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All Foshizzles Go To Heaven

August 9, 2017 by Ashley Hackshaw

We lost our sweet Fo this last week, but the good news is that all Foshizzles go to heaven:

It was really sudden and unexpected. About a week ago I found her limping and found that she had broken a claw off and her toe was swollen. I put some antiseptic spray on it regularly but it turned into an infection. I soaked her foot in epsom salts a few times a day, each time covering it in salve and then fashioning a little bandage on her foot.

Her foot seemed to be getting better but Fo overall didn’t feel any better. We aren’t exactly sure why she went so fast but all of the sudden she started to have trouble breathing. We might have been able to go to extremes to keep her alive but every new thing we tried just seemed like it was making Fo uncomfortable, and she didn’t understand why we were doing it. It was a cool morning and the rain was so peaceful so I moved her right to the edge of the garage on a towel so that she could feel it. Sienna laid down with her and talked softly to her, telling her it was going to be okay. Fo had the most beautiful crimson red wattles, and that’s how I knew she was going to die, when her wattles began to turn an ashy color. So we just stopped trying and prayed that if she was going to suffer that she would go quickly. And she did. Foshizzle didn’t suffer for very long and we did everything we could for her to keep her comfortable at the very end.

The hard part about loving animals so much is that I love animals so much. I become really attached to each one and I know every little thing about them. Fo was no exception. She brought us so much joy.

Fo captured our hearts from the very beginning with that little heart on her forehead and the intense way she always stared at us:

Even in her awkward phase she still kept that stare:

And she loved her human from the very beginning:

They were very attached:

She started growing that beautiful heart out when she was just a few weeks old:

She turned into such a graceful hen:

Except for when it rained and she wilted:

Fo got lost more times than I could count in our neighborhood, it was so easy for her to take a wrong turn because she couldn’t see very well. Our neighbors always brought her back. One day she wandered all the way up to the main road and was brought home on a Segway. She might be one of the few chickens in the world to ever ride on one.

I loved digging up worms in the garden for her. I’d save them until the other chickens weren’t around. I shouldn’t play favorites but how could I resist this chicken?

She would even ride on Sienna’s handlebars as long as she didn’t go too fast:

All I had to do was whistle the mockingjay call from Hunger Games and she would start walking towards me.

She tolerated our dog Max and then, when we adopted Happy, Fo decided they could be best friends:

When the other chickens were fighting over the nesting boxes to lay their eggs Fo would just quietly make her own nest anywhere that was comfortable. She would have made the best mother (except for not being able to find her chicks when they wandered off).

None of the other chickens ever picked on Fo, even though they all pick on each other relentlessly. It was like they knew she was extra special.

She was just so beautiful, and coupled with her quirky mannerisms, we could watch her for hours.

There will never be another chicken like Fo.

I wrote a lot about her over the last year and half and I’m thankful we have all our memories saved.

We buried her right in front of our large picture window and ordered a beautiful red weeping maple to go right on top of her, just like we did for Diesel.

We miss her so much but we feel really lucky to have called her our chicken.

Foshizzle Forever.

(Note: You can read about her and our other animals here.)

Art Every Day – Everything I Painted in June

August 5, 2017 by Ashley Hackshaw

I’ve kept up the daily paintings but it’s been hard to keep up with posting them so I’ll just do it by month now. 365 paintings definitely seems a lot easier than 52 posts, and who wants to read 52 posts anyway. Here’s everything I painted in June (except for 4 paintings that I already posted about here)…this is too much math.

Day 155: Ink on watercolor. I love this quote by Marcus Aurelius…the last of the five good emperors…whatever that means.

Day 156: When in doubt just paint a rooster…or three. This was acrylic on reclaimed wood. It’s currently at Gallery 1 in downtown Sylva, NC if you live in that area!

Day 157: A Bluegill fish on reclaimed wood. I used acrylic, charcoal and a few glazes for this one.

Day 158: I painted, stained and sealed these custom paddles for my friend Beau.

Here they are hanging in his new rental cabin Buffalo Trace:

Day 160: I painted this at the last minute before going to bed…the cover of an art journal. I might add to it later…it’s not very exciting.

Day 161: One of our bedroom walls has been empty for way too long. I took some oversized white paper and used sumi ink to write a quote from The Great Gatsby on it. The frames are inexpensive poster frames.

Day 162: Acrylic on reclaimed wood.

The Mountains Are Calling and I Must Go.

Day 163: I started painting an oversized Moon Pie logo on a round table top.

Day 164: A rainbow trout. I cropped this one accidentally and so it looks like a TROU instead….but the real piece has a T on it.

Day 165: An elephant on flat canvas. This RLS quote is from a book I have that is full of joy quotes. This elephant just looked joyful.

Day 166: Visiting my mother in Linville so I painted a quick sketch of the view from her porch using my travel watercolors:

Day 167: Acrylic on reclaimed plywood.

Day 168: A rooster painted on wood. Acrylic and charcoal. This painting is also at Gallery 1 Sylva!

Day 169: I call this one “Crammed in the Ark”…just kidding…but the animals do look a little cramped.

Day 170: A bird on a small block of wood. I added the metal “Choose Happiness” tag on the front.

Day 171: A painting on reclaimed tin, attached to reclaimed chestnut wood.

Day 172: I call this painting “People and Brontosaurus Wearing Glasses.” I just paint what’s in my head…but doesn’t mean I can explain it.

Day 173: I really loved painting this one. A can of sardines on wood. I added the tin border in the spirit of the metal sardines are usually in.

Day 174: A fly fishing fly. Acrylic on wood.

Day 175: Acrylic folk art style painting on framed cradled wood.

“She is clothed in strength and dignity and she laughs without fear of the future. Proverbs 31:25”

Day 176: A quick painting in my art journal.

Day 177: A quick sketch of the Bryson City courthouse.

Day 178: I found this drawer front at the thrift store and someone had started carving the hand into it. I got out my Dremel and finished it. Then I painted it white and added the quotes.

Day 179: Spiced Ham = SPAM.

Day 180: Enamel and acrylic on wood.

Day 181: Our friends came to visit and I collaborated with my little friend Eleanor on a painting in my art journal.

Here’s how it turned out:

Phew. That’s everything that counted as daily paintings! I did paint a few more things but I can’t remember what they were.

I did list some of my artwork for sale. You can find it on Etsy here.

All my daily paintings can be found indexed here.

Farmhouse Renovation – Rock Retaining Wall

August 3, 2017 by Ashley Hackshaw

I’m way overdue for a farmhouse update. Where did June and July even go? We bought this 100-year-old farmhouse back in March of this year with our friends the Perkins family and eventually it will be a historic vacation rental in downtown Bryson City, NC. We are restoring it one tiny intricate step at a time and discovering the local railroad history as we go. Things are really coming along and it’s finally starting to look less like a construction site. Back in May the house looked like this…and it still looks very much the same from the outside…but the grounds have changed significantly:

Over a hundred years ago the house was built very close to a hill. Previous owners had added new layers of sidewalk and concrete walls to try and hold it back but most of those fixes ended up causing a lot of water damage to the house over time. We decided we just needed to start fresh by digging the hill out. (More photos here of the initial work we did.)

We hired our friend Shannon of Taylor Earth Products and Excavation to put in a rock retaining wall. He has done work for us before at the House on Hospital Hill. Shannon has a great eye when it comes to stuff like this. Here’s the start of the wall. These are massive stones…some are as big as a cow! The backfill of gravel and mesh fabric will help with drainage and keep dirt from coming back through:

The wall from the other side. I love the subtle curve he put into the wall here that opens up to the driveway:

Below is the finished wall. This used to be a narrow concrete walkway but now it can be a huge outdoor living space off the farmhouse porch. As soon as all the construction is done we’ll fill this area with pea gravel:

While we were excavating the property we went ahead and added new sewer and water lines at the same time:

The lot next to the farmhouse is wide open after being graded…there’s so much potential for another project down the road:

For now we really just wanted to get grass seed down as soon as possible to start establishing some landscaping:

The yard after we spread the straw:

A little over a month later and the yard already looks great:

There’s so much else going on but it’s too much to write about all at once so I’ll keep sharing in small bits. Click here to read all the posts on the farmhouse and it’s interesting history!