California Quail

Just completed my California quail last night.  A lot of work went into this guy because of all the intricate patterning of his breast feathers and the tiny feathers around his neck. 

ODLCO

photo by Lisa Smith and Caroline Linder

Last week Emma and I had a visit from Lisa Smith and Caroline Linder co-founders of the Chicago-based design startup, ODLCO.   They had contacted me the week before about possibly carrying my felted animals in their online store and I invited them to come see them in person.  They were also very interested in our farm because as it turns out, their mission is quite similar to our own.  ODLCO produces household products on a small scale and supports other independent designers by marketing their products as well.  Whereas Emma and I are trying to support the return to small-scale, local food production, ODLCO is doing the same thing with household goods. 
So as of today my felted animals are on sale at ODLCO's design shop.  So far what's up for sale are 5 simpler, less expensive animals (sheep, donkey, duck, pig, black cat) which depending on how they sell I will produce more of, and 3 more intricate and expensive pieces (grizzly bear, chipping sparrow and dramatic chipmunk).  Also be sure to check out ODLCO's latest blog entry.  I think this may be the beginning of a beautiful relationship!

Chukar

I was recently commissioned by a customer to do a couple of life size sculptures of birds native to his home state of Portland.  I just completed the first of the two, a species of partridge called a chukar.  This bird is actually an old world species introduced to North America as a game bird.  Next up is a California quail. 

Rocky Mountain Soap Company Commission

In early October I got an email from the director of marketing of the Rocky Mountain Soap Company.  The company is basically a Canadian version of Bath and Body Works, but way more awesome.  They make all of their products with nothing but natural ingredients and run every aspect of their company as sustainably as possible (wind power, non plastic packaging, etc).  Anyway, Abby, the director of marketing emailed me to ask whether I could make a series of needle felted sculptures to decorate a new store they were about to open.  The amazing thing is that she found out about me by googling "needle felted animals" and coming across this blog!  So thank you everyone for getting this page fairly high up on the google search results!  So the commission ended up being for 4 sculptures: a barn owl, a songbird, a fawn and a fox, all of them significantly larger than anything I'd done before (with the exception of the songbird).  All of them also had to be done completely in greyscale (to match the rest of the store apparently), so the photos look like they are black and white photos but they actually are in color.  After working long hours on the project for the past month and a half I just finished the final piece this week.

Finally finished some new sculptures

To my loyal readers I sincerely apologize for not writing for so long!  This first growing season on the farm has been a little bit insane.  We've had to struggle with one of the worst droughts in US history on top of the usual work involved with starting a new farm so I haven't had much time for needle felting.  I've also been writing about all our farm exploits on our new Facebook page: facebook.com/luckyduckfarm because that's pretty much become our farm's official website.  I will try to do a better job of posting the same info and photos here whenever I can. 
So in the last 3 months I've only had time to complete 3 sculptures so on the needle felting front you haven't missed much.  All three of these birds: a barn swallow, a cardinal and a goldfinch were commissioned by my friend Kelty and her twin sister Hannah for their beautiful new online store, The Weaver House, where they will be up for sale soon.  So Kelty and Hannah's brilliant idea was to make life-size birds or other small animals that could be mounted on tree branches or rocks so that they resemble taxidermy, minus the dead animal.

Lucky Duck Farm's Big Debut

Market season has arrived and we are now selling at two brand new markets in the Chicago area.  One is the Ground Up Farmer's Market at the Browntrout Restaurant in Chicago.  Chef Sean Sanders
 was generous enough to open up his restaurant on his off day to host a small weekly farmer's market.  Emma and I have participated in the first 4 markets so far and have had a great time.  Business had been kinda slow but it is picking up as more people in the neighborhood learn of the market's existence.  And we already have loyal regular customers who love our truly free range eggs and our vegetables!  It's really nice to see familiar faces each week and know that there are people who appreciate what we're doing.
Just last Sunday we went to the inaugural Elmwood Park Farmer's Market.  We were pleasantly surprised to see how diverse residents of Elmwood Park turned out to be.  Most of the people that came through the market were immigrants from somewhere or another: Russia, Eastern Europe, Latin America or Asia.  We were also pleasantly surprised with how well our produce sold!  We brought chicken and duck eggs, pea shoots, mizuna and bags of stir fry mix (bok choi, mizuna and mustard greens) and all of it sold really well.
The weather in our area has been extremely hot and dry.  We just had our first significant rain in almost a month yesterday.  As a result our cool season crops: bok choi, chinese cabbage and mustard greens have been suffering, so we don't expect to be able to harvest too much more of them.  Everything else looks pretty good though so we will be bringing lots of hakurei turnips, daikon radishes and green onions to market soon!

Our Browntrout table

Our Elmwood Park stand featuring our fancy new sign! (made with fabric markers and a bed sheet)

Freshly picked pea shoots for sale in Elmwood Park

Busy

 I didn't have time to do any needle felting this week!  We transplanted all of our Chinese cabbage and bok choi into the field, went to our first market, moved our sheep and cow out of the barn and into the big pasture, moved all 6 pigs together into a single large paddock and moved our ducklings out into a new outdoor coop.  We also had another lambing but unfortunately this time it was a single stillborn lamb.  Iris, the runt of our flock was the would be mother.  Because of her small size we were a little worried about her ability to give birth so we are just relieved that she made it through unharmed.

Emma transplanting bok choi

Our honeybees delivering full pollen baskets (the  big yellow balls stuck to their hind legs)  The pollen is used as their main source of protein and is fed to the queen so that she can pump out lots of eggs.