A chicken from another mother

An old farm like this one is a ready source for a variety of old pieces of metal, large and small.  We find them in many ways--mowing over them hidden in the grass (not a good idea), tripping over them in our explorations of the fields and ravines, or just finding stashes of them here and there where buildings used to be.  And Older Daughter found several pieces on her visit here a couple summers ago when she tried out her childhood Radio Shack metal detector.  It was powered by a 9-volt battery and the whole outfit still worked after sitting in a closet for close to 20 years. (Never thought I'd say this, but "Go Radio Shack!")  All of these "finds" result in piles of collected pieces of old metal destined for...somewhere, sometime.

A couple years ago, our friend, Judy, who visited us earlier this week, mentioned that she had a friend who welded old pieces of metal into artwork.  Great!  A source for our metal!  And so every time Judy went back home the last few times, we loaded her car with more metal pieces for her friend, Sherrie.  And that's all I knew about it.

And now the rest of the story!  

I found out this week that Leann had asked if, as a gift to me, Sherrie could create a chicken out of her metal stash to satisfy my chicken longing.  She never had just the right parts for chickens, so instead she made this fancy bird-like creature and sent it up with Judy for delivery.

Meet our new addition!

Notice the beautiful rose up by her temple and the flowing feathers on her head.

 That fan-shaped piece behind the spoon tail feathers is ultimately the only piece of metal that came from us here.  And we have no idea what that was in it's first life.  Also a bicycle chain and the body is a really cool container of some kind that could hold a candle.  All in all, quite a treasure of treasures!

Don't you love those goo-goo-googely eyes!  And eyelashes?

And now she needs a name!  Ideas??

Thanks so much, Sherrie!