Hedgehog information.

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I hope you can read this. Hubby has been going out and buying ‘specialist’ hedgehog food from the local pet shop. Then a friend on Facebook posted this! I don’t want to be responsible for harming them so that’s the last lot of hog food we will be buying. There is also a meaty version so we might get some of that.

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Woody cat

The abandoned cat who is virtually ours. He definitely has adopted us. He’s wheedled his way into our lives. He gets fed regularly, sleeps in a bed in a shed, and comes and sits on your lap when he feels like it. I will try and get his microchip altered. His owners went away and left him. He would be in the house, but I have two rescue cats already. I’m getting them vaccinated next week and then we can try and introduce them to each other. Things could get difficult.

I do love him, he’s worked his way into my heart. These photos of him were taken in the garden this afternoon.

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Tomato plants no flowers!

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We put up two little greenhouses for the tomatoes this year. We’ve given them plenty of food and water. It’s a bit shady, not the usual place we put them, and they have grown leafy, but with very few flowers, and they don’t seem to have set. It’s getting too late for tomatoes now. On the other hand the local shop gave us some very withered and dried up small tomato plants yesterday but they have fruit growing on them. Weird… Anyway I guess I’m lucky we had other produce xxx

Neddy

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‘Neddy’ named by my hubby. Used the watercolour background I’d created and found an image of a horse or pony with a long mane.

I used fine black nib marker pens to draw him, then permanent markers to add some colour to him and to the tall grass around him (fading the colours as it went higher to give a feeling of depth). I then used a 6B graphite pencil to soften the strength of the marker pens. I drew this because I liked the overgrown mane. If the pony ran it would flow out backwards like a billowing curtain or long ribbons.

I did this today because I didn’t have a prompt from stoke urban sketchers so I thought I would still draw something to keep going.

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He’s looking at me

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Warning, discussing carnivore thoughts.

You know you are truly owned by a car when it sits on the fridge and stares at you. Where is my cat milk? It seems to say. Is it properly chilled? Not too cold, but just enough to cool the cat on a warm afternoon.

Is there roast chicken in the fridge for him. Delicately flavoured with just the right amount of jelly juices.

You know you are owned when the cat looks down at you, then puts his paw out and catches the shoulder of your tee shirt, claw holding firm and stopping you in your tracks.

If cats could speak what would they say? Probably feed me. Hold me, look after me. Sort out my litter tray, human.

What do we get for this care? Kneeding paws that turn to claws, licked boyyoms then they lick your hand, ew! But you can’t fight those eyes. Those staring eyes.

The new normal?

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Visiting my friend today who’s a fine art student. Because we were inside her house we both wore masks.  This is the final Stoke Urban Sketchers challenge for this run but I don’t think it will be the last. This was so good, to be able to visit someone. I feel like crying, I felt nervous, I felt touched that someone would let me in their house after all this time. I may dream about it! It was an honour to be allowed to draw her. I hope she does well in her fine art degree.

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After Hokusai

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I painted this small painting a few weeks ago. I was seeing if I could even get close to the great artist Hokusai’s work. If I’d painted on to paper I might have added the fishing boats that are being dragged into the great wave while the fishermen in them try and row away from it. It was so hard to get the fingerlike protrusions that show the wave breaking. The colours are not too far off. I think the sky is greyer? When you try and analyse a picture its hard not to miss the the mistakes you have made. Being self critical is important because you try and improve each time.

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Stop talking!

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He never stops

Talking..

TV film?

Talking

Interesting news?

Talking

Mystery programme?

Talking…

So what?

I never hear that important news

I never find out if the butler did it?

I never listen to the last notes of the symphony.

Why?

Because he’s talking.

Important stuff?

What car is in the TV programme.

Whether that’s a Highland cow.

Something in the paper I’d already seen on the news.

What he was doing in 1974!

Is this hell or just purgatory?!

 

Comet Neowise

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I have not seen it. It keeps being to cloudy. But I just read this at Spaceweather.com so I tried to draw it.

COMET NEOWISE APPROACHES EARTH: Tomorrow night might be your best chance to see Comet NEOWISE for the next 6,800 years. On July 23rd, the comet makes its closest approach to Earth. The fading comet is still visible to the naked eye from dark-sky sites and an easy target for photographers everywhere. Get the full story at Spaceweather.com .

There is then the Persid meteor shower in August. Around the 15th? That might be a good show. Meteor showers are caused by the dust thrown off from comets as they get close to the sun. It’s called out gassing when cometary ice is heated by sunshine and boils off into space taking dust with it. A comets tail is made up of two different parts, the dust tail and an ion tail which is made up of ionised gas. The comets tail always points away from the sun because it is blown by the solar wind.

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