Macaws today, the Moor tomorrow

Parrots, parrots, and more parrots! It's really just an excuse to use my favourite colours. I LOVE turquoise, and the contrast with a really jewel like scarlet. These two little ones here are ACEOs, and they are all listed on etsy.

I'm now going to be away for a few days, as we are off on a camping trip in the morning, taking the ponies. The weather forecast is vile - torrential rain tomorrow, but it is our only opportunity to go. Both of the girls ponies, after slight lameness, are sound again, and so we ride out straight over the moor tomorrow morning.

I'll catch up with you all when we return!

A Goat Anecdote

The girls were out today - they have been taking part in 'Peerifool', a film that is being made by Chagford Filmmaking Group , a local band of enthusiastic filmmakers and lovers of folk tales, headed by the effervescent Elizabeth-Jane Baldry ,an extremely talented musician and Harpist.

This gave me the oppotunity to get busy painting today! I had a new delivery of watercolour board, and more Indian Ink -I sooo love Indian Ink - it makes me feel so liberated to use my dip pen, and work quickly! I very easily get bogged down in details as a rule, and find my style getting quite constricted, and the Indian Ink frees up my hands again.

Here is a new Falcon, and an animal I have a rather love/ hate relationship with - the pygmy goat. In my early teens, I worked weekends and holidays at a local tourist attraction, which had a flock of pygmy goats, which seemed to do nothing but escape. I spent most of my time wrestling goats by their horns off picnic tables, to an audience of screaming visitors.

A stubborn Nanny goat, that is determined to finish all the sandwiches and crisps, is very difficult to drag away. The bigger , far more elegant Anglo-Nubian goats, on the other hand, were much more interested in following the ancient Dumper Truck around the farm, noses to the exhaust as it belched out black smoke, apparently getting high on the fumes.

These are both listed on Etsy

I have also spent the day in email correspondence with the forestry commission, and various local government archeology departments, trying to find records about the Fernworthy sites. Everyone has been so helpful - I am really impressed. Anyway, most of it is in out of print books, or papers, but I now know where to find the records in their library in Exeter. I think a library session may need to wait until the school holidays are over, but I am looking forward to it!

Sacred Stones and Magic Places

I walked with the kids this afternoon, up to one of my favourite places. Out in the middle of the forestry is a really unusual archeological 'find'. Instead of the usual iron age hut circles, or stone rings, which litter the landscape, this, in a little clearing almost buried under heather and whortleberry is a what looks like a double line of stones defining a track which leads to what looks like a collapsed mound at the top of the hill. At the bottom of the track, a large stone marks the end. The track is about 1 metre wide, and 145 paces to the top, where there are some larger fallen stones (about 1 1/2 metres high, which look as if they were an entrance to the mound). The mound is slightly dome shaped, and caved in slightly at the centre. I

have no idea how high it was when built, or if it was a covered structure, or open. The first time I found it, I thought it was made up of concentric rings of stone, but since then I think it looks more like an inward spiral of stones( or walls defining a spiral path to the centre). It is the most beautiful spot, reached by a narrow, steep track through the trees. A place for quiet contemplation, and imaginations to run away. Whose feet have walked that track in the past? In celebration? In grief? On an inner journey? Or something much more prosaic than that? I wish I knew. I'm sure it must have been researched and documented once, before being turned over as a forestry plantation, but I cant find it. If anyone knows about the iron age remains in Fernworthy, please help me!

I thought an aerial map might give me a clearer picture, but it is not a high enough resoloution to see the details of the mound at the top ( the circle near the bottom left of the stone rows is particularly large solitary hut circle). I was surprised to see just how clearly this stands out, from the air - you would never know it was there from the ground.

I couldn't resist a quick photo of the dogs. The one on the left is our girl Magpie, referred to by my husband as 'the anteater' because of her unbelievably long tongue. The other is her son, Jack, who belongs to my mother , but generally hangs out with us when she is busy.

PLEASE can I have 5 minutes peace and quiet?

It's so hard to get any painting done during the school holidays! Don't get me wrong - it's great to have the kids at home, and to have that freedom from routine which we have to adhere to rigidly during the term time, but it is impossible to get any work done! Painting and drawing is my passion, and I start to get uptight and irritable when I dont have the opportunity to do any for a few days. That, and the fact that if I don't work, I don't earn any money - that's inclined to make me uptight too. I tried to get into my shed for half an hours peace and quiet today, but I feel a bit like Mrs Large in the Jill Murphy book 'Five Minutes Peace'. Wherever I go, small people follow me around asking for help with creative projects, or food (Jude) or just generally wanting my full attention. I gave up in the end, and turned the computer over to Lily, and my studio over to Maddy to rummage through the scrap box and make dolls clothes. Jude and I did some weeding, and made some biscuits, and I knuckled down to being a nice mum again.

A summer evening up on the farm with the ponies is a great restorative, and now, after an hour spent watching the swallows swooping overhead in the fading light, and working Marlene in hand, while Lily tidied up Foggy in preparation for Pony Club tomorrow, I feel renewed!

exploding greenhouse and a polar pegasus

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=320281751478&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT&ih=011#ebayphotohosting

Wow, we have had 3 days of rain, and the humidity has turned my garden into a jungle. Hence the exploding greenhouse! Earlier in the season I filled it with tomatoes and coriander - nicely full. One day my 4 year old son Jude, and his friend came in from playing outside and said they had been planting pumpkins. I was feeling distracted, and didn't pay much attention to this - they probably didn't even know what a pumpkin seed looked like.
Lo and behold, 2 weeks later, pumpkins started sprouting amongst my tomatoes, to my horror!
Jude persuaded me to leave one, and I am now deeply regretting it - it has turned into a complete monster and is growing out of the door, the windows, the vents, and it hasn't even begun producing pumpkins yet! I have visions of a Jack and the Beanstalk moment coming.

I have though managed to get some ACEOs painted today, and listed on Ebay - Grandma took the children off to see Wall-E as a rainy day treat. I have to say they came home decidedly unimpressed, which surprised me - I have heard good reviews. Anyway, they saw a trailer for Kung Fu Panda, and decided they would far rather see that. Quite like to see it myself!