In two months of working with chickens, ducks, pigs, goats and dogs, I have come to focus occasionally on one individual character or bit of anatomy: a chicken's dinosaur feet or scaly wattles; the way a sleeping piglet appears to be smiling if you catch her at the right angle. Having been primarily a portrait artist for the last seven years or so, I soon started taking close-up pictures of the various creatures grunting and clucking around my feet.
Wee Stripy
This little creature hatched from a chicken egg at the same time as the now-juvenile hens you see beside it. It seems to have stopped growing at about the size of a mango and has maintained a decidedly vulturish appearance. Its feet are huge compared to the rest of its body and it has very short feathers, few of which are on its head and none of which are on its backside. I like the little mutton-chop sideburns.
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| This is the shy mouser who lives in the barn where we milk goats. I call her Barn Cat. |
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Bonus: The Gallery of Cute
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| After finding a dead duckling floating in this water dish after a long rain, I figured the wee thing had exhausted itself trying to get out. So I put a big stone in the water against the side where the stepping-in block is. The remaining babies were happy to use it. |
Ah ha ha! A great crop of portraiture. There are some new screen print and etchings in those pictures.
ReplyDeleteLittle sleeping, smiling, piggie sardines - how can an animal with such small eyes be so cute? Small hands, maybe.
Why does a pig's tail curl?
Do you have to add anything to the hay mulch to get such a fine crop of sow's ears?
And what is that mottled vulture, really?
Thanks so much for the photos and words, Anna.
Bon Voyage du Nepal.
Love,
Dad
I am all smiles thinking of you squealing girlie-like at adorable piggies. And thinking of you smiling behind your camera. I think my favorites are the sardine piggies and the crop of piggie ears, but I am also enchanted by the previous post's collection of oddly located blue saws......
ReplyDeleteJim--I don't know why a pig's tail curls, but I can tell you they hang straight down and wag like dogs' tails when the pig is happy, particularly when it is eating. Which is pretty cute on a piglet's tiny butt.
ReplyDeleteWee Stripy is an anomaly. There is a theory that it is the freak offspring of a chicken and the cockerel of the South African breed pictured in the final May post. The perfect stripes on every feather do seem to suggest more than the simple genetic abnormality that could result in a very small (but normally colored) chicken. Probably we will never know.