In the Absence of Anything Profound to Say...

One can always rely on photographs to convey the Sweet...


the Sublime...

and most definitely the Silly...

Move-in Day at Last!

Quite a lot of progress was made on the new Chicken House (I need to come up with an official name for it) on Saturday, but then we were plagued again by a very rainy Sunday. Good thing for the quickly-growing chickens that Matt had Monday off from work and the sun came back out.

By evening, it was finished... at least mostly... the chicken wire has not gone up yet, to enclose the play yard, but at least the house was ready and those teenaged birds could be moved from their cramped brooding box.

There was a lot of love and attention to detail put in on their behalf, so before showing you the move in, hows about a little mini-tour?

It has a large picture window looking out the back and is sided with reclaimed wood. The chicken door has its very own grand stairway which can be raised and lowered if necessary. The rails and poles came from small cedar trees harvested from our woods...

There are three nesting boxes along one side wall, each with its own hinged door for egg-gathering ease...

The large front door is vented at the top for fresh air flow on hot Summer days, and allows easy access for cleaning...

Mr. Tractor-Operator says that it pulls easily, that "the tractor didn't even know it was there". This is a very good thing, in my opinion. After SO many hours of labor involved in its construction, it would have been really lame to discover that it was too heavy or that it put gouges in the earth as it was being pulled along.

Finally, time to see how the girls like their new luxury suite, they were loaded into a box and carried by yours truly to their new home site (undignified, I know, but they are too unruly to try to herd all the way from the barn, and likely to run off and be eaten- at least I used a cool box- its the one my reel mower came in).

Just after this photo was taken, a silly Jack exclaimed, "Mama! I see an eyeball!"

And here they are at last, exploring their new digs, fresh shavings in place. They were a bit freaked out at first, but soon were pecking at the walls and scratching at the floor.

Here's to a long predator-free life full of fresh greens and grubs, my Girls.

Sunshine at Last

After living through the third wettest May on record, this first day of REAL sunshine (not overcast, not sunbreaks in between rain showers, but real all-day-long sunshine) feels simply amazing.

Reading all of your blog posts from the East coast and Middle states about eating fresh strawberries, and escaping the heat, and drinking lemonade, has been a tad bit depressing.

I am hopeful that the worst is over and the warm weather months will commence.

As of right now, 12:45 pm, I have made breakfast for my family and cleaned the kitchen, ran 2 loads of laundry through the washer, have 2 loaves of bread on their last rising and ready to bake, mowed the front lawn (by hand... with my reel mower),

and filled an entire wheelbarrow with weeds.

Now the kids are eating their lunch, and just as soon as I get them down for their nap, this is where I'll be...

I must be a solar-powered battery, because this sunshine has me Energized!

Building a Chicken RV

We have kept chickens for several years now. Not only do they produce an almost endless supply of eggs for our consumption, but they also make some of the best garden fertilizer you can get.

But we are surrounded not just by country on all sides, but Forested country. This means our poor flock of chickens have a larger assortment of predators than your average bird, and this last year was the worst we have experienced. Between the coyotes, a bobcat or two, racoons, and even the neighbor's dog, we lost 25 of our 26 laying hens over the course of about 6 months. Our one remaining hen, who still faithfully gifts us with a single egg a day must have the Gift of Escape.

Obviously it is time to do something about the play-yard on the forest side of the barn. And no longer can I harbor visions of a chicken utopia, letting my little flock roam free.

Our solution? A so-called Chicken RV, also known as a Chicken Tractor... a play-yard with attached house that can be pulled about with a tractor, allowing for the chickens to browse and graze on grass and bugs and worms, with a fresh patch of ground every few days. The result will hopefully be happy "free-ranging" chickens that will also be kept safe on all sides from wild and not-so-wild predators.

Matt has spent quite some time browsing online for ideas, and of course has come up with his own design (Innovators-R-Us), which will house our new and quickly-growing flock of chicks (easily doubled in size since these photos were taken)...


In between rain showers last weekend, the framework was built...

the nesting/sleeping-house-on-stilts was begun...

and a tin roof was put in place...

We are hopeful that our forecasted sunny weekend will allow for the completion, and that my next post will be all about move-in day!

TA-DA!

Begun in the latter half of 2005 as I prepared for the birth of my first child, this quilt has been put on hold countless times, as is the nature of many large projects.

I was making quick work of it until Jack came along 3 weeks early. It is entirely possible that had I carried him to term, I would have finished it before his birth. But I guess it just wasn't meant to happen that way.

Instead, it has been a project-in-the-works for nearly 5 years. But last night I put in my final stitches, and it is DONE!

The front is made entirely out of scrap denim, cut from worn out work jeans, outdated denim jumpers, and too-big or too-small dungarees.

The outer two rows of blocks on three sides are meant to hang over the edge of his twin-size bed (see the darker bits in the nine-patches around the outside? I ran out of my lighter denims and had to improvise!)

I pieced it on my hand-me-down sewing machine, going through countless needles, and somehow managing to get most of my corners to line up just-right.

Instead of quilting it in the traditional manner, I hand-stitched red X's at each corner...

and a zig-zag all the way around the outside.

It is lined with a thrifted flannel sheet and backed with a cotton Cowboy print fabric.

And it is big enough that even if this little boy grows into a 6'3" man like his Daddy, he will still be able to wrap up in it for a cozy, hand-made, Mama's Love warmth that you just can't get from a store-bought blanket.

I don't expect to ever get an award for this quilt, as it is far from being an example of quilting excellence, but I plan to enter it in our little town's quilt show anyway. I want the creative people in this area to see that you don't have to use expensive newly-minted fabrics to create a work of art. Just call it my little way of being a bit of a Repurpose-ing Missionary.

Soggy with a Chance of Torrential Downpours

That, folks, was the month of May in Oregon. Weather systems that behaved like December.

We saw Snow, Hail, High Winds, Rain, Drizzle, Monsoons, and very little sunshine.

And this week, what is in the forecast?

Heavy Rain.

Our poor garden is just sitting there looking rather pathetic. Some of our lettuce bolted after putting out just a few scrawny leaves, and the tomato plants that were taking over the greenhouse are now sitting there in the ground looking very sorry for themselves... The only things that seem to be thriving are pesky weeds, and the ground has been too saturated to till between the rows.

A little sunshine and warmth would be really, really nice about now. Just enough to ripen these lovelies...

and these...

and my very favorite, these...

Cake

Those of you that have been reading my blog for a long time may remember that I used to dabble in wedding cake decorating.

You may also remember that I swore I would never be doing weddings again.

I lied.

About a month ago, a friend contacted me about doing her niece's cake, and after a little thought, I decided I would give it a go. It was an opportunity to earn a little income, and in this tight economy, I just didn't feel right turning it down. I was able to give the bride a much better price than she could find elsewhere (for a downright delicious cake, I might add), and I was able to bring home some income for my little family.

Surprisingly, I *almost* enjoyed the process this time. I had forgotten what it was like to bake, assemble, and decorate a cake without a baby in the house. My kids are old enough now that I can send them up to their room to play, or turn on Sesame Street, and they are content to let me focus on my task without too many interruptions.

Don't quote me on this, but I just might hang onto those wedding cake supplies just a little while longer...

Scary Day

Yesterday, I thought that my computer was going to crash. I can't tell you just how fast I worked to make sure all important files were backed up to my external hard drive! All while dealing with strange seemingly systemic errors and stalls and frozen screens.

I don't like it when my computer is being weird.

I was feeling distraught...

and preparing myself for the worst case scenario...

until my Hero, my Knight in Shining Armor, came home and used all of his Super-User abilities to Save the Day...

Discovering, after many Smoke Monster, Shark-Attack, Brink-of-Insanity moments, that it was...

Drumroll, please...





A FAULTY MOUSE.

Sweet

Forget-Me-Nots seem to be springing up in all sorts of "Hey-I-didn't-plant-you-there" places this year. Perhaps that is how they earned their name?

Jack calls them "Forgive-Me Flowers", a mis-interpretation that I just might keep.

Outbid.

I was SO close to buying this oh-so-sweet sampler on ebay yesterday. I really wanted to reproduce it for you.

But I have set an absolute pay limit, and it went over. This time, I wish I had broken my own rule. I try to live with no regrets, but this morning, I am regretting.

The good news is that soon I will be able to offer a reproduction chart of this sampler, which I successfully purchased several months ago...

The chart pack should be ready for a late Summer or early Fall release. This will be my very first true reproduction, and I have 2 more waiting in the wings (or should I say, waiting on my walls?).