Contest: Guess the length of the snake and win a bronze turtle!

I said this week's post would be more fun!

I ran into Marcel, a photographer friend out running with his dogs around our local trail the other day.
Well I suppose to be more accurate he ran into me, since I was walking!
He'd recently been round our place to photograph my tree frog (the real one) to use as part of one of his always interesting compositions....

Cutle little critter, eh?

Well, after Marcel ran off in his direction and I walked off in mine, I found this rather handsome beast!
Marcel must have run right past it!

A fine looking specimen of a bull snake, I'm sure you'll agree!

And whoever can guess closest to how long the snake is will win a tiny bronze turtle.
The bigger one, since I'm all out of the smallest one right now!

Not a very spectacular prize, but then again, not a very involved contest! Just take a wild guess and either leave it as a comment on this post or email it to me.

Closing date is my next blog post when I'll announce the winner, whenever that is (most likely the weekend of May 15/16), so if this is still the most recent post, have a go!

I'm adding this after only a day since I've had such a great response already: at this rate it's entirely possible by the close of this contest multiple people could guess it right, in which case I'll assign them numbers and roll a dice to determine the winner.

Only one guess per person though, so don't email every size by the inch between 1 and 100 feet!

I'll take these snake pics with me back to the spot and lay out a string to match its position, then measure it.

Good luck!


Click these links to visit my website... SteveWorthingtonArt.com - Sculpture that loves you back
or my Etsy store, CritterVille

Update on ....of...... Galleries, last I heard is that he's not responding to phone calls and emails from the collection folks who are trying to recover my share of his selling some bronzes of mine. (Edit-issue resolved after 1 yr thanks to Goldman, Evans and Trammell)

Tiny turtle wins award, the show is installed, and not just my Sprightly has to deal with snakes!

I'm ecstatic to say a trip to the mail boxes was rewarded with a note saying my tiny turtle won second place for sculpture in this year's miniatures show held by the Miniature Painters, Sculptors and Gravers society of Washington DC!
The show runs from Nov 22 thru Jan 2.

I popped into Manitou Galleries today and they'd just finished getting everything in place for next Friday's reception. They just have to get the lights all pointing in the right directions and they're all done.

I'm really looking forward to hanging around a room full of people enjoying my handiwork for the evening and answering lots of questions.
That's my hope; of course my secret fear is spending the evening all alone with my work in a big empty gallery to the sound of crickets chirping.
But don't tell that to anyone!
If you read my blog and live nearby, come and say 'hi'!
I'd love to meet you.

Thanks Bobbi for the pic you sent of your Sprightly mouse standing his ground against his mortal foe, the dreaded bull snake.
Mice dread them anyway, I find them quite appealing.

I just completely re-vamped my tree frog's home.
I'll get some pics up maybe next week. It's a froggy penthouse now.

SteveWorthingtonArt.com - Sculpture that loves you back
My Etsy store, CritterVille.

Patina King Mike Masse and his angry swarming hordes

Say 'Hello' to Mike Masse.
He's regarded by many as Santa Fe's patina king.
But he's a lot more than that.
Like crazy. About bees that is.

He's got hives full of them, and he's likely to be risking life and limb at any given moment to get his hands on swarms of more bees if they land anywhere he knows about.
In fact he'd stopped off on his way into his studio to nab a bunch that had settled on Rodeo Road just before this pic was taken.That's him in the blue, by the way. We are both seeing who can hold a half dozen bees in our mouths without getting stung for the longest.
You should also know I'm a compulsive liar, and scared silly of bees. I just have a goofy smile, not really a mouth full of bees.

Anyhow, Mike's place is chock full of interesting goodies, like dessicated salamanders hanging on a nail, other dead things, a box full of fossils he's found on his wanderings, skulls, bones, all sorts of sculptures he's made since he's a sculptor too, half finished work by other people he's welding together before patinating, a gazillion tools, and a sandblaster as modeled here by your's truly.Since I always make it my policy to learn from the best, I met him when I paid for his services to learn how to do some patinas after casting my first sculptures. But he's too interesting a fellow to not catch up with from time to time.

Oh, he also put up a box in a tree on Canyon Road to coax a bunch of bees out of it's hollow trunk. The bees were fairly well behaved during a wedding in the back of the gallery, if I'm not mistaken only the best man got stung on the ankle.Oh, an interesting detail I forgot to mention. Mike told me he got a couple of stings after 2 bees got inside his face-protecting netty head dress bee keeper thing, and he's allergic!
He has to take Benadryl for several days straight. Doctor's orders. So maybe crazy was right after all.

Besides that, it's been another snaky week.
Here's my 'pet' bullsnake in the garden on his rounds. He's 3 feet long. He acted very agitated, swinging his head about when the trash truck rumbled past setting off all kinds of scary vibrations.

And when Meridee and I popped into a garden/flower place which is all outdoors and set amidst a semi wild landscape, I rescued a garter snake from the clutches of a cat.
That cat must hate me, last time I stole a lizard she was playing with.
So I let her play with the string on my hat so there'd be no hard feelings.
Well the snake seemed a bit sluggish, but revived as soon as he saw a chance to slip into some water when I dropped him off by a little pond.

Oh, and I'm not really a compulsive liar.
Or am I?