Cow Scapes, Mercantile Colors and That Coagulating Air

Rachel Sudlow Cow Scape

Rachel Sudlow Cow Scape

Rachel Sudlow Cow Scape

Just popped over to Mother Earth's blog where there are some very cute photos of her dog. They reminded me of some fantastic Cow Scapes done by an artist named Rachel Sudlow.
I'm hoping, once the Mercantile is built and we actually have walls, to get a few of these up. She also has beautiful jewelry. But for me, for now, the cows are where it's at! They are just the COOLEST!

In other news, the paint is going on the Mercantile! Yay! Scott the painter is applying it RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE. We're using two shades of green and a dark indigo. We're hoping it's not too weird. I think I'll go take a pic for you. Be right back.

Two of the three colors

When I am not reading business books, writing web copy, researching potential vendors, pretending to do accounting, photographing product outside in the sunshine, rearranging boxes of products from one side of our bedroom to the other, I get to read a book for FUN. I need to clarify that I'm only reading "not hard on the brain" books right now. I just finished Bush Falls by Jonathan Tropper (I really enjoyed his How to Talk to a Widower). Bush Falls was about a 6. I liked this paragraph a lot:

I return to my room and walk over to the double windows that overlook the front yard, absently fingering the white plastic grille. My father had installed the grille because the pigeons kept mistaking the large window for open air and crashing into it. I can vividly recall the nauseating sound of those bone-jarring collisions jolting me out of my sleep in the early-morning hours. I would creep hesitantly to the window and look down to see the bird on our front stairs, dazed and shivering from the sudden, inexplicable crash. Usually they recovered after a few minutes and took to the air again on an erratic flight path, shaken and none the wiser for their bruising experience, left only with the vague and uncomfortable notion that the air will occasionally coagulate without warning and knock them out of the sky.

Coagulating air. WHAT A CONCEPT! Sometimes I have that same problem - I mistake open air for air that is really coagulated - I trip, and slip, and fall, and there's nothing there but flat surface. Nice to finally know what the real reason is.

Last but certainly not least, that Dumb ol' John McCain. Picked a WOMAN for his VP. He must know that while I'll never, ever vote for him (very scary conservative Republican crazy man), a WOMAN makes it tempting. Not tempting enough, mind you, but damn!

A Good Year for Sunflowers OR Stop Men from Peeing on the Floor

OK. So I'm working VERY diligently on the Mercantile Resource page, where readers can go for all sorts of information - everything from why Fair Trade is a good thing to options for menstrual products. One of my favorite categories is "Who Can You Trust." As I was making my list of magazines I like a lot I went to Good Magazine and stumbled upon this article:

Tricking People into Doing the Right Thing
Hey! I thought. I would LOVE to trick people into doing the right thing (or, at least, what I consider is the right thing). I did not find much useful information, but should you ever need to stop men from peeing on the floor, here is what you need to know:

"Authorities at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam have etched the image of a black housefly into each urinal. It seems that men usually do not pay much attention to where they aim, which can create a bit of a mess. But if you give them a target, they can’t help but try to hit it. Similar designs have been implemented in urinals around the world, including mini soccer goals, bulls-eyes, and urine video games (seriously). Do they work? Since the bugs were etched into the airport urinals, spillage has decreased by 80 percent."


In other non-urinary news, it has been a dismal year for tomatoes (at least in the Milkweed garden) but an EXCELLENT year for sunflowers. These two, right in my tomato bed (did not have the heart to pull them up) are at least 15 feet tall. Yowsa!

PS That's the back of the Mercantile in the background. More tomorrow, I promise!