New Blog!!

We have moved! Our new blog address is waywardgoosefarm.tumblr.com.  Please visit us there!

New Year's Resolution!

My new year's resolution for 2013 is to try a bit harder

to keep the blog updated!  Since my last post was in September, 

a full 4 months ago, I have a lot of catching up to do!  

So I will start with a photo of the most recent piece of barn art, 

installed last fall.  I have already started on new pieces, to be

installed as soon as the weather warms up in the spring!

Though there is an unfortunate glare on it, I think it's still discernible as eggplants.
It's 17.5"x12" and, like the others, done in acrylics on plywood scrap.

Last summer was the first time we had success growing eggplants and they looked so
beautiful that I wanted to capture them forever, lest we never again have such good luck!

I must say, they do like nice on a cold winter's day!

Newest barn painting!

Avon 24"x24"

Sometimes you've just got to scratch that itch.  She's quite a contortionist.

Barn art!

After spending a large part of this summer painting the farm sign a thought occurred to me: why stop there?  There's no reason why the outsides of buildings shouldn't be as adorned with art as the insides. The barn looks amazing since Alex's wonderful dad Max spent many hot, sweaty hours painting it for us, and it now made a perfect background.  So, armed with an array of beautiful Golden acrylic paints, semi decent brushes, an assortment of plywood scraps left over from various building projects at Consider Bardwell Farm and an ample quantity of Golden protective finish, I decided to embark on my next project, a plein air art gallery.  I started with a smallish plywood scrap, about 17"x15.5" and did a simple portrait of Jill in a fanciful striped chapeau licking the last of a popsicle off her fingers.  It's titled "Black and White Stripes".

That turned out pretty well, so I continued on with an action painting of Jill and her babysitting charges, Brantley and Amelia.  They always love to run across the row of round bales lined up behind the barn and I particularly loved Brantley's cowboy boots and Amelia's outstretched arms.  

"Adventures in Babysitting, Vermont Style" 
17"x 23.5".

Dan came home with a particularly odd shaped piece of plywood, roughly 23"x28", that I thought would be perfect for a cow portrait....... 

...... So I caught Alice in the act of chewing her cud.

I topped each painting with two coats of finish and we hung them a few days ago.

They look a bit dwarfed by the expanse of the barn
and the size of the new sign but my plan is
to fill the entire exterior of the barn with as many
plywood scrap paintings as I can.  It may take a while,
so stay tuned!

The sign is up!

As promised, a post about the new farm sign.  We actually hung it a few weeks ago and I'm just now
getting around to writing about it.  Summer on a farm is non stop busy-ness.

The skid steer worked great for reaching those high spots!

Lots of pointing and cogitating took place.

Here it is, all shiny and new!  Heather looks smashing with her
daisy and sunflower wreath and Oscar is in all
his bindle stick toting glory!

It was a challenge working on something so big, especially since acrylic paints are something I

usually don't get along with.  Once I stopped trying to use them like watercolors and figured out 

that I needed to use their fast drying time to my advantage, things went along smoothly in the end.

Now we just need to paint the rest of the barn!

New farm sign

The past several weeks have been a whirlwind of activity.  In addition to the normal every day stuff of dairy farm life, I've been working away at a new sign for the side of the barn.  I had a vision of how I wanted it to look:  it had to be visible from the road; we wanted to pay homage to the original wayward goose, Oscar; and I wanted it to have the look and feel of a vintage French cheese label.  After many prototypes, I came up with a design that we all were happy with:

Not only does Oscar make an appearance,
Heather has a starring role as well!

Golden acrylic paints on an 8' x 8' treated support, finished with a custom made Golden varnish will

complete the finished piece which will be affixed to the north side of the barn, adjacent to the milk room door.  Here is a look at the beginning:

An overhead projector borrowed from Beth at the 
Pawlet library came in handy for transferring the design
onto the sign board.  

The sign is now complete and I put the last coat of varnish on yesterday afternoon.

Stay tuned for its unveiling once it's been installed in its new home!

Belated 4th of July photos

Dan and I have been married for 30 years this past March and our wonderful children offered to milk and do chores for us so we could take a day or 2 off.
 We decided to wait until this summer to take them up on it so that we could visit some areas of Vermont that we've not yet had a chance to see, during nice weather.  So, on July 2nd we set out for a mini vacation, first to Lake Willoughby in the heart of the north east kingdom a few miles from the Canadian border.

Lake Willoughby is gorgeous though it was a bit chilly for swimming.  After
spending the night at a charming Inn on the Lake we
headed south to Monpelier, the smallest state capital
in the U.S. with only 8,000 residents.

  The State House is gorgeous.

Since 4th of July festivities were in full swing, the state museum
was open so we decided to pay a visit.  We were surprised
to see this exhibit, about Consider Bardwell! (the man, not the cheese).

Fascinating!

Later in the evening we were able to partake of the
Independence Day parade with none other than our favorite
politician, senator Bernie Sanders leading the way!

The parade had a decidedly Vermont feel to it.  While there
were few marching bands or floats, there were lots
 of other groups
 from this bunch of belly dancers who
were happy to let it all hang out.....

..... to this fellow who was just passing through.

The Green Mountain Boys were there in full regalia.....

...... as was an interpretive dance troop of some sort..........

.....???......

AS I said....  the parade had a VERY Vermont feel to it!

The evening ended with a great fireworks display which we got to view from the comfort of a lovely old porch on the front of the Inn at Monpelier where we were staying.  I knew taking photos of fireworks would be fruitless so you'll just have to imagine how nice it was!

All in all we had a lovely time on our brief get away, but it's always nice to get back home where 

there was lots of hay waiting to be unloaded.