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It wasn't easy but we corralled one of the new little bantam chicks today so you could get a closer look at the little guy (or, hopefully, girl!).
Four days old today and cute as a button. I should have had Papa Pea hold a ruler or something next to the chick (with his third hand) for size comparison.
Mama Hen and four babies continue to do just fine.
After lunch on this glorious day, I hopped into my trusty little Toyota Tercel and took off for a ride into the countryside. My mission?
Well, first I made a stop at the Post Office as I went through town, then hit the Recycling Center at the edge of town to drop off a small load, and then went on to the home of a fantastic gardener a few miles the other side of town to get a special present for myself.
Aren't these beautiful? G grows all kinds of gorgeous flowers and she advertised these gladioli (yup, that's the plural . . . I had to look it up) for $5 a bunch. So not only did I take the time off from my list of To Dos at home for a lovely drive there and back (and a very pleasant visit), but now I have these glads to enjoy for a week or so which is how long they should last.
Flowers are amazing outside in their natural habitat but I think add such color and vibrancy when brought inside to enjoy.
When we put in our order to the hatchery this spring, we ordered some bantam chicks along with some regular sized birds. Unfortunately, the hatchery had trouble with a lot of their hatches and wasn't able to give us any bantams.
We've always kept a few bantam chickens in our flock because they are friendly, great foragers, don't consume much laying mash in proportion to their size, lay very well, and will often go broody.
The reason we wanted to get more bantams was because we found ourselves down to just two banties . . . one hen and one rooster, both Golden Laced Cochins.
Well, a few weeks ago Mama Bantam went broody so we put her and her clutch in a separated area in the hopes she would hatch out some little ones.
Last Friday morning she presented us with four little (little being the operative word . . . Papa Pea describes them as being about as big as a quarter) chicks. The pic above was the best I've been able to get so far. Two of them out and about but not wanting their picture taken and the other two snuggled under Mama.
I really want to get a picture soon, if I can, of one of us holding one of the little guys in our hand so you can get a sense of how small they really are. They are just the cutest little things!
Now I'm keeping my fingers crossed that all four of the new arrivals aren't roosters!
I am proud of myself. I am doing good. I am doing what I need to do.
Yes, folks, right in the midst of harvest canning and preserving, lotsa work still to be done in the garden and yard, plenty of outside summer time tasks calling, planning and organization in getting geared up for fall chores and even doing a bit of work on the never-ending house remodeling, I am taking time to smell the roses.
I've been sitting and knitting. I've been in my quilt room working on (shhhh!) Christmas gifts. I have also been trying to do some reading in (gasp!) the middle of the day. But that's not working well because I keep falling asleep with the book in my lap.
Although I can easily be talked into doing some quilting any time, any day, at the drop of a thimble, lately my fingers have been itching to pick up the ol' knitting needles.
And so, that's what I've done.
I actually have two knitted projects started and am thinking seriously of another. The above pic shows the knit-from-the-top-down sweater I'm making for myself. A very simple stockinette stitch, open-fronted sweater to wear for that little extra warmth needed this winter. I'm planning wearing it over a turtleneck many days, if it turns out to be the comfortable sweater I hope it will be. The yarn I'm using is super-soft and has a nice, easy drape to it.
The sleeve stitches are on hold, waiting to be done when I finish the body of the sweater which I'm working on now.
The edge ribbing around the neck and down the front is picked up and knit when the body of the sweater is done.
I have to confess that all of the work on this sweater was not done while I was sitting on the front deck sipping iced mint tea. We made a supply run to the big city last Thursday and hubby was fine with doing all of the five hours of driving there and back so my time spent in the passenger seat flew by with my knitting needles happily clicking away.
Yep, I'm consciously concentrating on "letting" myself (leisurely) do things each day that I've put off (for way too many years) until "I have the time." I mean, duh! Just when do I think I'll "have the time?" When I'm 95 or 100 and don't have the energy to lace up my chore boots anymore? NOW is the time to start being nicer to myself. And I am.
I just collected thirteen of these beauties from the garden. (And they just keep comin'!)
We sure can't complain about our slicing cucumber crop this year! I had five plants spaced out in a 4 x 8' raised bed. Two of the plants mysteriously died just before bearing fruit, and it looks like the remaining three plants decided they had to make up for their fallen comrades!
Ruth over at Hope, Joy and Faith Farm mentioned in her post this morning that on the southern Oregon coast where she lives fall seems to be arriving early this year.
I've had the same feeling about that in our neck o' the woods for a couple of weeks now.
Up here in northern Minnesota, we usually hit the middle of August when the temperatures at night suddenly turn and have a fallish kinda nip to them. This year it happened just about August first.
The few deciduous trees we have (we're primarily a pine forest) started turning color and even dropping a few leaves a couple of weeks ago. Now I know science tells us this phenomenon has everything to do with the amount of light during a day and nothing to do with temperature, but it still seems to be happening earlier this year to me.
The impatiens I plant in our flower boxes are already looking stressed and bedraggled.
Most years I feel badly about pulling them out of their boxes in the middle of October because they're still so lush and beautiful when I want to redo the boxes with fall foliage and miniature pumpkins. This year I think I'm gonna want to give them a decent burial long before that.
Who woulda thunk our super-hot summer would end so quickly and fall would come rushing in early?
I've spent way more time than I maybe should have in the past two days collecting music tapes and CDs from various spots in the house and getting them organized in the drawers of the unit the stereo and TV now sit on.
. . . and it just seems so BIG and black and dark in the little room. But to have her do this, we would have had to jettison the base unit with all the great drawer space that we salvaged from the old combination kitchen/living room and have her build a whole new, bigger piece. Didn't want to do that for several reasons so we decided to work with what we had.
So what I'm thinking of doing now is making a quilted piece (of some sort) that would hang over the whole wooden rectangle that the TV screen sits in. What do you think of that idea? Would it look too hokey? Would it make you wonder, "What the heck is behind that piece of quilting hung in that funny spot?" Or would it do the trick to hide the big, ol' black screen that I think jumps out at you? Or would the quilted piece be as obtrusive as I see the TV as being?
