Quentin Quail is back

We have lots of Quentin and Queenie pairs of quails running around the neighborhood right now, so it was timely that I got a request to make a Quentin necklace as a mother's day present.

Quentin has little running shoes on, as they always do seem to run everywhere very quickly!   I was sat on the porch the other day and Quentin walk slowly past me - not noticing I was there, but then Queenie came up behind him, saw me - and ran so fast, so Quentin ran too!  They are so lovely to watch.

Anyhow - my Quentin customer was a delight. He was buying the necklace for one of his daughters.  I do hope she likes it. I made a different styled Q necklace this week too, but haven't finished it yet. Hopefully early next week I'll show it to you.

Weekly bird in the hand

This week's things that I am grateful for:

 

• All the nests with eggs and newly hatched baby birds!  Above, the top left nest is tiny - about the length of my thumb, with brown speckled blue eggs.  Top right is in the new Godello vines with four pale blue eggs.  Bottom left two little babes have just hatched - you can just see them to the left of the third blue egg. Bottom right, the bluebirds in their house, with one especially hungry one. These are the same bluebirds that I showed in last Saturday's post. You can see that their eyes are now open and they have more feathers. It's such a delight to watch nature.
• A successful farmer's market last Sunday with good sales and lovely people.  
• Some aluminum commission work.
• Going to the art museum with a friend.
• Lunch with a friend.
• Acupuncture.
• Creating our latest wine label for our 2009 Birdland Merlot. It's at the printers now!
• Seeing Quentin and Queenie numerous times with 11 babies. Today they can fly and jumped up on our dining table outside.  Phew, they are much safer now they can fly.
• Sitting by the pond after gardening and watching the great blue heron catch frogs and the baby swallows squalk continuously for more food!
• The pleasure of gardening - but I could have done without the reaction I had all over my arms to one plant! 
• Sharing in 4th of July celebrations at a friend's home.
• The lives of Craig, Adam and Charlie, who all shared a birthday on 4th July.

14/52 Bird of the week - Quentin relaxing in the garden

Quentin is here again for another week of "bird of the week" challenge.  Last week we saw him strolling in the garden, but this time, he's having a little break, enjoying the sunshine and taking the weight off his feet! : Quentin relaxing in the garden.

Yes, little Quentin Quail, sitting down amongst the flowers.  What a sweet scene.   Maybe we can all take a leaf out of Quentin's book and go and sit amongst the flowers some time this week?

And if you are concerned about Quentin possibly falling off the flowers, please don't be.  I secure him by making a silver screw. Then just a little surgery in Quentin to make the threads.  He says it's not painful at all!!!. Then he is securely threaded onto the bracelet.  A threaded cold connection is the technical term.  See  - here is him showing off that he can stay on!!!:

The links below connect you to others who joined in my bird a week challenge.  I hope you'll take the time to see what their birds are up to this week.

Theodore Bear

Meet Theodore Bear.


Now a little trivia! Do you know who is responsible for giving the teddy bear his name "Teddy"? It was Theodore Roosevelt. In 1902 he attended a bear hunt in Mississippi and during the hunt wounded a young bear so ordered the mercy killing of the little bear. The Washington Post ran an editorial cartoon that illustrated the event and one version included the bear drawn as a cuddly cub. The cartoon and story became popular and the cartoon bear became a toy for children called the teddy bear!

Thus, this one is named Theodore....

Maybe one day Quentin will be as famous as Teddy? And in fact, I can let you in on a little secret...one of the winners of Quentin in my caption competition is drawing a cartoon of him.....So you never know!

Baby Quentin Quail is born!

I have a new baby Quentin Quail :-D

I have to let you know that Daddy Quentin put on his running shoes and is running to France right now to his new home - but he left a little one in his place. As with many babes, it looks like he has yet to grow into his top knot of feathers and his legs and feet!

So what about a name? With my blog post series on naming, we need something good for him...... Quentinette? Quentino? Quentessential? what do you call a baby Quentin? All suggestions gratefully received!

Bronzclay Update

So I got to spend a bit more time on my bronzclay pieces from the workshop today.

This first one, entitled "Comfort me", was the very first piece I made with the clay. It is a slightly domed circle. I used a tearaway texture for this piece and the script on the circle is from the 23rd Psalm - it includes:
and though I walk in the "shadow" of death, I will "fear no evil"...."rod and your staff"....."comfort me". On the front of the circle is a separate quotation, lengthwise - which says "comfort me".

The bronzclay was fired in coconut carbon for a total length of 9 hours. I love the colours this gave - this soft golden - tones really nicely with "flesh" - and looks great with blonde hair! To finish the piece I brushed it and then highlighted the text to make it more legible.

My second piece is Quentin Quail. He is my latest desk buddy! He will be sitting at my desk, with Mac (my computer) and my other little friends (Robin and Ding...maybe I'll introduce you to them later!). His basic shape I create by hand, adding the wings as separate pieces of clay. I tried some carving on Quentin - adding details to his wings and feathery texture to his chest. The biggest challenge with Quentin was that I tried to combine fine silver wire into his topknot and his legs, with then adding shoes. When you use silver clay, the clay shrinks and grabs hold of the wire strongly. It seems that the bronze is holding on tightly to the silver in Quentin's topknot - but not on his shoes. His legs are secure and his shoes don't fall off - but they do twist....Maybe he is just a dancing quail!! I finished him off by sanding him but I'm waiting for a new polisher to arrive in the mail and then I'll shine Quentin up even more...but for now, he is a nice little desk buddy. He is about an inch tall.

And thirdly I made a bronze flower. I shape the flower by hand, first forming it into a pyramid, then using scissors to cut the petals and then shaping them by hand. Hanging from the flower, to suggest the stamens, is a small bead. I have ordered some bronze cable to make this into a necklace as the gold cable seen here isn't quite the colour - but you get the idea. The photo seems a little glarey as well..... Surprisingly, the flower was the piece I made that didn't have any cracking problems during it's creation. Not sure why - but the other pieces needed quite a bit time to fill the cracks during their construction.

Quentin Quail and family

Finally I got a photo of Quentin and his new family. Not a great photo as I didn't have my camera - but at least its a few glimpses. Q is very protective - we often see him in the garden - standing on something to give himself a little height to see what is going on - like here on our bench by the pond - and then down below him is Queenie and the babes. Anything gets close to them, and you hear a few squeaks and all the babes run together.

Well this morning, we looked out of the door near our bedroom and all the quails were on the wall....all except Junior that is! As you can see from the photo - there is Quentin and Queenie...and lots of tiny little babies...but Junior is down on the ground.... Junior looked up at all his family as they looked down on him - but he was stuck down there, as he can't yet fly - so he didn't know what to do. Poor little Junior. Now it gets a bit scary - read at your own risk! Queenie took the babes to the back and out of the way so no one else fell off and Junior suddenly ran to the left onto the grass. Gosh - he runs so fast - especially considering his legs are sooooooo tiny. Anyhow, he ran...and Quentin followed him - but still on top of the wall. Then Junior ran back to the right....and then back the other way again.....and so it continued for a while, back and forth. Quentin kept an eye on him and you could hear little squeaks.......but everyone was up on the wall, except Junior.

Junior was getting quite distraught by this stage, so eventually, Quentin jumped down to be with him. "Yeah" for Quentin! At this point, Queenie reappeared with Junior's brothers and sisters and now they all ran along the length of the wall to where it joins the ground. The little guys then all had to jump a short distance to reach the ground and then Quentin lead them up this leaf undergrowth area back to the higher ground. If you look carefully - you can see a few little babes in the undergrowth picture!
Luckily the adventure was now over - all babes were reunited together with Daddy Quentin and Mummy Queenie.

And the question that you are about to ask is .....how many babes are there? Looked like 13 in total!!!

So now we have to come up with 13 new Q names for all these Quentin and Queenie babes.

A few minutes later, Quentin was back in his protective mode - this time sitting on top of one of our solar lamps - keeping an eye on who was around his family.

I know - it's not really a post about jewelry - but Quentin did inspire my original Quentin necklace - see July 2nd post and here too. Send you name ideas in the comments section!

Quentin and Queenie babies

Yeah! Quentin and Queenie quail have had babies (see post July 2nd!). Just saw them for the first time today. Couldn't count them all - but it looked like 12 or so........They were running along the path into the lavendar - Quentin leading at the front and Queenie following up at the rear, making sure everyone kept up. I'll keep trying for a photo..... The babes are soooooooo tiny and soooooooo cute.

Need to start thinking of names for them.....All suggestions gratefully received......

Quentin Quail

My favorite bird in the summer garden in northern California is the California Quail. They are such cuties! They have beautiful coloration on their feathers - especially the male and their little topknot feathers are so comical. But their best feature is their love of running! They prefer running to flying and their little tiny skinny legs move soooooo fast. Apparently they have been clocked running at 12 mph!

Anyhow, this year we have been watching a couple of quails in our garden- a male and a female - Quentin and Queenie. My husband and I have commented on how frequently we see them...we can be looking out of the window in the office and see them, then go outside and they are already somewhere else and.....Just amazing. And they are scratching around for food in the ground...then run fast. Occasionally Quentin will sing for us as he sits on top of one of our seats. Well the other day we went to walk down for our newspaper and said "hi" to Quentin and Queenie, then walked a little further and saw them again, then again.......And suddenly it hit us! We have Quentin and Queenie 1, 2 and 3!!!! We have now seen 3 pairs of Quentin and Queenies in the garden all at one time - not just one pair that runs around the house all the time!!!!!

So I made a necklace in fine silver of Quentin - coz he makes me smile!!! I hand formed his shape in metal clay, and added fine silver wire for his top knot and legs...but then of course, had to put him in running shoes! Well, if he runs at 12 mph he needs them. So hope you enjoy my Quentin and that he makes you smile :=D Our fingers are crossed that the Queenies are nesting somewhere and one day we will have to come up with lots of Q names for babies. The babies are sooooo tiny - just adorable.

The picture below is of quail sculptures in our front garden. The best sight - which unfortunately I didn't catch on the camera, was then Quentin sat on the topknot of the large quail!