JuJu the donkey and Beep Beep the chicken

The best eva'. Cute Overload, you can eat this for breakfast! Lunch! and Dinner!

Xoxoxo

DIY: Big Button Down Shirt Made To Fit

This won't be my most dazzling sewing project, but the idea of altering clothes to make them fit is a noble upcycle endeavour and I wanted to share my attempt. Taking a button down shirt that was too big for me (a men's medium), and sewing it down to a more fitted shirt my size.
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My original idea was to somehow turn this into a mini-dress (i like to turn everything into mini dresses)... but it didn't work out since the length of the shirt was too short, and well.... you'll see...

SUPPLIES YOU NEED:

• push pins
• sewing skills (machine or needle/thread style)
• thread
• maybe a friend to help
  

STEP ONE:

I turned the shirt inside out and put it back on.

STEP TWO:

If you have a friend, have them put the pins along the right & left side of the shirt to make it fit to your personal curves, including the sleeves. Leave space for your sewing seams.

If you don't' have a friend over (like me) then carefully try and place the pins yourself - or use measurements. I hate measuring things so i tried standing really stiff and put pins in myself, but it wasn't as accurate as it should have been.

STEP THREE:

Sew along the seam lines you created with the pins.

AND....

You are already finished (or at least i am)!!! This would be great for making a new winter wardrobe on a shoe string budget, because thrift stores are packed with men's button down long sleeve shirts of all colors, patterns and solids which you could tailor to fit your body.

Funny Lookin' Fail ::::

I also did a lil' experiment with adding another layer of shirt at the bottom, which could make a really neat look if you have the right contrasting colors... which I did not. Stark white, with nice subtle plaid is a recipe for a terrible horrible no good country-fied look, but ya know what? I modeled the Sewing Fail for ya'll anyway.......

The Dolly Looks Better. (aka, this might work if ya have big boobies, sassy hair, and long tall legs. Being able to line dance & sing would help too.)

The Baggy Art-TEEst. (This look will work if you like your clothes swaying, loose, half buttoned and probably half assed.)

The Front Knot! (my personal favorite. This shit was hot in the 80's and we all know whether we like it or love it that pushing obscure 80's ideas is totally in style. Maybe not in my rural neighborhood {cause it never went out of style here}, but in Brooklyn, yes. Besides a front knot on a tight plaid shirt is so movie star country girl, roll in the hay - who doesn't like that? I am bringing this back to the fashion forefront right this minute.)

Maybe I can't win them all, but the whole idea is onto something good. ;)

Xoxoxo

The Law

The most famous police station in Britain is New Scotland Yard in London. The police they've all got a blue light outside to show they are police stations. For most people the police are the face of the law. They can arrest people in the street, but they also give information. We visited a new police station in Lewisham, an area in south-east London. A suspected criminal is being charged with a crime. Next they take fingerprints to check the person's identity. They also take mouth swabs for analysis of DNA. Suspects can be kept in the cells at the police station for several hours. This suspect spent a whole night in the cells.
Next day he went to court. Here three magistrates listen to evidence from the police and witnesses. They then decide if the person is guilty or not guilty.
The evidence that the police collect from a crime scene is analysed in the laboratories like this. They can examine and analyse material from the crime scene to find out exactly what happened.
The police are the most obvious part of the law in Britain.

Rain Barrels To The Rescue

This is my friend Paul Van Heden. He makes really pretty, cute, fun, fancy artsy rain barrels here in Western North Carolina! Today he came over to drop off two hand picked & painted barrels so i can start collecting rain at my cabin, and most importantly at my mini-barn where JuJu the donkey and my chickens live. I have a small spring coming from underground where the animals stay, and also spring water I fill up in buckets at my cabin and drag down to the barn, sloshing water on my jeans and down into my shoes all along the way. These rain barrels will make watering the animals a hella easier...

And seriously... aren't they cute? Nothing wrong with a ridculously adorable & eco friendly rain barrel!

These have two holes at the top with a net over them, so I have to set up a gutter/down spout to direct the water into the tank... until then it'll be all about getting the right aim in the rain. :)

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"One inch of rain on a 1,000-square-foot roof will yield around 600 gallons of water, the average American uses 100 gallons of water per day." (water conservation)

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We give these water barrels two thumbs, hooves, claws, and paws up!

Xoxoxoxox

Black & Spiro Today

This morning I pottered around my garden at home and collected a few flowering things for the shop. I arranged some pink bougainvillea and some native gum leaves in a couple of shell encrusted baskets I picked up in Bali a while ago. There's something so Summery and vibrant about bougainvillea and I do love it mixed in with a few classic blue and white ginger jars.

Above is one of a pair of amazing hand beaded African chairs we have in the shop at the moment. I think these chairs are a favourite of mine right now. To think of the work that goes into them...

We just received this gorgeous geometric patterned rug in today. The girls and I couldn't wait to put it in place under our bright orange coffee table in our front lounge room display. I think it has added so much colour to the shop...I just love it and I am very tempted to take it home!

Just thought you might like to see a few of the new things we have in at the moment.

Rain Walk: Things Me and Mah' DOnkee Liked

Me and all my animals (chickens, a donkey and one cat) have all been cooped up (so to speak) for the last few days with the constant fall rains. Even though it was still overcast and a drizzle came down on my hooded head I invited JuJu the donkey to go for a walk with me...
She totally wanted to come. On with the halter and out the gate, we ventured not too far from our home but far enough to feel freedom from the gloomy confinement.

JuJu is one of the most alert, consistent, and reliable guard animals I have ever seen - she hears things from farther away then I can even imagine them and is always right on target. She knows when they are just something to notice or if they are a true threat (which a donkey will kill or injure), she always shows me whats far ahead when she stops short of walking, flares her nostrils, and takes on the stiff, high eared pose she has in the pic above.

A lil' further up, I saw what she heard over some hills and hundreds of feet away...

wild turkeys!!! (See them in the pic below, making a run down a nook in the meadow...)

Along the road we also came upon something that is fairly new... someone set up a wood stove for outside cooking! I happen to love this idea, because I have a really old not serviceable wood stove on my porch and have been dreaming of using it as an outside fire/cook stove for Spring, Summer and Fall when it's too warm to fire up the one inside the house.

The wood stove I have is missing a front door, and I thought it could be turned into a Cob Oven! (Read HERE how to build your own cheap outside oven.)

Remember the 'pink trailer' I (didn't) trespass at a few months ago...

JuJu has a thing for the retro trailer too. Everytime we pass it she wants to walk all around it, look in the windows, nibble on some charcoal in a burn pile out front, and just generally chill out there...

I am so glad she doesn't look in the windows of my neighbors who are actually home! ha.

The same someone who must have set up the wood stove, placed two animal skulls side by side on a mossy log. Then I found the plastic daisy. I like old plastic flowers in a weird way, even though I am not sure I should....

The thing me and JuJu like the most though, is the forest in general. The bigger picture, the adventure, the all encompassing balance of it, the safety & the dangers, the sounds, the peace, the tall trees, the wet bark, the weather, the wild plants-

the feeling that things are completely right.

Xoxoxox

Chained

I took these photo's when I arrived in Ganghwa. Documenting some of the dogs in my neighbourhood. Six months since my arrival and many of them aren't here anymore.

Incheon Fish Market

Animal Tracking: Black Bear Scat?

While me and JuJu the donkey were on one of our walks I came upon this scat (poop) in the gravel road. I knew right away it was not raccoon scat, bird scat, or deer scat because of the shape...
it had some round berries in it and didn't look hairy so I felt perplexed as to whether it might be coyote scat either.
Fox? A bit of black bear poop? Opossum?
Following scat descriptions, I know that canine's have poop that gets pointy on the ends and bobcats have a tubular shape too - deer and rabbit poop comes out in pellets (rabbit's having a more dry, flat, & separated look, deer being a bigger wet pile of pellets), wild turkey scat looks like a big bird poop with the white mixed in. Raccoon's look like alot of lil' cylinder tubes of poop, and opossums are kinda like a coyote poop that has bumps strung together....
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This left me with one choice... a choice I smelled about 50 feet down the road....
A Black BEAR!
Further down the way I smelled a strong odor, one that was like skunky urine. I immediately knew it was a bear, I assume from some deep biological part of my brain that carries primitive instincts cause I have not seen a bear urinate & then sniffed it after. It's something you just know when it blows into your nose. A bear smells like no other animal and it's generally skunky stinky dread locked dirty pungent aroma can't be missed.
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Now I realize, the bear has been hanging all around my cabin, this poop with these berries in it are everywhere in the woods.
XOxoxo

Need It Now

I'm completely loving these vintage Indian embellished shoulder bags Louise over at Table Tonic just got in!! I love, love, love the silver necklaces too!

Ready, Aim, CHoP!

It's that time of year again, when a few chilly nights are the wild's warning of the soon to come winter. My source of heat is wood, in a Treemont wood stove that was already here at the Luck Cabin when I moved in. I lucked out cause it holds a coal overnight, and that means I won't have to start a new fire every morning, which may be one of the harder things about heating with wood.
but not the hardest.
The hardest for me would be splittin' those logs into firewood! Remember last year when I was just learning how to really do it right? Weighing in at about 100 pounds (that would be me) made splitting wood with an ax something of a zen practice more then force.
I set up the log in a stable place and take a good look at my aim. I don't have tons of extra energy to waste on missing my mark, I have to make my swings count.

I am using a "Go Devil" type ax (heavy sledge hammer-ish shape on the back end), which works WAY better then the standard tree chopping ax. I figure if i start splitting a few logs a day now, by the time the real cold comes I will be ahead of the game unlike last year which was a harsh HARSH winter that caught everyone off guard.

It may take me way more swings then I would like (check my swing style I learned last year here) and my wood may still be a lil' green (aka- not totally dry)... but it's way more efficient, good exercise, and saves alot of money to spilt the logs myself. A stack of logs a day keeps da' doctor away!

How do ya'll stay warm for the winter and what do you think is the most earth friendly way to heat your home?

XOxoxoox

Obstacles Overcome: JuJu The Donkey Don't Need No Lead

Me and JuJu the donkey have had only one major obstacle to overcome together, and that was coming home. Whenever I put on her halter and took the lead rope we'd happily walk together UNTIL she began running from me when we'd make the trek back towards the cabin. Understandable, she wanted the walk to go on forever... or at least alot longer, but I didn't or couldn't so the whole runaway game was really sucking for me.
In everything else she was gentle - lifting hooves, putting on a halter, making friends with strangers, walking through new (even scary) places, learning new tricks like how to roll a bucket or open a door with her nose, she even walks right through the creeks here.
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Yesterday I dared to take her on a hike with me and Bort (even though it could have made it a stressful disaster) - it wasn't till we reached our destination ( the round house) that I learned something about JuJu that I am so excited about I am still about to piss myself in amazement...

THE STORY::::
Bort found a gravity fed spring water pump at the round house and turned it on to see if it would spray water. Up until this point I had held the lead rope, and JuJu walked fairly quickly sometimes pulling me... but when that water sprayed it spooked her and in an unusual donkey fashion (cause they usually freeze & stand still) she decided that the spray of the water pump was terrifying enough that it was time to haul ass! I tried saying "WHOA" and "STOP" but she was too scared and ran even faster, so I let the rope go.
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In that moment I felt myself give up - give up completely the struggle because the donkey would always be stronger then me and would always know it. She ran a good ways back up the trail we had come from and in my surrender I decided to try something different then before. I decided not to go find her, but to wait and see what she would do. Within about 5 minutes she came back on her own accord, and from then on EVERYTHING changed!!!! I rewarded her for coming back and then tied her lead rope back so it wouldn't drag on the ground and I didn't touch the rope again. I let her decide to follow us as we hiked. That's when we all relaxed and started to really have fun! Gathering wildflower & tree seeds, while JuJu grazed.
JuJu went at her own pace, sometimes getting ahead of us, but mostly happily walking behind us, stopping when we would stop, sometimes wondering off to sniff & nibble - but always running to catch up and never wanting us to be out of ear shot or sight. I did not touch the rope. She walked all the way home, with no issues, she jumped over the larger creek, she hung out outside the cabin and around the pond eating grass...
and the clincher....... she went back IN THE GATE on her own.
Holy SHIT!
The Fanny Pack full of treats, all the scratching, singing, love and care I have been putting my heart into has finally created the bond I had hoped for! JuJu is my herd and my friend. (I jus' hope she wasn't showing off for Bort!)

Xoxoxo