Whew!

I have to apologize for my complete lack of posts these past few weeks. I recently finished a run of four art fairs four weekends in a row and I think I was worn out.

It's been a bit of a rough spring around here. We've lost six chickens since April--two to the neighbor's dog, two to a fox, and two had to be euthanized. The four chicks that we picked up in May from a "farm" in Milford turned out to have a respiratory ailment, and we've had them on antibiotics twice--the second time being a form that required injections. You can imagine how much fun that's been. Now the two remaining older chickens--Rhodie, our rooster, and Ethel, our little Americana from last year's group--have got it too. We had to euthanize one of our cats a few weeks ago, a 16 year old tabby that Lisa got as a kitten. A woodchuck has burrowed under my studio, the foundation of which is concrete blocks, and I am worried about possible damage and conflicted as to how to handle removing it. Plus I caught it in the veggie garden the other day. On top of it all our dog Jackson got sprayed by a skunk last week. So you can see, between all of this and trying to run a business, there's not been much time--or energy--for blogging.

On a positive note Lori and I have been hired to do a mural at the Boardman River Nature Center in Traverse City that we're very excited about. Also, I participated in Krasl on the Bluff, one of Michigan's premier art fairs last weekend, a show I'd been trying to get into for several years, and it went very well.

So I am looking forward to getting back to writing, an endeavor that is difficult at best when ones' energy is consumed by life's little battles, especially when they seem to come back to back to back.