Egg watch 2008

Cleo

The first one didn't make it.

Here we go. I hope this year goes better then last year. Cleo has dropped an egg. It must have happened over night on Tuesday night. I have her area all set up for egg laying now. The wait begins. K~

Asian inspired bookmark

I love this exhibit at the MIA. I wanted to work with the colors. This is my "realistic" attempt at the object. I am going to work on using just the colors in a square module form. It worked out ok.

Kind of too bright and busy in the center. K~

Ch'i-t'ou, or earth spirit

Title:Tomb Retinue Dignitary

Date:early 8th century

Medium:Earthenware with polychrome glaze

Creation Place:Asia, China

A rare mini Otter Hound??

Could Bingy be a rare, as yet to be discovered, mini Otter Hound??

His rough, shaggy coat and large size make him the most distinctive of the hounds in America. He requires brushing about once a week. Sometimes the Otter Hound drinks by submerging his entire head in water. It is always at that moment that he decides to show his love for his master and lays his soggy beard in a lap!
The Otter Hound - Otterhound's coat requires only weekly brushing or combing. Tidiness is not one of its virtues of the Otter Hound - Otterhound and its large, hairy feet tend to hold debris and mud, and its long hair around the mouth can hold water and food. (We call Bing Noodles some times because we find various ramin, macaroni, or other type noodle in his hair!)
Otter Hound - Otterhounds are independent, inquisitive, bold, exuberant dog, friendly, cheerful, loving and intelligent. This dog makes a good house pet providing it is given lots of exercise and attention. Even though the Otter Hound - Otterhound's job was not to kill its quarry, it will give chase to any small, moving animals. (Poor Nala!!) The Otter Hound - Otterhound loves to hunt, sniff, trail and, especially, swim.

HMMMM......... K~

Optical 2

This is Optical 2

Again, I am working on getting this thing right. It didn't work as well as I wanted. It, however, is pretty. That counts for something. I plan on doing some color research in my "spare" time. I have done a small 3 dimensional box too, but need to photograph it outside.

I working at a Business and Professional Women's convention tomorrow for Pampered Chef. EEEEKKKK. Have not done anything like that for about 7 months. So all day yesterday and today I have been working on getting ready. I only have a bag of stuff ready. OOOOOO! Wish me well! K~

FUN!

Boy I needed that! We had a lot of fun and it was quite relaxing. We were in a sweet that was usually $300 per night. We got it for $75 per night! I can not believe the deal! I even went down 2 water slides. Yes ME! The lazy river was my area of choice. However, the wave pool was cool until I felt a bit sea sick.

We shared the suite with our friends that have a 18 month old girl. OH MY WORD she was cute. She reminded me exactly of C when she was a baby. We got a bit tight by the end of the trip. We were coloring together, and chatting a bit. Too sweet!

There was so much cool art in the resort. The huge map of Africa was cool.

They had a baby lion cub and baby Kangaroo that came to visit in the lobby every day. You could get your photo with the them for an astronomical fee. They were a bit crabby. I don't blame them.

I hope we can do this next year. The kids were fantastic from the moment we left our house until we got back in the car for the 4 hour ride home.

It is hard to separate 3 kids in a mini van, but we did it. It was a super great retreat!!

K~

Off to the Kalahari~

Well the fam is off to the Kalahari Resort in Wisconsin Dells for 2 nights and 2 days of fun. We got a great deal on the cost of it. I am excited and all packed. Bing is going off to Grandma's house. I wonder how he will do? He loves it there and visits alot. However, it is his first sleep over. The Zoo will be self sustained for 2 days. That is the beauty of the Reptiles and cats. I may post there, but I don't have my own laptop so, over and out for a few days. K~

Optical 1

This is a newly finished piece. Approximately 4" square. If you count each up and down stitch it is approximately 5800 stitches. It is not as successful as I had hoped. The contrasts are not as dramatic as I was planning. I don't draw my projects out ahead of time. It is always a work in progress from start to finish.

If it were ever sunny here in the northern tundra, I would photograph these outside. I will later.

Thanks for looking. K~

the ZOO

The 3" feeder fish that did not get eaten

Magellan, Sweetheart, Maxwell (Lulu not photographed)

Clyde

Cleo

Pebbles

Yuri

Shelley

Puff

Nala

Bing

Peanut

K~

Peanut - reviving a dead turtle

The story I am about to tell is true.

It is still hard to believe for me, but since I lived it, I guess I have to believe it.

On Friday night, I cleaned the Zoo. I scrubbed things down as usual. I desperately needed to rearrange things to "open it up" over in that little corner. So, I switched the 2 water turtle tanks around and set them all back up again. (still a bit soar from all that work) ANYWAY. I got them all back in order and filled with water etc. Checked on everyone and proceeded with my evening. My bedtime routine is to feed the water animals, Puff and Pebbles, so I did that and checked on everyone, then, lights out.

The next morning, I was so proud of my arrangement and the clean tanks. I as starting to photograph them. It was around 9:45 am. I noticed that Peanut was missing. Being only 2 1/2" she can be hard to find sometimes. After a frantic visual search, I feared the worse. I started moving around some of the rocks. There she was.

I took her limp lifeless body over to the counter and placed her on a paper towel. If you have ever carried a dead animal, you know the feeling of lifelessness. Her little head and 4 little limbs hung like wet rags out of her shell. She appeared dead in every way. I looked for life. No breathing, eyes closed, limp. I compressed her shell a few times. I touched her eyes to see if they flinched. I quickly searched for an object to pry her little jaws open. Something told me to try. I got her eyes open an breathed a steady small stream of air into her mouth. NO NOT LIP To BEAK, towards her face. I touched her closed eyes, no response.

The kids were next to me by this time. Urging me on. I kept calmly reminding them that she is gone and we need to say good bye, but I will still try for a while. About 5 minutes later, I saw a weird jerk that I didn't cause. I wondered if it was just stimulated nerve endings, I told the kids I would try for a bit longer, shell compression's, breathing and stimulating her skin with a sterol needle. Again about 5 minutes later there was a jerk.

At about 10 am, I saw eye movement. She flexed some of her upper legs. Now I was in a quandary. Did I just arouse her brain enough to keep the poor thing in a weird live dead state? Kind of eerie. I decided then that if she kept responding, I would keep working. Soon she gasped. Then twitched some more. I continued giving her air, compression's and stimulation.

At about 10:30 AM, 45 minutes of continual turtle rescue. She had her eyes open and gasped regularly. I was moved. I could not believe my eyes.

I put her shell under cool running water, careful not to get her head wet. She responded even more. She was holding her own head up for moments at a time. Her front legs were moving . Her back legs were not yet. I laid her gently on a paper towel to rest and repeated this for approximately another 1/2 hour.
By 11 AM, I had propped her on a wet paper towel mound in a shallow bowl with about 1/4" of water in it to keep her moist. I put her under a heat lamp. Then the wait began. She mostly rested her body on the paper towel and then lifted her head and gasped really big. This went on for about 2 hours. She did not attempt to move. I was worried that she couldn't. There appeared to me no movement in her lower legs. At this time, I decided that I would need to bring her to the animal hospital to euthanize her if she kept this up for much longer.
By 2 PM she was moving around! She needed to be switched into a container that she could not get out of. I was afraid she was going to forget to get her head out of the water. I kept if very shallow. I didn't know how much brain damage she would have.

I was so exhausted. By 3 PM I needed to lay down. I brought her container and light in with me (yes next to my pillow - in bed) and set a timer for 15 minutes. Of course I could not sleep.


By 6 PM I had set up another tank in my office for her to be observed. She kept hanging out in the bubbles of the filter and it made me nervous so I moved her back to her small container.

By 10 PM she seemed "normal", stable and content. 12 hours later, she seemed that she would make it.
At Midnight, she ate a small earthworm. :-) We brought her up to our room with her light for the night. I checked her every 2 hours. She was just fine. But like a newborn, I kept having to awake her to reassure me she was just sleeping and hadn't passed. By the morning she seemed just fine.

Almost 48 hours later, I am happy to report that she is doing all normal turtle things.

Amazing!
K~

Ort (leftover 3)

This was a fun project. I call it "Ort" because it is a small leftover piece. Ort usually refers to table scraps but in some dictionaries (if it is in there) it can refer to scraps. I like the asymmetry. I like the colors I was left with and had to try and fit them together.

I will be doing an animal photo shoot soon. They are being a little stir crazy from this long winter. I need to rearrange my zoo and clean the water turtles too. It looks to be a long labor of love weekend for me.

K~

Welcome World Visitors

I am sure that 97% of all the visitors on my site meter stumble on this site by accident, Sadley disappointed to find a site by a stay at home mom and her obsession with her stitchery. However, it is kind of an exciting map to look at. I could not figure out how to download it. So this will have to do. I had a visit from way way up north of Canada, South America, Asia and Europe and all over the US. Probably the Harvard posting I did. Still, neat! K~

Kind of.....

Your Personality Is

Guardian

You are sensible, down to earth, and goal oriented.

Bottom line, you are good at playing by the rules.

You tend to be dominant - and you are a natural leader.You are interested in rules and order.

Morals are important to you.A hard worker, you give your all at whatever you do.

You're very serious, and people often tell you to lighten up.In love, you tend to take things carefully and slowly.

At work, you are suited to almost any career - but you excel in leadership positions.

With others, you tend to be polite and formal.As far as looks go, you are traditionally attractive.

You take good care of yourself.On weekends, you tend to like to do organized activities. In fact, you often organize them!

http://www.blogthings.com/threequestionpersonalitytest/

Hmmmm..... Some are right on the money, some I feel are way off! K~

Guess Bing was sick of it too!

I finished the last 15 pages of the book. Then Bing and I took a nap. After the nap, I got up to do a bit of housewivery. About and hour later, after the kids just got home from school, D came to ask me if this book was important. Chapter 16 was completely shredded! Thank goodness I finished it BEFORE the nap! K~