my heart is wrenching....

for all my dear friends in the Smoky Mountains.

http://scribble.knoxnews.com/Event/Smoky_Mountain_Wildfires

just learned of the tragic news of forest fires surrounding Gatlinburg.

I am praying for rain.  Much rain.

Peace and love to you  my friends.

Sad sad news this night.

and the eye's have it...

Here's my latest installment of songbird paintings.  This is a "Mourning Warbler" and what inspired me to create this particular piece was the potential wow factor of the eyes.  Um, yeah.

Songbirds are so much fun to paint...but the challenge is to get the eye's right.  Because if you jack up the eyes...well...you jack the entire painting.  (Of course you have to get the beak and body right too...but the essence in my opinion is in the eyes.)

Yet another fun painting complete!

This "Mourning Warbler" painting is made with acrylic on gesso board and measures 11"x14".

the math

Well, it's done.  Or technically almost.  All votes counted aren't final just yet...but...the winner has been declared.

It was anyone's guess who would win the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. I don't think I'm alone in saying I truly expected Hillary Clinton to become the next U.S. President.

I am most amused by the fact that the media's take on it seems to be...."how did we get it wrong?"  Pfft. The media doesn't seem to understand it's not about them.

Regardless....it's stunning to me to see how truly close this race was. The image above lists a total count of the popular votes cast for Gary Johnson (Libertarian), Jill Stein (Green) and of course Donald Trump (Republican) and Hillary Clinton (Democrat). Again these are the popular vote totals as of 1:30pm EST 11/9/16.  And per Electoral vote totals, Donald Trump has been declared the winner.

But look at the margins.  Yet again...it's obvious our country is CLEARLY DIVIDED as to who should be our leader or whatever the criteria was that individuals chose to cast their votes for one over another.

This also means that 64,849,871 American's are feeling pretty crappy right now.  Nearly SIXTY FIVE MILLION people didn't vote for Donald.  And yet....the 59,389,590 that did....I imagine have a much happier feeling....maybe?  Can't truly really speak for anyone else.

However...realistically, NONE of us know what's to come.  I think that's just it.  The unknowns are a bit unnerving.  Let's face it...whenever there is a "regime change" we never really know what to expect.

One thing IS for certain...there WILL be changes.

Here we go for yet another wild ride.  And here comes a FLOOD of actions or non-action regarding promises given during the campaign process.  (Actions DO speak louder than words...so BRING on the ACTION!)

In the mean time...I'm glad the dog-and-pony-show has finally ended!!!  Can we move on and talk about something else for a while?

Maybe I should be giving t-shirts away that say "I survived another presidential election!"

Yep!

Purina Feed Company has been handing out these cool tin signs with purchase of their chicken layer feed, Purina Layena.  (A fav of our flock)

I picked this (there are 3 to choose from) sign out...because...well...it speaks for itself.  Thank you Purina!

The windy city!

Adventure....BIG CITY style!  Taxis horns blaring on every corner, smells that can knock you over, lights, flashes, crowds, wind, panhandlers, smiles, EVERYTHING expensive......That's what I can say about downtown Chicago.

Just so happened that the weekend we explored (mostly on foot, holy smokes the walking we did!) the downtown area of Chicago...it also happened to be the weekend of the Chicago Marathon, President Obama was in town to visit some "private donors" (gotta stroke the donors) and Monday finished it all off with the Columbus Day parade....none of which we new was happening before we arrived.

Apart from navigating throngs of people we had a fabulous time...visiting such places as the House of Blues, the Navy Pier (where we were in the above photo) and the Field Museum to name a few.  Other highlights included eating original Chicago deep dish pizza at the Pizzeria Uno (YUM!) and exploring the darker parts of the city via a haunted bus tour of various locales full of local flair. 

Who knew Harpo Studios had been torn down? And that was also the same site used as a staging area for family members to identify the victims of a horrible boat accident in 1915 now called the Eastland disaster....also described as "tragedy that defies description".... 845 people died.  When Harpo Studios was still there it was said that you could sometimes here sloshy footsteps and sounds of children laughing and playing in the building.  To read more about this disaster click here.

All-in-all was quite an experience....but oh my was I glad to return back to quiet, calm, country living again.

Needless to say...the city of Chicago has LOADS of history and certainly is worth many visits.  We hardly touched the tip of the iceberg during our stay.  Maybe that means we will have to visit again?

Before this visit, I knew nothing of the Chicago river...but another really cool thing we got to do was take a boat taxi from one end of this river to the other through the city. Was a COOL way to explore the high-rises of the windy city...and I had to laugh when we came round the bend in the river and staring us in the face was Trump Tower.  Only high rise I saw that had "TRUMP" in HUGE letters at basically eye level compared to the names on other high rises.  Nice branding there Mr. Trump.

Well, here we go onto more adventuring...who knows where we will end up next!

Nells

Meet Nellie...or Nell's as she is affectionately called around our house.  She is currently our mascot guinea pig...full of personality!

Before yesterday...she didn't have a bed of any kind...so I made her this one out of a small box...fastened it to the side of her cage and walked away...just to sneak back around and see if she liked it and I was able to snap this photo of her chillaxin in her new crib!  YEAH!

I laugh because now...she sits in her little box...sticks her head out the door hole and can reach her food bowl without ever leaving the box.  I have noticed that she is much quieter now...she seems more comfortable...which makes me happy.

She LOVES celery...and usually doesn't miss a chance to squeal at any passerby in an attempt to influence said passerby to give her a few celery snacks.

Not sure why...but seems like our house is a magnet for pets full of personality.
No...please don't drop your's off...we have plenty.

When things go awry in nature...who do you call?

Enter....Nature's Nursery, Whitehouse, Ohio.

Their hotline: 419-877-0060

It was totally a fluke how I first learned of this local non-profit.  It was Spring of 2014 and I had just raked the previous years dead garden foliage into a pile and lit it on fire...only to my UTTER dismay....there were about 5 baby rabbits hidden underneath.

Needless to say...I felt horrible.  I managed to rescue 3 of them...enter....Nature's Nursery.  We called them up...they said bring em over...and that was that.  Three baby bunnies...nursed back to health...grew up a bit and were released back into the wild.

This is a typical story that comes from what Nature's Nursery is all about.

Chris and I were able to attend an open house they hosted this past Sunday.  My how educational it was indeed. As a demonstration to what Nature's Nursery is all about, they released a red-tailed hawk back into the wild on Sunday after his long recovery from being shot.  Pretty cool to witness...although I think I heard every small to medium sized rodent within a 2 mile radius scream in fear for its life...but...I digress.

Above is one of Nature's Nursery many volunteers talking about the barn owl that she is holding. He among a few other various animals are permanent residence at nature's nursery due to the extent of their injuries and not being able to make it in the wild...so these animals have become educators.

While the photos I've posted here are all of owls....they also assist with possum, skunk, raccoon, turtles...if it's in the wild and it's injured or orphaned...usually they can help.

To learn more visit the Nature's Nursery website.

It's only natural to want to help when we find wild animals that are injured...well finally there is someone we can call.