighboring animals be at risk but their owners would be within their rights to have him destroyed. I kept working with him though because of just that reason... and scenes like this are VERY sweet! Yep... that's the dog who couldn't help but chase them and wanted to eat them. Snoozing next to his best buddy Timtam. The real test will come with the birds but we're moving slowly and cautiously at this point.

Behold - a sign of the end of days...

I. Went. Jogging.

Yep. I'll give you all a moment to pause and catch your breath from that hysterical laughter.

After not having jogged in *mumbletymumble* ages I started off on our walk and that oh-so-intelligent part of my brain piped up "hey, wouldn't it be nice to get back to jogging?" So I figured what they heck and started. First little while was an adrenaline rush. Whoo hoo... I fell into it like I'd never stopped! That little voice in my head was positively smug - ha! Not so out of shape after all! Yeah. Well... pride and the fall and all that...

I made it not quite a kilometer before the stitch in my side made a persuasive enough argument that we walked most of the rest of our normal nightly-walkies route. So yeah... maybe that whole jogging idea is one of those things I need to do slightly more often. And um, maybe some of that core focused stuff going by the general 'oh hey, remember me, I'm the muscle you forgot you had - surprise!' feeling in that area.

The dogs thought this new revelation was BRILLIANT. They'd figured all my speeds faster than plod had been broken! Who knew???

Now our usual route is along a quiet dirt road and we almost never see anyone along the way aside from the cows, sheep or occasional tethered goat. Today however I also had a few years scared off my life when my mob of dogs saw SOMETHING in the dark and stopped dead in their tracks. Sierra, being the oldest, vaguely recalled hearing "guardian instinct" somewhere in the Australian Shepherd job description quietly growled a low warning. Which is more intimidating if you've never met her and don't know this is the dog who jumps when she's startled by her own farts. Her lieutenants - Hope, Rin and Shadow took a moment to look mutually confused (nope, we haven't done anything to make her peevish at us - huh, must be something else!) before deciding it was their job as lieutenants to back her up even if they had no clue what they were backing her up on. Still they get points for sounding intimidating, even if all three heads were constantly swiveling in randomly opposite directions that seemed to be everywhere other than where the deadly serial killer was apparently laying in wait. The serial killer, who, by the way happened to be one of our neighbors who do know my mob are harmless and their completely stone deaf fat Methuselah of a beagle who paid them utterly NO notice. ~_~ How embarrassment!

Yesterday we had our Pakenham comp with Hopie (which I *still* managed to be late to... gods I miss traveling with just me and the dogs some days!) yesterday and was quite pleased with it. She did pretty well but even more exciting she was fine with us sitting next to the dog which she'd been previously rather worried about which was awesome!

In the meantime the next day we went to training as per usual but I only took Sierra and Rin as Hope had what we thought was a bug bite but might have been the start of a hotspot. (It's looking like a bug bite after all though!) After Si had a few runs for fun, Rin and I sat down together waiting for our turn and playing in the sunshine. As we goofed around practicing down/sits, please, LAT, eye contact, targeting, on/off switch and leave it I had to admire how clever she is. I had a thought that it was really serendipity that we were sitting here enjoying this today. If I'd not have happened to read the message about her when I did, hadn't responded to ask about her or had they not called VHA in the first place to see if anyone would take her as a last resort before putting her down she might have been PTS and I wouldn't have half the fun in my life I did at that moment. I am so, so, so glad things worked out as they did!

She is a mad hatter, feral-head, wild child, crazy nutterbutter Borderbrat but since I think those traits make for a lot of fun, you can read that as "she's such a deeply cool dog!" Mind you she's not the dog for everyone so I can understand how she'd be trouble elsewhere. She is a professional cardboard box and plastic bottle demolisher. (Incidentally the people at Bunnings must think I'm a mad box hoarder given how often I come in for more boxes...) She needs if a dead minimum of a morning romp with the tennis-ball launcher around the paddocks, an hour or two of merry chaos wrestling around with her sisters at full throttle, a good long walk and training games throughout the day to take the edge off her need to do something. Why? Because if you don't that energy and busy little brain are liable to be found with their mouth on a couch or chair or WALL getting ready to to chew chunks to test which is the highest in palatablity. She is busy and curious and dastardly inventive and wonderfully bloody mindedly creative to work with. She has no sense of gravity and is more liable to sleep on the top of the fridge or woodshed roof than an actual dog bed. (Yes I could change that btw, as I have with perching/sleeping on countertops and stovetops but there is something about her snoozing on the fridge top that makes me laugh every single time, so I choose to keep it.) She comes with two speeds: fast and may-redefine-lightspeed-as-a-standard-measurement. She's Sam I Am in Green Eggs And Ham who must run through every variable when told you don't want green eggs and ham. Yeah you might THINK you don't but what about here or there, in a house, with a mouse, in a box,with a fox, in a car, in a tree, in a train, in the dark, in the rain, with a goat or on a boat? In short she is a nut but she's my kinda nut and I luffs her!

In different news I finished my March challenge painting of the boat - it's a miniature, just under 8x8cm (3x3"). The white isn't reading quite right on the camera and a lot of the more subtle blue, lavender and green undertones in the white don't show.

I also started on Rambo, a 14 year old Sheltie, who also belongs to the team-mate I painted Leo for. He's quite grey in the face so it'll be interesting to paint that much white and try to make it look not rubbish. Here's the rough-in:

I've also done a bit more on the black tri dog and on my cows but part of what I did was some veerrryyy thin glazes which require extra time to set fully so you don't pick up the layer again when you keep going so nothing too thrilling on them atm.

Dexter

I hadn't said anything to most people just after, not really feeling up to talking about it but I think I've put off talking about it as long as I can.

At the last update Dexter had been prescribed antibiotics long term and supplemental soft-food. He appeared to be going well, not eating much chaff but eating pellets and softer veg/fruit plus the critcare. The mites/ear funk he'd had when I got him had cleared. I'd thought if he had to have these issues at least he's dealing well with all the fussing, wasn't distressed by his injections (smeared a banana bit on the counter and did it while he was licking every molecule up) and he took to the crit care routine nudging the tip for more.

Then I'd been gone with Hopie at flyball on the Sat, leaving early in the morning and getting back lateish and and when I saw him in his little bed I knew we were in big trouble. I was grabbing his carrier and saying get back in the car, ring the vets to say get everything ready when he sort of sighed and passed. The best guess is maybe the antibiotics and/or not getting enough fibre with only pellets/critical care vs hay or stress from the abscess caused GI stasis and I wasn't there to stop it in time. Probably the fact that he'd had the problem for so long before I got him contributed, maybe if he'd seen the vet with the old people it'd have never developed the abscess. I can't undo having not been there when he went into stasis and I hate the thought he'd have felt ill and wanting me all day while I was gone. But I wish even more it were better known by people to have their vets keep a close eye on their bunnies teeth so things can be caught before they're problems. Please have routine health checks bunny mums and dads, they might save a life.

Rest in peace Dexie, until we all meet up at the Rainbow Bridge again one day.

A brief update on my tri colour Aussie boy - he's gone to the salon and gotten his first layer of highlights! Don't worry, they will be knocked back shortly and his eye shape (gah - too ROUND!) will be fixed so I can move onto his nose and lips etc.

Part of the inspiration for wanting to paint again comes from the a love of the works by my MIL's godmother Mania Mavro along with a few other artists that were friends of my MIL's father and taught him to paint. Ms. Mavro was an absolutely amazing painter - beautiful sense of colour, very bold and energetic. Here's a few examples of their works:





the above are Ms Mavro's, painted in the interwar period while the below are by a friend who taught Nic's grandfather to paint somewhat earlier:


After having not touched a paintbrush since I was very young, I decided to start trying to teach myself to paint instead of waiting to attend a proper course in a few years time because I loved looking at them. (Obviously I'm NO WHERE near the talent and skill here... yet!) So in November and I spent most of Nov/Dec doing 'sketch a day' challenges. I didn't touch anything in January but picked the brush up in February. I finished a few quick challenges along with a small Collie portrait. While I'm most drawn to a semi (vs photo/hyperrealistic) realistic style and animals, I also would LOVE to be able to paint like these artists. The trouble being that while it LOOKS simple it's deceptive to do so in a way that doesn't just create so much messy murky muck slopped on a canvas. And I, um... fall woefully short on those skills, along with lacking the familiarity and understanding of the subjects I have a bit of a headstart in with dogs. So in short, it's really frigging hard - as my first attempt proves!

Leo, finished painting #4

So here is Leo in his finished state... he's the third painting I've attempted and the fourth finished. I've been pleased with my progress and how a few tips I'd recieved off the critique of my first two attempts worked out on this one. Here's the full shot:

Not the greatest photo, the second close-up gives a better idea of colouring - for example the white of the ruff in the first actually isn't a flat white blob there but has lots of subtle shades of grey and lavender. I think the difficulty in photographing is to do with some colours being more glossy and hence reflective of the cameras light than others. He's 5x7 on canvas, paints are Derivan Matisse Structure in carbon black, titanium white, cad med red, cad med yellow and ultramarine blue. (Pthalo didn't work for it.)

I'm also super excited about my new March acrylics challenge. When I first saw the reference photo I thought there was no way I could do it - rows on rows of boats in dock, not my favorite subject to start with and this monster had no less than 36 boats along with many buildings in the background! It'd be a nightmare even for someone very experienced let alone me. I think I've found a crop I like though - not 100% sure the composition is good buuuutttt excited to get started all the same! Here's a sneak peak of my crop intended for a mini canvas:

In the meantime I'm working slowly on the black tri Aussie, the cows and the floral one atm.

Lukieboos is going home...

Luka is going home to his mum after being on vacation here, which we knew was not going to go over well with the president and vice president (aka La and Lily) of the Lukieboo Fan Club. When I first told La he wailed that Luka needed to stay here and proceeded to have a fit before curling up while glaring and pretending to be a fire breathing dragon roasting me. Not one for subtlety of expression our La!

I reminded him he's known all along Luka isn't ours to keep, that we'll see him again, that his mum misses him a lot and so on. He was unimpressed, so being a good mum I told him it's okay to be sad or angry and asked if there's something we might do that might make him feel better. Maybe he could paint a picture or make a book with photos in it that he could look at to remember all the fun he's had? When I didn't get much response I told him to just think about it.

A little while later while we were cleaning up the yard he's informed me he knows what will make him feel better since Luka has to go home. He does want to paint a picture but apparently the only thing that will make it better is to get a puppy of his very own. ~_~ I shoulda known better than to ask! He was doubly unimpressed when I told him that we're not getting a puppy for a good while yet and when we do it won't be just his. Poor La, it's not easy being five!

The finished bit of fluff

From the WC Acrylics board Different Strokes Feb 2011 challenge. I'd been undecided if I wanted to go with my usual way of doing things (aiming for realistic, hitting a somewhat painterlyish approximation of it) or try for something else. I got it to a base layer of 'usual', shelved it because I didn't like it and the yesterday decided "ah heck, the deadline is tonight, I'm going to just play and see what turns up." First I started doing sort of impressionistic squinty smudges but 10 mins in I gave it a good wash and this little bit of fluff popped out. LOL It's what happens when you paint sitting in the car waiting to pick your kid up with the comic section of newspaper spread out. Hopefully I can get a bit better at other styles playing with these challenges!

8x10 canvas panel, acrylics of course ;)

painting updates

I've been painting a fair bit this week... a bit of cheap therapy for a week that's not been wonderful. These are my fourth, seventh and third attempts at painting respectively having not painted while I was doing the drawing-a-day challenges the other months.

Worked a bit more on this lad. He's acrylics on 10x12" (25.4x30.5cm) canvas panel. Still early days yet but at least he's not *quite* as flat as he was anyway.

A new one started the other day... second and third layers of mumma cow having a sweet moment with her bubba. (First layer is just a light wash of pale goldytan to get rid of white canvas.) Acrylic on 4x6" (13x18cm) canvas. The glare in the upper right corner is just camera as some colours are more matte or glossy than others. Deviated from pure Zorn palette by adding pthalo blue here.

The base of another I started working the other day. I like starting new ones. LOL I have another of Sierra and one of Hope already planned... to be fair I do work on them all at the same time as I don't do wet-on-wet, so I go from one canvas to another as they use similarish colour mixes and there's no sense wasting paint while waiting for the first to dry enough to do the next bit on. Leo is a blue merle Collie Rough owned by one of my flyball teammates. Collie fur is proving surprisingly different than Aussie coat and I've had to totally change brushes to get the start effect of his longer ruff.

For those who don't know when Cami and Verity passed I buried them in the same area (they were always inseperable in life, so it seemed right they be together now too) and decided to make the area a memory garden we call the Rainbow Bridge Garden. Where Verity rests I put an angel statue and it's surrounded with forget-me-nots, little salvias, roses, daffodils, a federation daisy, iris and some other favorites. I go there whenever I'm thinking about them and it's a sunny, warm spot to remember things.

While I was out there today a big dragonfly appeared. Now I know dragonflies aren't uncommon but in almost 5 years of living here I've never seen one on our property so it was pretty surprising and I stood still to watch it for awhile.

Instead of flitting off and around though as I'd expected, it circled around me for ages about a meter and a half out, just in circles. It was so weird I just stood still watching it and feeling a bit amazed, we had dragonflies all over in the US and I've never had one circle me let alone for such a long time! Then it flew over Verity's angel and just hovered there for a good two minutes (timed on my mobile) before flying back over me and repeating the circles for not quite five minutes. It flew back to her angel for just a second before La came up to see what I was doing and when I looked back from him it'd gone.

Amazing hey?

A Borderbrat update

Because my feral little pointy black Rindog is just such a funny little nutterbutter!

Fiftyone billionty in my photo series of "Places Border Collies Do Not Belong(But Go Anyway)"

She knows she's not supposed to go over the fence into the paddocks. Technically she hasn't gone over the fence. Technically. ;p At first she'd bounce over and I'd tell her to get back. Then she'd try to come under and I'd tell her to get back. Then she tried to wiggle through and I told her to get back. Eventually she came upon this solution and just perches there like a cat.

Fiftyone billionty and one in the series. The pile of bricks I've got stacked waiting to be made into garden paving. They give a nice vantage point and soak up the heat so they're warm. Comfy hey?

And an ever so slightly SOGGY Rin-chan. Courtesy of all our storms!

Goofy girls. LOL

And a few of her just being bootiful. She's such a gorgeous girl. :)

By way of update on the critter front, Dexter had to go back in for another tooth trim - it'd already grown that much! While we were there we could tell the other incisors hadn't grown though, which we'd hoped they would. Still I've read they can take 6+ weeks to re-erupt properly after an injury so there is some hope they may regrow. In the meantime there was still some puss around the molar where they suspect the abscess so he's been prescribed long-term antibiotic injections (procaine/pen G). Bunnies abscess a bit differently than most animals. They lack an enzyme which makes it liquid and easy to drain like most animals. As well they tend to encapsulate it and it grows very slowly which is good in one way as they don't suffer from fever or so much pain but difficult in another as it means they are difficult to get rid of and don't easily drain.

He's very good for the injections, I give him a bit of cherry tomato and he doesn't even notice the little needle. He's lot a bit of weight as well so he's on Critical Care which is a special soft food for bunnies that is nutritious and appealing. It gets mixed into a paste and fed to him and he is just the sweetest fellow - just sits there on his little pillow and has a dollop squirted in, chews it, little tongue licking his lips and when he's done has a bit more. If I'm a bit slow he'll sniff at or lick the tip! LOL The pics are him on his little pillow while I was mixing the crit care up and after his food getting a kiss from La.

All together this week seems to just have disappeared on me... namely with school restarting and the roof (that'd be the one replaced last year due to springing a leak and frying all electrics...) re-sprung a leak and causing water damage in 3 rooms. Getting the roofing company to honor it's guarantee is interesting. To boot the tractor that was just fixed busted again and seriously I'm half expecting at any moment to hear a country guitar twang and the start of a theme song about how life done did me wrong writing all this! LOL My birthday was a few days ago as well and that turned out to be quiet but nice. Lily and I hung around the house with the dogs, kits and buns during the day. I got some painting done. I had a nice dinner with everyone and Nic totally surprised me as I was expecting no gift given how many big bills we've generated by presenting me with a laptop! He's apparently been paying for one to be refurbished for a year or so! It's not quite ready but still very exciting! (Our last computer predates our relationship so it was due!) Then Sunday I got given a day to myself at Flyball, just me and Hopie out having fun!

Here's La on his first day back at what would have been the equivalent to the start of primary school vs preschool/kinder. The school has a new building almost finished and welcomed a new teacher who will be sharing in his class so he's excited about that as well as being back with his friends again. A few more of Sir 5 Year Old.


and this is the view just near his school... how gorgeous is that hey!

Plus one of the Lilypillie, who is enjoying having mum all to herself (well, comparatively... still has to share with the furkids) now that La is in school full time!

Art wise, I've royally slacked off most of January. Trying to get back into the swing of things and make time for myself in February. I have two paintings on the go and one more in my goals for the month list. The first is (act shocked...) a dog. Nothing new there although I'm playing with a limited palette - cad red med, cad yellow med, black and white. Here's the roughed in first layer, excuse the dreadful flash shine, rug and jeans!

The second and third are part of challenges. Number two is a WC Acrylics board Different Strokes challenge. The rules let you crop, choose a section/detail, enlarge it or develop it any way you feel like. I really liked the orange lilies up against the bronzy background plant, so I'm planning to tightly crop on that. I can't decide if I want to go with my usual way of doing things given I'm still very new to it or try for something looser, more impressionistic and impastoish. This is the base layer for if I go my usual way. Wibbledywobbdly, indecisive.

The third challenge is to take myself totally out of my comfort zone and go to an abstract challenge I happened upon on the Abstract forum - which is to see how little 'detail' can you use in a piece of art and still convey your 'meaning' - however you understand that term. The subject is a rainstorm, hopefully mixed with a yellowtail black cockatoo. Start of the storm...

Random and unconnected to anything - our neighbors foals, who are just too much fun to watch running around! I mucked with it a bit, think it might make a nice painting eventually?