Last night my school held its annual science fair and I donated this RARE saltwater specimen as a prize. Little did you know that the Great Salt Lake, once famous only for its bouyancy and clouds of brine flies, is now the habitat of several species of cephalopods!

Can it really have been a full year since the last science fair, when I made a tiny octopus specimen in a jar?

Last year I made a crazy chicken butt hat for my sweet Boogedy when he turned 1. I knew it would be hard to top. I tossed designs around in my head all year. Zach came up with this idea and it was up to me to research snake markings and design this gluttonous creature. He may be deadly, but perhaps he bit off more than he could swallow!

What you can’t see in this picture is that the hat tapers to a long, skinny snake body that hangs down off the top of the hat to the Boogedy’s neck. I’ll try to get that shot uploaded soon.

To tell if this is a poisonous Coral Snake or the look-alike King Snake, you can use this handy rhyme: Red next to yellow, you’re a dead fellow. Red next to black, You’re OK, Jack!

Happy 2nd birthday Boogedy!!

No. 4 in my collaboration with Jen of Painted Fish Studio, looking for signs of spring.

Seen on the sidewalk yesterday. I saw lots of mating pairs like this. I’ve always called them Box Elder Bugs. They didn’t seem to be arguing about which direction to walk, they were steadily heading across the sidewalk.

Jen of Painted Fish Studio tagged me to “open the 6th picture folder on your computer, open the 6th photo and blog it. write something about it. then tag 6 more people to do the same.”

the photo above is my 6 of 6, a detail from this set:

Years ago my mom painted this wooden farm set for my Aunt Suzie’s grandchildren (my cousin’s kids. At this point of familial reltionships, I just consider everybody cousins). I don’t know for sure if my dad cut out all these little animals and sanded them before mom painted them. It’s likely. After I had the Boogedy, Aunt Suzie gave me the set, complete with red barn carrying bucket.

This toy is always a hit for visiting kids, and I’m so pleased that we still have all the pieces! I remember when the Boogedy sat down one day and was able to do all the animal noises.

Also see The Boogedy’s Ark, for another handmade and hand-painted toy made by my parents (for me when I was little!).

I’ll tag:

KnitSonya

Maria

Marian

Jeaka

This will be our third summer in this house. Every year we’ve planted new baby fruit trees, and lovingly nurtured them all through the scorching heat with daily watering and care. This last summer the neighbor’s rabbit escaped her measley, miserable confines and ran away to our backyard paradise. The neighbor eventually gave up on fetching her home, because she is really hard to catch. That was ok with me, and we fed her leftovers and greens from our kitchen. Zach even put up barriers to keep her from eating the baby trees. However, once the snow got deep enough, she just walked up to the trees and was able to nibble the bark off of anything she wanted. And she did.

15 fruit trees will be dead this year. Heirloom apricots, almonds, peaches, dwarves and standards, all gone. Only the cherry and apple remain untouched.

Zach caught the rabbit and tossed her over the fence, but has vowed that we will be eating rabbit stew if she dares to return.

Update: We caught the rabbit. And my big words about rabbit stew were useless against her cute bunnyness. Instead, I gave her to my brother-in-law, who said she could live in his yard, where all the trees are adults. Plus, he lives 10 miles away.

Cool: This craft project is hilarious! Thanks so much to BitterBetty for her creativity, a great blog, and for this excellent tutorial. Here are pics of the assembly line:

And photos of more creepy plants. The orchids “watch” the front door. The chomper guards the water fountain.

Dissapointing: I invited 5 people to my little craft party on Sunday, and everybody but my mom cancelled. Tis the season, I know. Fall means everybody gets sick. The way I usually structure these get-togethers is to have everyone pay a small (like $5) materials fee to offset the costs. So after my mom gave me $7 (she’s a good tipper), it meant I spent 23 bucks on styrofoam, paint, pipe cleaners, my first glue gun, silly vampire teeth, etc. About $18 More than I would have with my tight budget, if I’d known it was just going to be us.

I spent tons of time shopping for this project, and hours ahead of time pre-painting everything. Zim’s is going out of business, so I saved $$). I was really looking forward to social time with my friends around the hot glue gun, and potluck snackies. I don’t like sounding whiny, but making 36 chompers practically by myself was exhausting. Mom and I only finished two “watchers”.

Oh well. More chompers for me. Anybody have any pointers on making craft parties successful?

The school where I work is having a science fair this afternoon (grades 7-12). I made this octopus as a prize for a winner or honorable mention in the “water quality” category. I have told them that it is a rare specimen from the Great Salt Lake, only two of which has been found before.

The brainiacs should be able to give your reasons why the salinity of the Great Salt Lake would preclude this type of lifeform. At which point I will reiterate their RARITY.

My mom and dad made this wooden ark for me when I was teeny tiny. The ark has a hinged ramp, old rickety casters, and a nylon rope for pulling around.

Originally, the ark had an entire set of handmade stuffed animals (sewn by Mom), but only these two remain. The others were loved to death:

When my mom had grandchildren, she and dad made an ark for each of my brothers and sisters and their new little families. For that project, my dad cut out sturdy wooden animals and my mom painted them in fanciful colors. Now I have a set of those. The gallery below shows them up close.

I have hung onto this ark through countless moves, facing much mockery from Zach. But, he now admits my wisdom in keeping it. The ark appeals to every single child who has ever visited my home, and I always find the animals paired up and tucked into their stalls when kids clean up the set.

These last two photos show the interior loft and the little door for the giraffes to poke their heads out, respectively.

All photos are relatively low-quality, since the Boogedy races over to play with the ark any time I set up a photoshoot!

Each winner of the chicken-naming contest received one of these handmade chicken magnets for their fridge. Meldrick (red), Lady Tremaine (aqua), and Ugly Betty (green).

The chickens are made from home-dyed woolen fabrics and felts, yarn, cotton floss, beads, sequins, and stuffin’. They have strong magnets sewn inside. This was a fun project for waiting in line at the DMV to register the van on April 30th.

Here you can see them together, holding up our household “star chart”. Our 7-year old great-niece lives with us and is such a picky eater; almost as picky as her mom! So we created this start chart so that they both can earn stars for trying new foods. When the chart is full, we have to buy them a prize! Zach and I earn stars for turning down foods that we really shouldn’t be eating (my chart should be full of donuts and breakfast cereal, but so far I haven’t turned down much!!)

My son (on the right) and his cousin were born 5 days apart. I made each of them an Elf Hat for their tiny little newborn heads. Now they are celebrating their first birthday, and again I made them matching hats. We have to make them wear these things while they’re young and can’t say “no” or “hell no” or “mom, no way, I’ll look like a dork!!”

My hats were inspired by this pattern, though my decreases at the top are different (for that distinctive “chicken butt” shape). I crocheted the drumsticks because that was so much easier than knitting. The hats are some inexpensive cotton from JoAnns, because that’s the yarn I could find in this lovely “plucked poultry carcass” colorway.