Cheerio and the Chicken

I caught this moment on camera while grilling some juicy sirloin and vegetable kabobs. Ran in to get the camera while Cheerio and the chicken faced off. (And that trench in the background is for the conduit that is finally going to bring the internet to my studio!)

Also up this week is my online interview with The Equinest:
http://www.theequinest.com/alecia-underhill/
Since this interview tells all about me, I can keep this blog post short.

Getting ready for the Glastonbury Fine Art on the Green show, this Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 12-13, 10-5 rain or shine. (It better shine!)
It's going to be a busy fall, with shows ever other weekend until Columbus Day. I just agreed to do Artists in the Country in Woodstock, CT on Sept. 26-27.
Then there is the RISD Alumni Sale on Oct. 10.

Round 'em Up Cheerio!

"You want me to what?"

My English Shepherd dog...my intense, somewhat high-strung, bossy, territorial, prey-driven dog...is not chasing the chickens. She's not eating the chickens. Okay, she's not even herding the chickens.
When they were baby chicks in the brooder, she nearly put one in her mouth. I was convinced these chickens would be coop bound. No free-range chickens for us...we have a dog that goes at about 100 miles an hour after a squirrel. And though I have put a lot of time into obedience training, and her basic commands are well-mastered, I thought there was no way she was going to come to me when there was a chicken dinner strutting across the lawn.

So I invested a hundred bucks in an electronic training collar. There are a few behaviors other than chicken chasing that I needed to nip in the bud. Barking at the lawnmower, for instance...when you're in the driver's set of a roaring Cub Cadet, it's hard to train your dog. Chasing cars up the driveway is one, although she has gotten much better about that lately. Circling the inflatable pool and barking at us while we splashed around in it was another behavior that I figured I could zap away.
The lawnmower and the swimming pool barking each took two electronic corrections. She has not committed either one of these misdeads since. And she hasn't chased a car while I've had the training collar on, either.

So, now I thought I'd try it out with the chickens. The first day we let the hens out of the run a couple of hours before sunset, so they could explore and stay pretty close to the coop and want to go back in on their own. I kept Cheerio in the house, just to give the hens a easy introduction to the wide outdoors.

The second day, when it was time to put them back in the coop, I put on Cheerio's electronic collar, and her regular collar with a long lead--a horse lunge line, so that I could remain at a distance and see how she would do. She trotted right up and investigated the chickens, never barked, never chased. I asked her to help me "round 'em up" thinking, here now she finally has a chance to use those herding instincts. All that practice in trying to herd the family together on walks could now be put to use for an actual job. My dog is approaching three years old, and it's time for some gainful employment. I demonstrated to the best of my ability what I wanted her to do, but the blank look she gave me said it all. She ran in circles, but not in circles around the chickens.

A week later, the chickens are still fully enjoying the great outdoors, and Cheerio is a contented observer. Chicken wrangling just might not be her thing. They just may not be challenging enough. The horses, however, now there is an animal worth herding.
"I think I'll go bark at the horses" Cheerio says. "Hey, you there! You're not supposed to lie down. Get up right now! Right now, I say! Horses are not allowed to lie down around here!"

Driving, Daisies and Dot

Gentleman's Turnout
oil on canvas, 9 x 12 in.
"Pulling Their Weight", the Horse in Fine Art Exhibition is up and running at the Mackinac Island Public Library. Gentleman's Turnout is one of my three entries. The show can be viewed online at the AAEA website. It looks to be a stunning selection of work. I am so honored to be a part of it.

Pulling Their Weight, The Horse in Fine Art


The whole horse pasture is just full of buttercups and daisies. I wish it were full of more edible grass for the horses, but I am hopeless at pasture management, and it has been made difficult this year with all the rain...it just grows and grows faster than the horses can eat it, and there is very little time to mow it. But on the bright side, the daisies make a beautiful, very long-lasting display in a lovely old mason jar.


Yellow Chick
oil on canvas, 11 x 14 in.


And this is "Dot", my little yellow chick. She has grown into a beautiful cream-colored pullet with a bit of orange on the edges of some of her feathers. Here is a photo of her all grown up.

I am moving on from the baby chick paintings to hen paintings, and I will post as soon as one is finished and scanned.
The coop is nearly finished, just a few small details left to do, and the young ladies seem to be very happy in their home. They have all figured out the chicken ladder and go into the coop at night, safe from all the wily predators. And here is what I'm calling "The Egg Drop Inn", complete with window box.

Mowing, Chickens, and Carriages

The riding lawnmower (the gas-powered one) spent a couple of days at the shop recently, and the bit of lawn that stretches behind the studio, around the blackberry patch and amongst the orchard grew tall and lush. As I started to mow it with our newly serviced piece of machinery, I had a revelation, to let the four-legged mowers at it. So with just two bits of wire fence strung, the horses now had access to the best bit of grazing to come along this spring. It is my least favorite piece of lawn to mow, and though we'll have to clean it up when the horses are done, at least the rocks will be more visible, and the grass will have provided nutrition and calories to the beasts.



The chickens are in their new coop as of this past weekend. They are not too keen about the great outdoors, however. They perch on the doorstep of the little chicken door, and peer down the ladder, and one chick made it down two steps before going back in. The next day, I shooed a couple of them out, but none of the others followed and those two birds huddled under the coop until dark, when we had to take apart the temporary board in the front to get them out. It's so chilly the last couple of days, I've put the heat lamp in the coop and today I didn't even open the chicken door.

The coop with outdoor run in progress.


I have finished one more chicken painting, which I cannot yet post, and have moved on to finish up a couple of horse paintings. I have been juried into the Glastonbury Fine Arts on the Green show the second week of September, and I will be spending the summer getting ready for that show. (In-between shuttling the 9-yr old to soccer camp, cub-scout camp, day camp, and doing other family things like biking and a trip to the amusement park, etc...)



Three of my driving themed paintings are going to Mackinac Island, Michigan, this summer for the AAEA sponsored show, "The Horse in Fine Art" at the Mackinac Public Library, July 1 - July 31st.
"Carriage Meet" is one of the pieces. Oil on canvas, 11 x 14 in.
This is a bit of a rambling blog post, but there is a lot going on here.

Gentle Giant

Gentle Giant
oil on canvas
30 x 40 in.

Thought I would take a break from the chicks for a while to post this finished oil.
With these big gallerywrap canvases, sometimes it's hard to know when they're finished. This one has been put aside to dry for a while, and when I went to put a hanging wire on it, I realized the bottom edge never got painted. You can never paint all the edges at once, since it has to rest on one, so sometimes the bottom gets forgotten.

The latest horse on the easel is an appaloosa. And now I am cursing myself for taking this one on, but of course I was attracted to the image in the first place for the spot pattern. Now the spot pattern is driving me nuts...I have a feeling this one is going to take a while to finish.

A beautiful day like today makes it hard to confine oneself to the studio. The garden is calling, and the mowing is never-ending. And this morning, I prommised to take my son to the school track and run with him. He recently ran the mile for his physical fitness test and he is eager to do more running. I challenged myself to run a mile today, at a nice, slow steady pace, and I'm both shocked and pleased that I was able to do it! (It's been two knee surgeries and a long time since I've done any running, and it was never my favorite form of fitness.) I ran four laps of the quarter-mile track without stopping, and I felt like I could have run another lap. I must be in better shape than I thought! Must do this more often!

Painting Chicks

The Grumpy Chick
oil on canvas, 14 x 11 in.


Just a Couple of Chicks
oil on canvas, 11 x 14 in.

These chicks are already inspiring some paintings. Out of thousands of baby chicks that leave the hatcheries and get shipped all over the country, lucky are the ten chicks that came to live at Underhill Hollow. Three of the babies have already been immortalized on canvas, and more paintings are to follow. I have to admit a partiality to the yellow Americauna chicks. Never have I used so much cadmium yellow in a painting. These images are for sale as prints in my etsy store.

The chicks had their first outing in the yard on Sunday. They seemed to enjoy the beautiful summer-like day, pecking about in the grass, doing what chickens do, and climbing all over my son. Michael is making great progress on the coop, and the pressure is on to get the main part finished, as the chicks are already growing fast, and will soon outgrow the plastic brooder in the bathroom. The coop is designed with one side that will open up completely for easy cleaning. Still have a lot of details to finish such as the shingles and the outside run.

The Chicks are here!

This being our entry into the keeping of chickens, we are so excited to have the little peepers home. I now have a chicken-bathroom. We set up a large plastic tote with a 100 watt lightbulb for heat. I'm using puppy pads for now, as I read somewhere that newspaper is too slippery for them. When I use up the puppy pads, I'll switch to shavings, but for now, this is so easy to keep clean. I have a layer of newspaper in the bottom, with two pads on top, and I can just roll them up and replace them without taking all the chicks out. There are four Americaunas, three Rhode Island Reds, and three Barred Plymouth Rock. Despite an earlier decision not to name them, the three RI Reds are tentatively called Prudence, Patience and Hope. (How original--I wonder how many RI Reds in Rhode Island have these names?) And I really want to name the four Americaunas after my aunts..Margie, Hallie, Beverly, and Dot.
The three Barred Plymouth Rocks are a bit up in the air, but Max suggested either Chelsea, Mindy and Laurie, (his girl cousins) or Jeannie, Sheri, and Amy (his aunts). We have no idea if they would appreciate having chickens named after them or not.
Of course, we look upon it as a thing of honor. After all, these hens are going to be beautiful and dignified hens. Of course, we also have no idea yet if any one of these is going to turn out to be a rooster!

This was a great weekend for coop-building, and Michael has made huge progress in getting the chicks permanent home constructed. The four walls and floor went up, the roof is on, and the siding is mostly in place. It's only three sided, still, as the fourth wall is going to be two big doors that will enable us to open it up for easy cleaning. I will post the coop pictures soon.

I think today was nearly a perfect day--it started with apple pancakes, and included some time in the garden, time with my son, and a lovely short trail ride in the afternoon. Except for a nagging cough and doing two loads of laundry, it would have ranked as perfect.