A Metal Menagerie

The creations pictured here were all born in our own studio and workshop, and as of this posting, they still cavort in our home and gardens, 'tho some of their siblings have since been "adopted" by appreciative clients and friends.

Let me begin with a confession - I am a hard-core rust junkie - there, I said it.

Luckily for me, hubby shares my affliction and knows just what sort of surprises to bring me when the occasion arrises.  Over the years, he has returned from visits to his family's farm with all sorts of goodies culled from the farm's heap of cast-offs, including a pile of rusty bailer chain. 
Not sure what to do with it at first, I shoved the chain around on the workshop floor for a week or so before I finally found that "Rusty", the invisible horse, was hiding in there, just waiting for the welder to give him form.

 

That heap of rusting farm scrap at the old homeplace also yielded the wornout disc blades that serve as the head and thorax of my giant garden spider, "Queenie".  In the photo below, you can see that her beau is significantly more diminuative.  A strange romance, perhaps, but who am I to argue?  They both seem quite comfortable with the arrangement.

 

 

 

Here are a couple of photos taken before they took to roaming about in the garden beds, startling  unsuspecting arachnophobes.





Queenie measures 5 feet plus from her front "feet" back, and roughly 3 feet across - both her head and thorax are scrapped disc blades and her delicate steel rod legs were the only thing specially purchased for the project.  Her much smaller paramour began as a brass drain plate.  His legs are pieced together bits of various gauges of copper tubing  left over from other jobs.

More recently, we were thrilled to discover that a neighbor has a farrier in the family, and that he was more than happy to donate scrapped horseshoes to our supply pile!

The result includes the obligatory iron butterfly and a family of armadillos, still freshly polished from the workshop. They seem eager to be set free to find their final "rusting" place.

Not exactly part of the critter menagerie, but these hungry-looking and sharp-toothed Venus flytraps have also been popping up here and there in the garden beds.

 

 

Well, that's it from here on a Thursday in mid-January. 

Thanks for stopping by, I hope that you smiled once or twice ~ Ellie