Summer break has not gotten off to the best start in terms of the weather here in PA. We have had deluges of rain for several days on the trot and thunderstorms in the evening. No exaggeration, my street looked like a creek at one point on Wednesday. I did not emigrate from the rainy west coast of Scotland to America for this weather, no siree. * The only upside to this ridiculous level of precipitation is that largely being confined indoors means more time for art – and cooking and baking, which I don’t blog about.
This week’s Art Journal Adventure prompt was the letter “A” so really broad scope to do whatever I wanted really. Maybe it is the preschool teacher in me but “A” immediately made me think, in this order, “Apple, alligator, aardvark, armadillo” and that was as far as I needed to go in my mental dictionary because I determined “armadillo” was it. And not just any armadillo, oh no, but a pink fairy armadillo. My 12 year old did not believe me that those are a real creature so I forced him to google. I literally would not let him leave the room until he had googled and I had proved that pink fairy armadillos are indeed a real life thing. What pink fairy armadillos do not have in real life is fairy wings, or wings of any kind, but I wanted to add them just to accentuate the pink and magical quality of these wee critters. It is an awful lot of pink on one page but, on such a grey and miserable day, lashings of bold pink were welcome. It was also fun to do a more whimsical and childish illustration again.
*And I cursed myself by writing this blog post. As I was drafting it, we were walloped by another ferocious rainstorm and our basement flooded. We used our basement for storage (since our house has no attic) and as a playroom for the kids. We have lost a great number of possessions and only time will tell what the damage is – and what the related expense is to remedy it. I can only assume that the sump pump was overwhelmed and failed. I still feel like I jinxed myself.*
A Pict in PA 
Oh no! Sorry about the mini flood.What a rotten thing to deal with.
As for armadillos…we have them here and my grandson loves to hunt them,with his Dad, and do away with them. They dig holes every where and can carry bad stuff you don’t want to contact.
But…they aren’t pink or at least I haven’t seen one. Yours is kinda cute.
This species lives in Argentina and has a pink coloured armoured back and a white fluffy underside. It’s very weird looking but cute.
I’ve never seen a living armadillo, just roadkill. I just find the “design” of them fascinating. Like little armoured knights who roll into a ball.
The flood, alas, is proving to be a bit of a mini disaster. I spent all evening pumping out at least 5 inches of water. A friend estimated I had 3,000 gallons still to pump when he came over two hours after I’d started pumping. I’ve now got several fans going to start the process of drying out the walls.
3000 gallons!?
Apparently. I’ve no idea. I don’t do that sort of mathematical estimation. I know that we had water that was 5 inches deep across the entire basement level of the house but how that equates to gallons is beyond my “arts and humanities” brain.
I’m with you on not mathing. We don’t have basements in Texas, for the most part, and little rain, so I can’t imagine what you’re going through.
No basements in Scotland either so this is new to us too. It’s an experience we could have done without.
Thank you,I learned there are pink fairy armadillos!!! Love your artwork and the addition of the wings 🙂 Jen
Thanks so much, Jen. I’m glad to have been educational. 😆
Love your work!
Thank you. 😊
Bummer about the flooded basement! But don’t let that you keep from posting! It’s weird how easy it is to feel like unrelated actions cause things that are really out of our control, and yet it happens all the time.
Nice to see someone give the pink fairy armadillo the wings it needs! Thanks for sharing.
Ha ha, Kit. I’d drafted the blog post in advance so I just added the flood sentences and hit post while I was having a tea break this morning. I obviously don’t really believe I jinxed myself but I definitely regret thinking there was an upside to all that rain now that I’m dealing with the massive downside.
I get that! But everything has its pros and cons. Sorry that the rain’s cons were so bad for you.
Worse things happen at sea. Some people lose everything they have in natural disasters and pick up and carry on. This is just stuff. Some of it expensive and some of it sentimental but it’s just some stuff and it’s not everything we have. It’s just stress and hassle right now but we’ll get through it.
True. I am reminding myself that most things are just hassles and not tragedies… like my on-going struggle to get plates for our new car.
Sorry to hear about the flood. They’re the curse of finished basemets.
Yup. It’s a new experience for us that I could have done without.
Ours back in Minnesota was, mercifully, unfinished, but we did wade in nearly knee deep once to bail it out. At some point it occurred to me that I might’ve been smart to wonder–before we waded in–if any electrical wires were involved. They weren’t or we wouldn’t have had to bother bailing.
All my good wishes for the cleanup.
Oh goodness! It must have been a scary realization. I’m glad you were neither electrocuted or drowned.
Love the bold pink and your cute armadillo. So sorry you are having to deal with the flooding. It may say summer on the calendar, but this month has been June-uary.
Thank you on both the compliment and commiserations.
Oh no, sorry to hear about your flood! Hope it hasn’t damaged too much.
It’s a mess. We are very stressed. However, it is what it is and people deal with far worse. We’ll just keep trucking.
I’m sure you will. Best of luck.
First, I am so sorry about the flooding and I hope the cleanup goes ok and not too expensive. And the pink fairy armadillo is just happy. I love her little “arms”.
Thanks, Claudia. This is our first home owners’ emergency in over 20 years of home ownership so I guess we’ve fared well up until this point. I’m exhausted but it’s eminently survivable.
I owned a condo for some years that I lived in and then after I got married we rented it out. It was on the first floor of an apartment building. Two times it flooded, once from plumbing upstairs and once when a tenant stood on the toilet (it was wall-hung) and broke it out of the wall (yes. at 8 pm on a Sunday). Both times so much damage and the insurance and the drying out and the tenants’ distress etc. And I didn’t even live there myself. I feel for you.
Ugh. What a nightmare for you to have to deal with.
Not to mention you can’t get rid of a tenant because she caused a flood by standing on the toilet but you sure do want to.
This armadillo is much cuter than the ones I see scampering by. They look indestructible but as you say, are so often Roadkill.
This species of armadillo is, I believe, the smallest and it’s underside is soft rather than shelled. Maybe that’s what makes it cute? I tend to be drawn to animals that are “so ugly they’re cute” so the more peculiar the better.
If you are interested, I did a post of our former 2013 dog chasing an armadillo at my in-law’s ranch several years ago. The armadillo escaped of course. But that was the closest I’d ever gotten to one.
https://sanceau.com/2013/06/21/dillo-dangerously-dodges-death/
Thanks for sharing the link. That’s a fun post. I didn’t appreciate that an armadillo could outrun a dog. I guess I imagined they’d be sort of weighed down by all that armour plating plus they’ve got short legs. The connection between armadillos and leprosy is one that fascinates me as someone who has an interest in diseases and pandemics.
Oh, Laura, the cemetery and disease-loving lady LOL. You are not a white bread plain Jane lass at all. I agree completely. Put 50 lbs of armor on me and try to get me to take just one step, much less outrun a dog with long legs, and I would have given up the ghost within seconds. So not only is it interesting, it defies logic! So as one whom disease fascinates, do you have strong opinions about vaccines?
I wouldn’t say I have strong feelings about vaccines but we do vaccinate our children. I don’t involve myself in the debate and don’t have any impassioned response to those who make different choices from me. I guess I trust the science and the statistics and hope the majority of others will too. Two of our children have autism but we don’t believe there is any correlation as autism appears in multiple generations of my family. I’m probably one of the most vaccinated people in this country too as I had all my required vaccines in the UK but my paperwork wasn’t up to snuff enough for immigration so I had to get a whole load more vaccines.
I’m not a medical scientist (obviously) so am actually more interested in the history of disease and the context. The Black Death was my first disease fascination because I found it so interesting that the devastating pandemic had a positive impact on things like workers’ rights and female economic independence and even the shape of the landscape in the UK. Plague remains my favourite disease but I’m also into reading about the 1918 flu pandemic and just disease stuff generally. This Podcast Will Kill You is one of my favourites to listen to when doing household chores.
So you are doubly-inoculated! I’ve never heard of that podcast before, but I usually just listen to music. I better get on board with the times. I see what you mean about a disease having positive impact. I think about things like just washing hands and using gloves before surgery and what an impact that made on patients before we knew about airborne pathogens. When you are famous from your paintings one day, you will have quotes on those quote sites, and I hope one is, “Plague remains my favourite disease.” Isn’t that a Smiths song? 😉
Ha ha! It really ought to be a Smiths lyric. And, yes, to think that something as simple as washing hands made such a vast difference to mortality rates – and yet I still sometimes see grubby folks exiting public restrooms without washing their hands. I always think they have the potential to be Patient Zero in some new pandemic.
Preach it.
So sorry to hear about your basement disaster, ugh! But, your art is amazing and I love pink.
Thanks, Sharon!
Ugh sorry to hear of the flooding disaster in your basement! Here’s hoping it cleans up well. Your artwork is adorable – love the expression in the eyes! Hang in there…
Thank you.
Awwww, your pink fairy armadillo is too sweet for words! I’m sorry for your basement-based troubles though – hopefully it’ll all get sorted out soon! 🙂
Thank you very much for your kind words on both fronts.