Lehman's Country Life

On July 12 th you will get a chance to meet the folks from Longhedges Fiber Studio. Angela Seymour-Boss will be across from the customer service desk at the store in Kidron displaying and selling her fiber and fiber art during Lehman’s Local Artisan Festival. Angela, along with her husband Warren, own and operate a retail fiber shop as well as an alpaca and fiber animal farm. In the photo above you can see a sampling of some of her hand dyed and spun angora yarn. She offers knitting and spinning classes as well as a wide assortment of fiber from cleaned raw fiber from a wide variety of animals, to rovings, to yarn to finished products that make beautiful gifts. You can read about Angela and the other artists at www.kidronarts.com To learn more about Longhedges Fiber Studio go to www.longhedges.com

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I met today with Peter Heath of Amish Country TV to talk about our upcoming Art Festival at Lehman’s on July 12th. Peter makes videos of events of special interest in Amish Country and then shows them on his web site as well as in hotels as a courtesy to people coming into the area. I talked to him about the wide variety of local artists who will be at Lehman’s Local Artisan Festival doing demonstrations in the store. We are fortunate to have a wealth of talented, accomplished artists from the Kidron area who are looking forward to sharing with the people at Lehman’s how they take their raw materials to create their own unique finished product. In this high tech world the value of using your hands to create and the satisfaction of the creative process is to be appreciated more than ever. Many of these crafts and skills have a long rich history which we want to preserve and share. I think you will find this event to be fun, educational and inspiring for all ages. To add to the festive atmosphere there will be special music, food and hands on activities for kids.

To read Artists Profiles of artists participating in this event go to www.kidronarts.com Stop by soon to see the video made from this interview. We will post it on Lehman’s Youtube station as it becomes available!

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As part of Lehman’s Local Artisan Festival on July 12th, Sue Steiner will be at the store doing a painting demonstration and offering artwork for sale. Sue’s farm animal murals can be seen at Lehman’s in the Buggy Barn as well as in the outside eating area of the cafe. You can have your picture taken by Sue’s most recent mural, Rex and Roy, the life sized team of Amish work horses that was painted this winter. She’ll also have on hand more ‘Rex and Roy’ equine art as well as an assortment of Amish, farm and farm animal art. For more information on Sue go to www.suesteiner.com as well as www.kidronarts.com to read about the other local artists who will be participating in the art festival.

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People! Are your goats healthy? Your sheep? No arthritis? No hard udders that are a mystery? Are they eating well? Not just peanut butter in celery sticks; as I tell husband Norm, goats do NOT live on peanut butter alone (man does not live on peanut butter alone either, but that’s another story). Or could some of your animals have CAE? Do you even know what CAE is? Sadly, many do not; but don’t feel badly if you are one who does not. Just read on.

CAE (not pronounced ‘kay’ but ‘C – A – E’) is the acronym for CAPRINE ARTHRITIS ENCEPHALITIS. This is a disease that is transferred by milk or by fluids. This means that if your doe has CAE, you cannot allow her kids to be nursed by her or even allow her to lick and clean the kids. Even sneezing can transfer the infection.

Now, I don’t want to put fear in your hearts, but CAE is really a disease to be aware of and avoid if at all possible. Not every animal that has CAE will show signs, but one could be a carrier for youngsters to develop it. Both goats and sheep can carry and suffer from CAE, even though it’s predominant in goats. So I will not keep saying “goats or sheep” but let you change “goat” to “sheep” in your head if you wish.

CAE can have two different signs – a neurological disease in the spinal cord and brain of young kids and a joint infection of older goats resulting in arthritis.
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I hate it when that happens. Usually it’s a song. It’ll be something you’ll remember from way-back-when that ends up getting stuck between the ears and then spends the rest of the day irritating the surrounding brain cells. Singing Shari Lewis’ “The Song That Doesn’t End” with the kids, during the drive into school in the morning, requires nothing less than a marketing meeting to be rid of. Terrible stuff!

Worse still is some single strange thought like: where did pockets come from? Think about that for a minute. If most of the really good ideas come from nature, and if pockets are a really good idea, then there’s an undiscovered species of dinosaur out there that evolved the Cretaceous equivalent of the fanny pack.

It’s worth mentioning that the two legged kids didn’t curse me with the “pockets” question. No- Boomer did this to me.
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I am making some progress on the hitching post mural.  As you can see there is an actual hitching post in the mural!  Tomorrow I better paint a lead rope tied TO the hitching post so Rex and Roy stay put!

 I am enjoying the visitors in the Buggy Barn at the store.  I’ve already taken several people’s photos in front of the mural.  Today I photographed families visiting from Sweden and Switzerland as well as several states in the US.    So if you’re in the store stop in the Buggy Barn and say hi! 

To see previous blog enteries of mural work in progress pics click here       

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Great Aunt Daisy kept Guineas. This was back in the 1970s, and up until this spring, most everything I knew about domesticated fowl- I learned from her guineas. The finer points of guinea behavior I picked up more recently from watching the “Jurassic Park” movies with my son.
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Why do I have holes in so many of my pants? Right near the knees, my blue jeans gap open. I’m sure the neighbors wonder if I’m trying to be in style with the local teenagers or if I save up old jeans to wear the barnyard. But the truth is, it is a nasty rooster who is ruining my wardrobe.

He’s a big white fellow who waits until my arms are full or I have turned my back. Then he puffs out his chest and jumps at my legs with his claws fully extended. I usually give him a swift kick or shove him away.

Most farmers would have turned him into soup long ago. But the problem is my daughter loves this bird. She raised him from egg to adulthood. And he was such a sweet fluff ball after he hatched from the incubator! How is it he became such a passive-aggressive rooster? We’ve had other roosters and none of them have attacked the hand that feeds them.
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I had lots of visitors today in the Buggy Barn at Lehman’s while working on the Hitching Post Mural.  Once I am done with the horse portion of this mural I will paint a Lehman’s sign and a hitching post.  My hope is that people will stand by the Hitching Post to take pictures and that is just what happened today!  Stan, Sandy, Paul and Brenda from Zanesville, Ohio have already been in the store twice to see the progress on the mural and they even asked if I would take their photo.  Don’t they look great?? What fun this was for me and I think they were enjoying it too!  They said they’d be back when I was finished for another picture. 

Thanks for stopping by! 

Sue Steiner

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This is ‘big’ equine art as in 7.5 feet tall to the tip of the back horse’s ears!  I am getting the sense of the statement Roy and Rex will make as people enter into Lehman’s and the Buggy Barn.   They are big, bold and powerful looking!   And kind.  If anyone knows drafts, they know these big horses are very often very gentle and sweet-natured.  I am enjoying hearing the stories from the ‘English’ or non Amish people in the store who remember having work horses on either their grandparents farm or their own farm growing up.  I know that world seems far removed from most of the kids in our society now so I am glad to have a part in keeping those memories alive.   

I also am enjoying hearing how original art touches people.  I am hearing people tell of how they enjoy creating themselves and they appreciate seeing something others create that is original and hand-painted.   As you can see in the one photo I freehand sketched the rough draft of the harness on the wall with chalk and then refine and define with the paint as I go along.  I freehand drew the horses on the wall with chalk too in the very beginning which is quite different than drawing on paper because when I drew on the wall I could not see the whole picture.  What I did was measure out marks where I thought the tip of the ears should go to, or the crest of the neck or the point of the shoulder to give me some parameters to work within.   I made out quite an elaborate draft with points and measurements before I started to get the right porortions but really once I got to drawing it became easier to use my eyes and not the measuring stick!  I would NOT make a very good carpenter because I draw much better than I measure! 

If the talk of original art and creating things of beauty is of interest to you, mark your calenders for Sat. July 12 so you can come to the Kidron store and see myself and other local artists at work at Lehman’s Local Artisan Festival.  I plan on bringing my equine and amish themed art in watercolors, acrylics and pastels.  We also will have other artists demonstrating their art such as potters, rug hookers, fiber artists, wood carvers, painters and musicians.  Check back often or visit www.kidronarts.com for individual artist’s profiles.  To see previous work in progress blog posts click on my name under the title of this entry.  To see more of my artwork go to www.suesteiner.com 

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