puff girls

The last two chickens for this year have been added to the flock. They are still nameless, but are peeping away like mad in the kitchen. They've been living in the cat carrier for a day to let them get some strength (being only 48 hours old can be tough!) and hopefully by tonight I'll be able to integrate them in with their bigger sisters and all will be sunshine and roses. I hope.

The puffs on their heads are much more apparent in person. Unfortunately they didn't come out in pictures so well, but you can get the idea.


Sneak peek at a work in progress.....festive colors for four little girls!

Heaven Shed

I was cleaning my desk the other day, and going through one of my messy magazine page stacks. I love reading magazines, but hate having huge teetering piles of them around the house. So I'm merciless with them---if there is something in it that I like (a recipe, a sewing idea, whatever) I rip out the page and put it in a pile. Every once in a while I go through the pile and put recipes in a binder to try, pull out craft ideas and put those in my craft binder, etc.

I have no idea what magazine this came from, but I know why I ripped it out. On a day like today, raining like crazy, gray and cold and even though it's spring it's too chilly to feel sprightly, this shed looks like the perfect place to be. Give me those sunlit forests, no humanity for miles around, and enough wood to have a fire at night. I could stay in this shed for a week and come out a new person.


Just looking at the picture makes me relaxed.

Various

Item:
Making a quadruple batch of dilly bread is possible, but you might want to consider using a larger container for the dough to rise. I used my trusty plastic bin which makes it easy to see when the rise has doubled. In a cavalier fashion, I scooped in the dough and was nonplussed when it filled up a bit more than half of the bin. Of course it rose like crazy! I'm just lucky that it didn't spill over.


Item:
Of all the things about a person, what I find the most attractive is intelligence. Sure, Charlie has legs like pillars of iron, a charming smile, and always smells incredibly good, but I can't help but get a little wiggly inside when I look over to see this on his computer monitor.


And when he reads physics textbooks in bed, well, let's stop right now.

new girls

Three more girls have joined the flock and are peeping away in the kitchen.

Candace, a gold sex-link hen, will be some combination of butterscotch and brown and white when she is grown and lay whopper brown eggs. She's also our only chick 100% guaranteed to be a girl. Through careful breeding, black sex-linked chicks have a big spot on their head if they are boys, and gold sex-links are all white if they are boys and gold/brown if they are girls. Science!


Eunice is a Delaware hen. She will be mostly white with a black tail and maybe a little necklace of black feathers. She's currently the tiniest chick and spends a lot of time sitting around conserving energy.


Ursula II is a Silver Laced Wyandotte and a replacement for my very favorite chicken that was eaten last year. I am hoping that this Ursula turns out to be as lovely as the last one was.


Now I am just waiting for my last two chicks, which should come in sometime late next week. I decided to not get all serious birds and splurge on a few fun ones, and settled on two Crested Polish. They have the chicken version of a beehive, a huge pouf of feathers on the top of their heads. I can't wait to see what mine will look like!

Proof that I am Irish

On his way to work this morning Charlie showed me his green polo shirt and reminded me that it was Saint Patrick's Day. I made him kiss me several times because I am Very Irish. I also made a mental note to wear green today.

I promptly forgot, took a shower, dressed without thinking, went to lunch, and came home. And I looked at the calendar on my computer and realized that I had completely forgotten about wearing green.


Then I looked down and realized I had chosen a green t-shirt without even realizing it.

Calliope Clothing roundup

I've made some outfits for Calliope over the last few months, but usually wait to write about them because 1) surprise mail is the best kind and 2) action shots always look cuter than still photos of clothes draped over chairs.

Birthday suit: Modeled on my often-used smock style dress pattern, an explosion of tulle. Every dancer needs to have an outfit that moves with them.

Jacket: I started a jacket many months ago and made the grave error of deciding that I would just use the pattern as a guide (a one-layer, lightweight summer jacket in a tunisian style) and instead do a fully lined wool winter coat with long sleeves. Not so smart. I finally found someone who makes jacket patterns for kids (they are so hard to find!) and I made their "reversible jacket." Except that I couldn't find any 12-inch reversible zippers so oh well. I had to fiddle a bit to get the zipper to work and used some of the lining in two bias strips framing the front, so at least you get a flavor of the inside. Best of all I had just enough bright blue wool left over from my failed project to use on it. (note to mom and Gabe: no wonder I like Birch Street. They own Folkwear patterns!)

paparazzi style, jacket-wearing captured in action!

Muriel and Penelope III

A few days ago I needed to pick up some turkey food, and casually asked "so, are your chicks in yet?" Turns out yes, they had arrived the day before and were already sold out. I picked up my food, and drove to a feed store one town over. Same story. Chicks sold out in a day or two. Yipes! Now, it's not like there is one shipment of chicks per year, but the shipments are organized by breed. So if I want particular breeds (which I do) then I have a very brief window to get those chicks. Luckily the third feed store (and the only other one I could think of) had just gotten theirs that morning and still had a huge tub full of peepers.

Penelope III is the latest in a long line of Plymouth Barred Rocks. She'll be black and white striped when she is grown up, and lay creamy brown eggs. Hopefully this one will stay alive!


Muriel is a Buff Orpington. I had one of these many years ago when I was sharing a house in Kirkland, and the breed is so gentle and nice. They are puffy and golden blonde colored and lay speckled brown eggs.


I got the list of the next chick shipments at the feed store, at least by week. Now I just have to try not to look like a stalker when I casually "drop in" every other day to see when they've gotten in the other breeds that I want.


These tiny girls have taken up residence in the kitchen and will stay there until I get the aviary built.

Really!

Don't laugh at me. I am going to get that damn thing built. It just has to stop raining so I can pour some cement.

Marian is all grown up

I was talking to mom on the phone yesterday evening, and stepped outside to see if I could get Harold to gobble for her. In looking for the turkeys I happened to glance inside the coop and saw something laying in the middle of the floor. It's small, it's a bit misshapen (really pointy), but it appears that Marian has laid her first egg! The color is a bit off in these pictures, but it is a milky cream color with a heavy smattering of tiny brown freckles. Every breed of chicken and turkey lays a slightly different colored (and sometimes differently shaped) egg.

the artful display, as requested by mom

I washed it and will poke it with a pin and blow out the insides, and add it to my collection of "hen's first egg." I'm looking forward to her next eggs, because I'm going to eat those and see how they taste. Supposedly they are just a wee bit game-y so I will likely pass on having them over easy all alone, but perhaps a scramble with some cheese and spinach.... I'll let you know how they are!

just a bit bigger than a regular chicken egg, but they should be twice as big once she gets laying reguarly

Bonus image: Harry enjoying a brief burst of sunshine yesterday afternoon. Boy, does that cat ever need a shave!

Bright Idea

Thanks to Dad, who took advantage of Rhode Island Public Television's switch to boring fluorescent light fixtures and snagged three fantastic huge metal lights. An even bigger thanks for the step-down insert he sent with the fixture so that I can plug regular bulbs into it rather than the massive ones it originally used (pictured above). Twenty feet of lamp cord, one two-prong plug, one rocker switch, and a 17"cut length of conduit later, I have direct lighting above my sewing table!


Thanks also to the ceiling stud that miraculously was located right above the center of my desk, so I didn't have to worry about drilling into the sprinkler system.

Lamps in Lally homes across the country:

Dover, NH

Minneapolis, MN

Woodinville, WA

Chair: Complete!

After being ripped down to the bones and built back up again, the chair is complete! Only the original wood and springs remain, and the springs were re-tied to give them some stability. Underneath the fabric there is fresh burlap, new batting, cushy foam on the arms (that wasn't there before) and lots and lots and lots of staples.

my favorite part, a label from the original chair that I transferred to the new seat

There are also a few mistakes, but I'm ok with them. I don't think anyone sitting in it will be analyzing the exact line of the welting, or fretting about a few puckers along the bottom. And, well, there's the part where I attached the bottom skirting backwards. But you only notice that if you compare it to the other chair. After my last class, I had only the cushion to finish and the leg to fix. The cushion turned out to be a lot easier than I thought it would be. The leg was solved by clamping the cracks together and dousing it with wood glue. The legs all have new casters so it rolls much more smoothly.

working on the cushion

Sense of accomplishment? Yes! I already have my next upholstery project lined up. I found a wingbacked chair at Goodwill for $30, and for probably a few hundred in fabric I'll have a lovely wing chair to curl up and read in. But there are many other projects to finish up before I get started on that one, especially the aviary. It's already baby chick season and there is so much to build!

Henry watches over my glue-and-clamp job