This morning Nikki had to be gone for several hours to some sort of thing,

and Josh had some planting to do in his daylily bed, so we watched the boys.

They came over in their super hero costumes which, by now,

had gotten a little short. Of course they wanted us to take them to the store on the golf cart, which we did.

Denton found what he wanted right away…

but not Hudson. However he did have a wealth of information about the products.

“You see this stuff?”, he said. “It will cause you to grow tall and make your legs really, really skinny.” At that point, I went back to the cart.

Before long, Hudson made his decision, and they came out to join me.

When we got back to the house, they played inside, they played in the shop, and then we went to the rabbit pen

where they played for a l-o-n-g time. They got pretty dirty and a little wet. At one point Denton said,

“Look, my feet are floating!” Sassafras had had just about all she could take,

so she got in a hollow log, which made Matilda very curious. The boys then decided to pretend that they were monkeys

and hung around in the fig tree for a while. Then, back in the rabbit pen,

Hudson said, “Woooooooo! This has been a hot day! We need to stop and rest for a while.” BUT THEY DIDN’T.

This morning before daylight I checked on Pauline and the chicks. She was still on the nest and the fourth egg still had not hatched. So, I let them be. Then after lunch I went back to the ‘birthing suite’ and found an empty nest.

Well, it was almost empty. Evidently this was not just a tough egg to crack…it was a bad egg.

Hoping beyond all hope that the cats had not discovered that the chicks were on the loose, I began calling for Pauline. Luckily she had not taken them far. They were just around the corner under the azaleas. I figured that the only way to catch them was to offer Pauline a snack. So, I brought out the meal worms.

Of course Pauline didn’t waste any time getting to the table, and the chicks were not far behind her.

It’s like she was saying, “See these things? These are meal worms and you’re going to love
them”.

While she had their attention, I was able to scoop them up.

They really weren’t even a handful. Then I scooped up Pauline (who wasn’t the least bit happy) and carried them to a safer place.

Pauline, one of the Malaysian Seramas, has been on a nest of leaves, beneath a fatsia bush,

under the cover of ferns for about three weeks. Underneath her were four little eggs. This morning when I checked on her, she got a little more “fuzzed up” than normal.

Then I noticed the egg shell next to her. I picked her up to find that there were three little chicks in the nest of leaves, and they were awaiting the arrival of number four.

Now, you can’t tell me that’s not CUTE! The chicks are very small and will weigh in at less than a pound when full grown. When the twins were younger, and I had new chicks, I would put one of the little chicks in my shirt pocket and walk over to their house. When I got inside, they would say, “Mammy, what you got in you pocket?” Then I would remove the chick from my pocket and let them hold it…good memories.

When baby number four makes its debut, I will move them to a safe place away from whatever might be coming through in search of a snack.

I haven’t been on the ‘air’ much lately because I’ve been in my shop getting ready for Artwalk. So I’d like to give you a little preview of what I will be displaying. This is just a sample.

I know that you’ve seen the angels before,

so I won’t bore you with them again…other than these two.

This one is the heart of stone from Ezekiel 36:26 which says, “I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh”.

I call this one Heart Set Free. I have a couple of pieces inspired by Psalm 29, like this next one.

Verse nine says, “The Lord’s shout bends the large trees and strips the leaves from the forests”.

If you live around here, I hope to see you at ‘Artwalk’.

I’ve finally found resting places for my steel angels.

Some of them stand in stone or steel.

Some hang in frames of wood and steel. And one…

OOPS! Wrong angel. Like I was saying,

one is mounted on a frame of steel and copper. I also came up with

some postcards with my contact information. Now, back to the shop to create more to fill my booth at the artwalk.

Earlier this week, for some reason unbeknownst to me, Fluffy

moved on to Glory. So, I laid him to rest

near the fig tree. That meant that Sassafras would be alone, so today I went to the feed store

and got her a friend.

I think that Coco thought that I had brought her a snack.

Matilda has seen so many rabbits come through here that she could not have cared less.

And Sassafras, well, she didn’t seem to mind….which is good…no hair, teeth and eyeballs flying everywhere. I named him Banjo, and I came home from the feed store with Banjo on my knee.

I have a new ebook. Look to the right side of the blog where the shaded boxes are. Scroll down to the third one which should say “EBOOKS”. Click on “Heart Set Free” and that will take you to blog.com where you can preview the book. You can purchase it as an ebook for $5.99.

So check it out!

When I posted “Cast your vote”, the choice was between jazz band and bluegrass band. Someone suggested that I make an angel band. Well, I’m not making an angel band, I’m making a jazz band. BUT, I am building a band of angels. I decided to participate in the ArtWalk, in Alexandria on October 5^th. A big part of what I will bring will be metal angels. So I thought that I would give you a preview. They are made out of steel, truck hoods and copper. They’ve not all found a resting place…the stone yard was closed when I went. Anywho, enjoy!

Joel and I enjoy listening to Garrison Keillor. Had he been with us this week I believe he would have summed it up like this: It’s been a slow week here in Woodworth, Louisiana, my hometown, out on the banks of Bayou Clear Creek. It’s been hot…heat index has been over a hundred. The humidity has been terrible…so bad that if you pressed a tea bag to your lips and sucked air, you could save yourself from messing up a cup.

So, I pretty much stayed inside. I did make it to the scrap iron yard one day. And a couple of mornings I fired up ‘Isaac’,

but I had to do that before daylight. I don’t have all I need to do much blacksmith work, nor have I developed the skills, so I just practiced regulating the forge, and bent some of the steel that I heated up. Then, I took the pieces and

welded them together, along with some old copper pipe, to make an abstract sculpture.

I worked some in the evenings

but I wore shorts and a leather apron. It was still HOT.

Yesterday, a front came through and it was somewhat cooler, so I decided to work on some metal angels in hopes that they might sell for Christmas.

When I get them finished, each one will be mounted in a piece of stone. That will mean a trip to the stone yard, and that is always fun.

This morning it was fifty-eight degrees…FINALLY! After church, we all ate lunch on the front porch. That was nice. At any rate, that’s the news from Woodworth, Louisiana, where the goats ride golf carts, the chickens roam free, and the grandkids bathe in the yard.

I ALMOST FORGOT! I need to give you the results from the “Cast your vote” post. There was actually a tie…so I chose on the basis of what some of you said. I chose jazz because, even though some of you preferred the bluegrass sound, you thought that the jazz instruments would be more interesting to create. I’m collecting stuff now, and will start construction soon. So, to all of you who voted…THANKS!

Yesterday morning, we had a good bit of rain and the pond ventured from its banks out into the pasture. When Joel got home, he showed the boys, and they wanted me to put on my boots and wade with them.

So I did. They had their boots on, and I’m not sure why,

because I knew what was going to take place. (No matter what we said)

We didn’t “wade” long, because Joel wanted us to go to Academy to get some fishing stuff, and he wanted the boys to go too. Just a bit of advice…if you are going to take two five-year-olds to town, don’t do it at night. Do it in the morning when you are fresh.

Once in Academy, Joel went one direction and the boys and I went another, and it was, “Are you sure you know where the toy isle is in this store Mammy?

What the heck is this?

I’m not going to get this unless I know what it does.”

Then we checked out the kayaks where Hudson would only consider the one with two seats, because he doesn’t like to ride by himself.

To keep them from practicing their golf swing, I suggested that we look at rubber boots,

but on the way they stopped to admire the bicycles.

We finally reached the rubber boots where the conversation went something like this:

“Look at these, let’s try them on. That’s a size eight. You can’t wear a size eight. Yes I can. No you can’t. Well, l’m going to go ahead and try it on. Oh, this doesn’t fit. You must be right, Mammy.”

By the time we got out of that store, I had decided that a trip to Academy with Heckel and Jeckel would only occur once in a blue moon. THEN, on the way home Joel said, “Do you see the moon? I heard on the radio today that it is a blue moon.” If there are two full moons in the same month, the second one is called a blue moon, and that doesn’t happen very often. So, according to what Joel heard on the radio… we’re not taking those boys back to Academy until 2015.