Chicken Scratchings and Graphics - Sunday Freewrite

Just Stop!

Probably the biggest headline for me this week was what I stopped doing.
I stopped posting in Whaleshares (and began my second powerdown.)
I also stopped posting in WeKu (and began a powerdown.)
Baby-steps help at retrieving whatever value I can out of both of these accounts would be valued as I'm not very knowledgeable with this kind of thing.

I also (as I posted yesterday) decided that I will probably close both my Zazzle and CafePress stores. (I still need to salvage a couple of images on CafePress that I seem to not have in my collections anywhere. (I had a couple of severe data losses at some point that resulted in the loss of six months of photos.)

Of course, with every ending, there is a beginning... So, today, I posted this image (without the watermark, obviously) at both RedBubble, Picfair, and TeePublic.

I know the watermark is unattractive, but that's part of the point. On several sales sites (including DeviantArt and RedBubble) people are talking about how their works have been lifted and are being sold on Amazon Merch and the like. So, I think I probably need to start protecting my work a bit better. TeePublic and DeviantArt give you the option to watermark everything on display. RedBubble used to, and hopefully will be pressured into it again to prevent theft.

4-H Poultry

When I was in junior high and high school, I was very active in 4-H and (eventually) FFA. I even ran my own poultry club (and "inherited" a rabbit club when the leader quit.) Eventually, I was selected for the National 4-H Poultry Judging Contest (then held in Kentucky) - mostly because there were only about three of us who attended the State contest (which I'd won.) So, there wasn't a huge amount of competition, but it was a great experience.

In the UK many years, I fell away from 4-H and coming back, my attempts to get involved again were somewhat unsatisfactory. But this week, I was looking quite desperately for a social activity for my homeschooled girls after several neighbor kids moved away. And as luck would have it, there was a poultry club meeting almost immediately, led by our local superintendent and his wife.

My 9-year-old wasn't super impressed, but then, she's a hard one to impress... but my 13-year-old found it quite good, even though the meeting went a bit too long and a bit over the heads of many of the children there yesterday.

However, the superintendent's wife offered some farm space if the girls want to raise a few chickens, which is really nice. I was just looking for someone they could borrow a chicken from to learn showmanship...

So, we may be getting some chickens soon! (One of the other ladies there yesterday is going to be getting an assortment of chicks soon, so the girls could probably choose half a dozen according to what looks pretty rather than anything more practical!)

Which brings me to the next topic of my ramble.

USDA RD loan

This is the Rural Direct loan that is intended for low-income people wanting to buy in rural areas. This isn't business property, just meant for a hobby farm at most - which is perfect for us.

We had to find more information for them, and finally got that submitted on Friday. When you do anything with the government, you practically waive your right to any form of financial privacy. They get to know everything about you.

Keep your fingers crossed that they are happy this time and will submit the application (and that we are eventually approved.)

Writing and Graphics

This week, I wrote about 8500 words.

• 1000 of that went on an extra chapter in Royal Trouble to give a little more backstory to explain Klara's behavior in the final chapter.
• the remainder when on the erotic romance I've been writing, which I'm determined to finish now. It's currently at about 25k words, which is longer than I thought it was going to reach... maybe it's destined for 30k. We'll see this week, probably.

I also worked on the NSFW graphic story that I was asked to write. So far, I have three frames done, but there will be probably another 5 or 7 frames before it's completed. I had some early issues with lighting, but I was able to work with that. Now, it's just moving my three spotlights as necessary for each frame, which isn't too much work. Each render, however, because it's a complex scene... they're (probably) taking 3-4 hours each, but I don't know because I start them when I go to bed.

Here's frame 1 (which is probably the only one that doesn't need an NSFW tag.)

The story is about this young woman who is going to meet her dragon lover, but has to stop to pee before she can go on. Of course, the dragon has already seen her...

As you might see already, seeing the work I've done already, this is very much out of my comfort zone, and is going to prove very difficult with some of the dragon poses required. Good for my skills though.

I will post the work in its entirety on Steem when it's completed.

Autobiography coming...

So, my mother-in-law keeps pestering me about writing down about all the places I've been and some of my experiences. I don't mean to put her off because I've had a lot of interesting experiences that other people haven't. (Some good, some bad.)

Anyway, my thinking is... I will create drafts in here from time to time and when I don't feel like a second post in a day (or my Saturday post), I will post an autobiographical chapter...

I can't guarantee chronological order - in fact, I can pretty much guarantee they will not be in any sensible order, just what I feel like sharing at the time. However, in my past issues part of the post, I will try to put them in chronological order as much as is possible.

I see this as a project for everyone - me (memories), you (learning), my mother-in-law (as requested), my children (posterity), etc. My mother has written down some of her memories and some of them are really funny. Some of mine will be funny, but that's not the point of sharing moments of my life with you.

Photo taken in 2013 with my Samsung NX11
Watermark added by myself.
Daz 3D image created myself using models and accessories created by Daz. All work done by myself.

Past issues...

Feb 2, 2020 - Flu Sucks!
Feb 9, 2020 - Planning 2020
Feb 16, 2020 - Skating and Eating and Writing, Oh My!