Diapered Ducks and Italian Greyhounds

I love ducks. I'm imagining of what life would be like if we added a pet duck to our pack of four italian greyhounds. Probably not a smart move. I doubt all my dogs would be as good with one as the little dog in these photos. (Click on the photos to get a better look.)

As I child, I longed to have a duck as a pet. My grandmother's cousin had a pet duck named Sammy. I had met Sammy a few times and wished my parents would allow a duck inside. My family had a tiny pond on their property, so there were tame ducks that my sister and I snuck inside to watch the TV with us, but full time pet ducks were not really welcomed in our parents home.

Recently, I was in touch with a friend of our family, who shared photos of his duck. It is a Call duck named D-For and has been a part of his family for 5 years. The photos above show D-For with Millie the dog, whom he shadows and thinks is his Mom. In two of the photos, D-For is wearing diapers inside the home. I'm still puzzled over how one diapers a duck. How would you get a diaper to stay on a duck?

Click here to see a video of D-for playing tether ball.

Raising a duckling as a pet would be a fun thing, but a huge commitment. I was surprised to learn, duck's can live from 10-30 years depending on the species. D-For has an expected lifespan of 20 years. One needs to spend time with a bird, everyday, as interaction is vital to a bird's health.

As long as I'm 'ducking' you, I thought I'd share this picture of a bread box I am slowly working on. It is painted with acrylics and is not my own original design. I need to finish the highlighting of the ducks, plus highlights and shadowing of the leaves.

GraceBeading for Greyhounds

I thought I would post this long overdue public thank you to Grace of GraceBeading for her donation to Italian Greyhound Rescue Fund. I donated some of my greyhound cabochons to be used in a project she was making for a friends greyhound rescue organization. She in turn, worked her beading magic, returning one of them to be donated to my favorite dog rescue group.

The above brooch was her gift to IGRF and is available in my Etsy shop, until the next Biggie Iggie Auction. Below are the 2 items Grace created and donated to a greyhound organization. Check out her blog links, as the photography on Grace's blog really show off the detailed bead work. Entering the GraceBeading Blog is like visiting another world. The detailed work you'll find there is so amazing. If you appreciate handcrafted items, you'll be mesmerized.

http://gracebeading.blogspot.com/2010/10/one-more-going-to-dogs.html

http://gracebeading.blogspot.com/2010/06/going-to-dogs.html

Happy Ground Hogs Day!

More Ground Hog Romance
Originally uploaded by Kevin Aron

Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow this morning. If we are to believe Phil, spring should come early this year. I sure hope his prediction is correct. It would be nice to have the continuous dumping of snow here in southern New England stop, or at least, come with less frequency.

Did you know Phil is not the only shadow watching predictor of spring? Apparently, there are quite a few busy ground hogs on February 2nd:

Buckeye Chuck of Marion, Ohio
General Beauregard Lee resides outside of Alanta, Georgia
Charles G. Hogg (Staten Island Chuck) of Staten Island, New York
Wiarton Willie from Wiarton, Bruce County, Ontario
Shubenacadie Sam of Nova Scotia

If you click on the cute photo of the two ground hogs, you'll be linked to the photostream of the photographer on Flickr. He has a few more Ground Hog romance photos.

Here are some photos from the day after the January 27th storm; officially 18.5 inches. From left to right: 1. The view from our kitchen window, which is 4.5 feet from the ground. 2. Our deck 3. Our sidewalk and driveway.

5. Cat with pinecone tail. 6. Door decoration made prettier with a touch of snow. 7. Shoveling sidewalk and driveway. Can you see hubby in the distance?

Shadow or not, It will be a long while before the snow melts, the wetness dries, and I am out in my garden. At this time, I welcome the thought of Punxutawny Phil's cousin's, bunnies, and deer invading my summer garden.

Unofficial Etsy Forums

Great News! A fellow Petsjubilee Team member is the administrator of a new forum site, the Unofficial Etsy Forums.

Keith of Butterfly Bay Design is the administrator of this new site, which came about due to Etsy forum changes and the huge out cry against them.

The new owners of Etsy have rocked the world of their members, especially their forum users, by essentially doing away with nearly all Etsy forums. Rumors have it that what will be left will be a team only forum that resembles the Flickr groups. This will result in a place for team "pack" members to interact with themselves, but interacting between teams and individuals will be gone. I see this change as a way of getting members to reach outside of Etsy to promote their individual and team shops, therefore promoting the Etsy website.

These forum changes make me curious as to what other services Etsy will provide in leiu of the shutdown. When the brick and mortar shop continues to take a greater and greater percentage of your profit, you either pull your stuff from their shop or you ask what they are doing to help promote and encourage sales that are worth the changes. I believe one should pressure them to be creative and relentless in helping to sell your product.

I hope after the initial shock of these changes is past us, the Etsy community will question administrators as to what they are doing to promote our shops. I hope the future brings more advertising in print, radio, and television from Etsy.

Tuesday's Ta-Da

How fun to find Miss Pea staring out at me when I reviewed my Esty activity feed this morning. She models a snood pattern from Angela of aandboriginals. Okay, this is definitely not a huge Ta-Da moment. She takes every chance she can for more attention, so the dogs and I put our hands and paws together to offer her a round of applause. While, she may not look very happy wearing it, she really does enjoy a snood in the freezing weather. Her scornful look is due to the fact she was not happy to pose for the camera. Scroll down to she the pretty treasury from dragonhouseofyuen.

'LOVE my Way' by dragonhouseofyuen

valentines day? uh huh ... he loves you .... uh huh .... then show me the RING !! .... No pinky stuff here - this is the real deal!

317 SLEEPY - PHOTOGRAPH... edart $15.00	Lana, the picaboo rabbi... ohriginals $26.00	Raw Diamond Sterling Si... betsybensen $225.00
Sun Pendant - Corn yell... aforfebre $25.00	A Rabbit for Easter tomaramaitra4 $55.00	Coffee And... Greeting ... NatalieWargin $3.50
PDF Crochet Pattern for... aandboriginals... $2.00	Small Bowl with Mishima... aspeerstudio $24.00	Semicircle Hoops Meetalls $39.00
SALE GIFT SET - 3 X Pu... matouenpeluche $25.00	The Floating World, an ... LaTouchables $146.00	Bird Watching Fine Art ... blindwolfspiri... $6.00
Diamond Notebook ohmyclumsyhear... $5.00	Candy Dish or Knitting ... BradSearsWoodt... $70.00	Upcycled fabric, Heart ... MollysFollies $9.00

Treasury tool is sponsored by Lazzia.com.

Ermine the Mother Hare

Today I ran out to mail a package and stop at our local independent grocery store. I was lucky enough to find some super fresh kale. When I arrived home, I found our post office lady delivering a package, just as our grey sky opened up, letting snow flakes fall.

Ermine had arrived!

I had been waiting anxiously for her to make it here, all the way from Edinburgh, Scotland. I was one of the lucky winner's in the 2010 Winter Raffle to benefit RNGP in Rugby, England (Rabbit & Guinea Pig Rescue). You can learn more about Ermine and the raffle by visiting this page of the House Dragon of Yuen's blog. I could spend hours at this blog, losing myself in the stories and charming creations of Annette and other talented artists she features. Follow the link to Annette's shop and discover her hares, bunnies, and squirrels.

I thought it was timely that a brief snow squall happened as she was arriving as Ermine was named after the winter coat of a stoat.

Copied from Wikipedia:
The stoat or ermine, Mustela erminea, is a small predatory mammal of the family Mustelidae. It is also known as a Shorttail (or Short-tailed) Weasel and less frequently as the ermelin. Sometimes "ermine" refers to the animal only when it has white fur in the winter, and in this case "stoat" only refers to it when it has brown fur.

I had never heard of a stoat. It is also timely, in that, my last blog post talks about weasels and badgers.

The snow quickly stopped, and blue sunny skies are with us now. Ermine has settled in. She tasted her favorite food, fresh kale. She had her photo taken with Miss Sweet Pea. She is looking forward to meeting Gemmie (both have the biggest dark brown eyes). She'll be spending much of her time sitting in the writing arm windsor chair my father made me, watching the wild birds and squirrels through the window. At least until spring arrives, then she may become one of the only bunnies welcome in my garden.

Weasels and Badgers

Yesterday my Ferret Pink Paw Print Necklace was included in a cool Etsy treasury. I'm always honored to have my stuff selected for a treasury, since there are some many talented artists and lovely items to choose from. Thanks Bohemia Skye!

Any mention of a weasel, reminds me of the Fisher I saw a couple years ago. I was up extra early that morning, and have no one else to witness or enjoy the sighting of this creature. Some think I was dreaming. LOL It was running with it's strange gait along our stone wall. I had never seen one before and had no idea what it was. My first thought, since we have streams and small ponds all around us, was that I was looking at a river otter. It was so much bigger than the mink like animals (probably American martens) I saw growing up on my family's property. After researching, I learned it was a large fisher, which have begun to make a comeback into our southern part of New England.
Click on this link to read about them: Linky

'Weasels and Badgers' by BohemiaSkye

Treasures for weasel and badger lovers.

JaniceCordeiro $39.00	thelittlefox $12.00	Inloveagain $15.00
FrumsGlassMena... $15.00	jimbobart $37.50	Jellybum $3.50
makeit $45.00	mpatrizio $25.00	blackoutwell $3.50
SavageArtworks $15.00	Nightowlhandma... $11.00	thisisit $10.00
feltedwildlife $59.00	jaffajam $15.00	ravensdreaming $90.00

Generated using Treasury HTML code generator by Whale Shark Websites.

Patterened Floor Tiles and My Kitchen Backsplash

On this first Sighthound Sunday of 2011, I'm sharing a few greyhound tiles.

First of all a photo of greyhound tiles from the floor of Sainte Chapelle in Paris, France.

This IG tile by Sondra Alexander is one of my personal favorites. Click here to see her shop.

I have searched the internet over and over for tiles these past few months. This summer, my husband and I decided to do some long overdue repairs to our home. Adding a gutter, replacing the back door and a couple of windows - mostly work we did own our own. Replacing the crumbling particle board kitchen cabinets was the major part of our home improvements.

Choosing a tile for the backsplash was a long (very long) search. I really wanted some tiles from Sarah Regan Snavely and matching field tile. I imagined a parade of winged animals, her horse, greyhound, cat, and maybe a cow, under my kitchen window sink. Lots of movement in the design and lots of stars.

Ultimately, I decided the early american kitchen I have dreamed of, was not exactly in keeping with our home's contempory style. The plain, simple, off white, and much cheaper tile we ordered, will arrive in another week or two. Yeah! All decorating decisions are finished and we will begin installing the last home repair for a long while. Oops. I forgot. I still need to decide on a grout color.