Some butterfly carvings

I carved up a couple of box lids tonight for my next project. One Peacock Butterfly and one Hawk Moth. After this I'm going to be out of maple, so I'll have to get some more. And I'll work on the bottom half with my new router bushings! As for tonight, it was fairly straight forward. And everything was going well until I snapped off the antennae of the butterfly. I have not decided what I'm going to do just yet. I may just leave it or carve the other one to match. They were coming out so well as it was, Baa! Ah well. Live and learn. Rash seems to be better tonight. Though she still is sniffing and not eating much. I'm hoping in a couple more days she will be back to her old sel

Bats and moths welcome

Tonight, one of the bat houses I put up in my neighbors yard has become popular! I'm thrilled that one of the houses that i built is now being used! I'm kinda bummed that the bats have left the store bought one in my yard to set up shop over there. It's all good though as long as they keep eating bugs! There are still a lot more houses to fill up all over our yards. Jeff has a MUCH better camera than I do and took some really great shops of the bats and of one of the Io moths. I am too embarrassed to show off my comparison pictures.

Catch up carvings! Are you looking for shooting stars?

Carved up the remaining seats tonight, and finished painting the rest of the fish. You can see the difference between the brown trout that are poly ed and he rainbow/brook trout that are not. Well they all got finished tonight! A couple of things of interest that I did not post on yesterdays post. A Penitent Underwing moth. He must have just hatched because he is so close to perfect and I have ever seen. We have several of these guys in our collection, ( all slightly different species, but similar in appearance) But they have faded badly and lost that wonderful red under wing color. Oh! And tonight is a meteor shower if you are lucky enough to be where there are few lights and the moonlight can be shaded. Cheryl and I used to go out to the lake shore and count them. It's quite fun. Hope you can get out there!

Sunday carving and Moth hunt

Finished carving four seats tonight. Looks like I'll have a few for the coming week already. However, tomorrow is our anniversary, so it is unlikely I will be carving much then. I'm not sure what we will do, but taking a break from work and hanging out in our new lawn furniture together sounds pretty relaxing. Cheryl even suggested we might tackle painting one of the chairs. We'll see. Tonight we had a special guest join us while we enjoyed the patio. A Prometheus moth. A female. The males are darker than the females. She hung around for a while before the cats took a notice so I escorted her away from the light to a safe place. They are just to pretty to let the cat eat them. Hope everyone has a great week! As a parting thought, Kaza no Stigma the opening theme. Enjoy!

Sunday tree carving! Leopard Moth!

Tonight I concentrated on the hands! They still need a little work, but I also have to understand the limits of the wood. Hands still give me a little trouble as I am still looking for that "Realistic hand" instead of the " Hey! At least it has five fingers!" type of hand. It got dark, so I may have to re post pics tomorrow in the daylight. ( Notice she is gripping her dress) Before I go...A Wonderful Leopard moth!

Lazy "almost" summer day.

Well, I guess technically it is not summer quite yet. But it sure felt like it. Not the "hot, Hazy" days. Rather, the cool air and bright sunny skies type of day. We didn't go the beach tonight, instead we headed for the bookstore for a coffee and some browsing through magazines. Tomorrow is Cheryl's birthday, so we are planning on a trip to Grand Rapids for some adventure. I did manage to take a few pics of the wood nymph in the daylight, even though I did not have a chance to work on her this evening. She still might need a little more work. Otherwise, I decided to show off my Mule Deer in Cherry from several years ago. This is one of those "almost perfect" carvings where you just want to keep looking at it. Luckily, I don't have many of the "total disaster" carvings left. And I have never had a "totally perfect" one to brag about. Still, I like this one a lot. It's a shame I can't seem to capture the "feel" of it with just the camera. Probably is the lighting. Just the same, it has lots of movement. the Io mothcame back to visit us. Well, Another one anyway. I took him back to the safety of the woods. He was a little rougher than the last one we showed.

Sunday Night carving with the Io (ie: io) moth

Finished carving up the weekend seats. Only five tonight. But better than nothing. I noticed afterwards that the theme this week looks like it was "tropical island." I have not done a pelican in a while. Other than that, we had a visitor from the "giant silk moth" family. An Io moth is one of the smallest of the family. ( it might be THE smallest) it's still a rather large moth in comparison to the other moths around here. Instead of feeding it to the cats, ( they are just to pretty to let the cats bat them around and eat them) we took a few photos and eventually let it go back in a safe place. For those who don't know, they have only one purpose as an adult and that is to lay eggs and die. So, she won't be around much longer. She was a difficult subject to photograph with all her movement, but after thirty or so pics, we found a few we could show off. Enjoy!

Thursday cram day!

Tonight I had to catch up all the carving for the week since tomorrow is Friday. 7 seats in all! Not a bad last couple of days. I'll be babysitting them all night tonight to make sure they get their second coat and are able to be shipped out tomorrow. Other than that, It has been raining all day today and most of the snow is melted. We have a wonderful "lake" in our front yard and I'm sure the small pond will soon be teaming with "life". (by life, I mean mosquitoes) It was warm enough for a moth to grace our window tonight. And I just had to capture the little maze the voles have been making under the snow this winter. The thaw has finally revealed them. Tomorrow, after our bookstore visit, Cheryl has authorized me to begin our next project. A modern cat post furniture. I can't wait!