Readjusting

After a week with our toes in the sand, we're back to the routine of preschool, day care, and work. It's not an easy adjustment to make.

I'd say we came back well-nourished with Vitamin , happily exhausted from all the outdoor play time, and a little bit more knowledgeable about the wildlife of NC.

The O'Keefe Marine Life website was a huge help in identifying the critters we saw! Keep the page marked if you ever plan on visiting the southern-most shores of North Carolina.

New Site

If you get a chance, check out my site, wouldja? I'd love some feedback as I polish things up. I'm going through years of illustrations, deciding which to use for the portfolio. It's kind of fun and nice to remember the evolution of my style, while also making me think I'd like to redo some of the old content, just to see how it would be different.

I've got a fancy new logo and am trying to keep things clean and simple, a nearly impossible feat for me!

I hope you have a nice weekend and can get outside and enjoy a bit of nature!

Remembering Molly Hen

A couple weeks ago (Was it last week? Now I can't remember) I found one of our favorite hens huddled up next to the water bucket. The feathers on the top of her head were gone, her crown was bleeding a bit, and she couldn't walk. I took her inside, cleaned her up, and gave her some plain yogurt, fresh water, and apple cider vinegar.

The first 2 days she seemed to be improving but still wouldn't walk. We kept her inside, hand fed her, and changed poopy chicken towels daily. She'd stand for a minute at a time, but that was about it for leg use. The next day it was worse, and the following day she seemed to have had a stroke and the entire left side of her body was paralyzed.

She was a chicken that only had use of 1/4 of her body.


We were faced with a choice of taking her to the vet to be put down or putting her down ourselves. We were also faced with a 3 year old who has taken ownership of the chickens and is far more attached to them than even we, the ones who spent days hand feeding the sweet Rhodie Molly, were.

The next morning Mabel wanted to know why her hen was no longer in the cage in the kitchen. We talked about it and I briefly tried to cover it up by saying she went somewhere nicer and wasn't coming back. M had far too many questions for me to keep up the guise. Instead I decided maybe coloring was the answer. I drew a red hen, Mabel and I colored and talked. We thought about Molly and reflected on what a sweet pet she was. I'm still not sure how to explain that sort of loss to a pre-schooler, but Mabel took it fairly well and we have a sweet way to honor and remember our favorite red hen. 

Work Process

I thought I'd show a little bit of what goes into logo designing. This"logo" is a little different, because it's not an official logo, though. I volunteer at the Little Sugar Creek Community Garden and wanted to do a snazzy little something for it. It's on park and rec owned land, networked through Friendship Gardens, and is a teaching space for Char-Meck's Wipe Out Waste. We have 4 co-managers for the garden (I'm one), and we're all pretty laid back about how things go. That said, there wasn't as much back and forth discussion about the direction of this design as there is with other logo work.

The garden is perched inside a large fenced area beside Little Sugar Creek and the LSC Greenway. The greenway itself is part of the Carolina Thread Trail. I drew inspiration from the gate, pathway and creek to form the shape and lettering.

Currently the garden is swimming in marigolds, a natural garden pest repellent. I thought marigolds capture the essence of how we garden (organically).

I wasn't crazy about the marigolds solo, so I decided to try something else. One of the crops that sets us apart from other area gardens is the hops trellis. The hops, thanks to garden co-manager Daan, are going bonkers, so this image was in celebration of them. Then Kathy, another co-manager, suggested marigolds and hops together.

The result is a colorful abundance of marigolds and hops, a logo/banner I'm quite proud of.

Looking for a logo? See some other designs I've made here. If you're interested, I'm available!

Using the Harvest

This past Saturday, these greens (a combination of sorrel, sweet potato leaves, and Malabar spinach), with the addition of some frozen chopped spinach, became a spinach and cheese pie.

Did you know you can eat sweet potato leaves? They're a great spinach substitute. I collect the young leaves that still have a bit of shininess to them. When I'm using them in a recipe like this pie I quickly blanch them prior to making the pie filling. 

The crust is a basic Pâte Brisée but I skipped the sugar because I don't like the slightest hint of sweetness with a savory filling.  The filling is very similar to this one, but I added some mozzarella since I had it on hand.