Me in Pastel, Flowers in Acrylic

I certainly hope any readers are glad to see this self-portrait, because it has taken me over an hour to figure out how to post pictures.....(new computer, new printer).  Anyway, this was done just a couple of weeks ago in pastel.  I have been experimenting with pastels for months now............for so long that I have worn out my enthusiasm and gone all the way back to acrylic paints.  I like pastel, and my recent recent obsession with the medium has produced many, many, many pieces with various subject matter.  The irksome fact that I had only 9x12 pastel paper finally drove me to move on.  I have just completed my first acrylic painting in many years. It's about 3 1/2 feet tall, so satisfied my need to get a good big image.  I used up most of my paint doing it, so I'll have to call it quits until I get more money at the beginning of the month.  I do like the painting, though and feel good about going back to acrylics.  It seems to be my medium at least at this point. 

We continue to deal with the plague........it's something I obviously have to take seriously, even as I sit sequestered in my little house in my little town at the end of the country.  It all seems so far away and unreal.  There are few consequences here.  We are used to being alone (why else would we live here?), and daily life has not changed.  I went to the grocery store day before yesterday and found it unchanged except there was no chicken at the meat counter.  The toilet paper crisis has apparently not reached us yet, nor is there any perceptible difference in the number of shoppers (ten or fifteen at a time).  The only personal consequences for me is the difficulty getting food for my animals.  The chickens (who are living in the attached shed) ran out of food because Chewy.com is very behind delivering orders.  They are dining on bread and popcorn at the moment, but my friend Jim will be going to the big city today, Calais, to work and will pick up some layer pellets there for them at the feed store.  That store is as big as a small city so I can't imagine they are out of chicken feed.

Speaking of the chickens, I noticed this morning that their friends the rats are eating their eggs.  I don't like eggs myself, so I don't care.  However, I do have to be careful when I open the kitchen door to make sure they don't get in the house.  My live and let live philosophy does not include allowing rodents in the house.  Somehow I need to get the chickens outside within a week.  The people who inspect properties that receive housing assistance, as I do, will not smile on rodents so close to the living quarters.  (The chickens are there only because I can't walk out to their house in the yard.)  Luckily I put together a small chicken coop before I became so handicapped and it is sitting outside the back door.  Had I known we would get so little snow, I might not have put them in the shed anyway, but I did.  I knew I wouldn't be able to play farmer with my present handicap, so I needed to have them where I could easily take care of them.  How I will be able to accomplish the whole process, I really don't know.  I only know that I will.