Ye Olde Papergreat Post No. 1,600, con pollo

Hello readers!

[Finally] It is time for another Papergreat Milestone™. This time, we have arrived at the 1,600th post. That is, for sure, a bundle of books, paper, receipts, postcards, recipes and old advertising. And footnotes. Along the ride, we've had everything from a former governor of Delaware to odd stuff tucked inside old textbooks to brochures for long-gone New England bookshops.

In contemplating what might make for the perfect milestone post¹, I have often thought that it might involve postcards, a girl reading a book, a cozy room, and, of course, chickens.²

But certainly no such thing could exist. Right?

Indeed, such a thing does exist. Browsing on Redbubble, I stumbled upon a wonderful artist — one who, unknowingly, captured the perfect image for this blog. Her name is Ryan Conners and she is a "self-taught cat folk artist" and photographer who lives in northwestern Pennsylvania.

She has oodles of fabulous artwork, but when I saw this piece, I knew it needed to be featured here on Papergreat...

Girl reading book. Check.
Cozy room. Check.
Chicken. Check.

Conners, who kindly granted permission for me to post this photo (which is available as a postcard, photograph and art print on Redbubble), gives the following back story:

"The girl is my daughter and the chicken is Lillian — one of our backyard chickens. Totally a photo, not photoshopped. Had to do it quickly so no chicken poop fell. ... Anna (my daugher) loves the chickens so I figured let’s bring one in, sit them by the fireplace, and read stories. ... I only added that on Redbubble because a customer who purchased a painting with the rocking toucan, wanted to also purchase a print of the photograph with the actual rocking toucan."

So we should give thanks to the toucan, too!

Conners is an artist you should check out and consider supporting. Her cat-themed artwork and her Halloween-themed artwork (some of which overlap) are especially humorous and fabulous. Here are some places you can find her stuff...

• Her Wordpress blog
• Her Etsy site
• Her Redbubble shop
• Her Society6 shop
• Her Kilkennycat Art Facebook page
• Her Twitter account, @kilkennycat

I'll leave you with another piece of her artwork, which she also granted permission for me to use here. It makes this milestone post even more complete, because now we have a cat, too!

Stay tuned to this Bat Channel (Cat Channel?) for Post No. 1,601. There's always more ephemera.

Footnotes
1. As opposed to the perfect country and western song, which would probably include lyrics about mama, trains, trucks, prison and gettin' drunk.
2. Previous milestone posts include:

• Papergreat's star-studded 200th post (plus some chickens) (August 4, 2011)
• Celebrate Papergreat's 400th post with a gallery of chickens (March 12, 2012)
• Celebrating Papergreat's 600th post with chickens, past and present (September 30, 2012)
• What's worse than using gelatin in your dinner mold recipe? (The uncelebratory 800th post) (March 25, 2013)
• Old postcard: 1368's Altes Haus in Bacharach, Germany (The previously undocumented 1,000th post) (September 30, 2013)
• Multum in Parvo Library: "Book of Brief Narratives" (1894) (Lightly documented 1,200th post) (March 11, 2014)
• Alba in five vintage postcards (Lightly documented 1,400th post) (September 19, 2014)