NEW ART

I have always loved being artistic, but like many people, had to put more practical matters before indulging in some artsy play.  Over time, I lost touch with that creative side, but after a great eye opening message from our pastor, I decided to say YES to my artistic side.  So I embarked on a new project that I will share with you now...even though it's not finished.

 Naturally, since I am passionate about birds, I would pick a project with a bird theme.  Owls have fascinated me for a long time and I am thrilled that owls seem to be making a comeback in many different forms.

 Using paper, I layered pieces to make the shape of an owl.  Then I added dimension like buttons for the eyes and chip board for the flower.  All the stitching I did by hand. 

Adding textured paper gave the body of the owl more character.  I imagined wind blowing through feathers and felt that the swirls in this paper replicated that image very nicely.  I will finish this piece off by framing it.  I hope to have this and/or similar things ready for sale in my Etsy shop soon.  I will be doing pieces with a parrot theme also.  My mind is swirling with ideas and I'm bursting at the seams with excitement for this new adventure!

Hope you all are well and that you love on your birds daily.  Blessings to you and yours!

BARN OWL DAY

 I am not only a person passionate about parrots and their mental health, but I am also passionate about owls too.  Actually...I am an avian enthusiast through and through.  Here I am at a group outing with my bird group from church called, Birds of A Feather.  I am the leader of that group and am enjoying sharing my passion for birds with my church family.  In this picture, I am dissecting an owl pellet to see what the owl had eaten.

 It takes a gentle hand to pick away the fur and pull out the skeleton of the animals that the owl consumed.  You see, owls swallow their prey whole and upon digestion their body forms a pellet out of the fur and bones of the prey.  The fur and bones (which are undigested) then get puked back up and spit out.  Sounds gross, but it is very interesting.

 The pellet I dissected showed that my owl ate three field mice for his supper.  I found three skulls and was even able to find the teeth intact to where I could pull the tooth of the rodent out of the skull.  Rodents teeth grow constantly and it was quite interesting to pull on the tooth and see how far down in the jaw it resided.

 This plate held the furry remains.  The pellets are baked to kill all worms and bacteria before they are used for dissection.  They have an odor, but it is not an offensive odor.

 My camera is not the best, so this picture of the barn owl we saw is not very clear.  It was magnificent to see this owl in its natural setting.  Their flight is silent and breathtaking.  This particular owl did not make any vocal sounds, but it did watch us intently.

 This is an owl nest box that was placed up in the rafters of the barn we visited.  If there were young inside, we didn't see any.  The owl was protecting its territory, but it could also have been protecting some young.

This is the old decrepit barn that the owl calls home.  I wish old barns like this weren't becoming a thing of the past.  They are in and of themselves pieces of art.

 I had to share with you some pictures of my friend, Rue.  Now Rue is not the outdoorsy type like I am and she is not particularly a bird lover.  But she came to my group anyway...that's what friends are for....and participated.

 Rue always has perfect nails....Always.  My nails look like, well....crap most of the time.  But not Rue, no...she has perfectly manicured nails every day of her life.  So for her to dig in to this owl pellet and separate the skeletal remains of a rodent, blew me away.

And after we dissected pellets, we drove to the barn to see the real owl, as shown above.  And Rue came along...wearing her trademark high heels!  Try sneaking up on an owl to catch a view of it, with your best friend clicking along the cement in her strappy black heels......what a hoot!!!!  Gotta love her!