Growing fast

I have been busy working on custom orders and cleaning house for my sister's visit from Utah. I did sit down for a break to look through the Treasuries on Etsy. Its been a while since I had any time to look. My needle felted penguin pair is currently featured in an Etsy treasury called Softly by treasurefield.



Our little chicks are growing fast and getting feathers now.

Fast moving storms

I have been busy attending to several custom orders I have and managed to finish this little turtle too. He is a little Eastern Box Turtle.




My two eldest came home from a morning appointment with braces on their teeth. They were scowling at me as if I was subjecting them to some new form of torture. Both are lisping and the younger one with a palate expander can barely eat -- poor thing. Sigh. If they only knew how much torture the expense of these things are.

An afternoon thunderstorm rolled through. I was attempting to batten down the hatches so to speak on the porch but the winds were so strong that everything was blowing around and the rain soaked everything. I abandoned that to huddle inside with the kids. A few moments later a loud crack was followed by the upper part of a tree near our house snapping in two. Sticks and branches were flying everywhere and water was coming in the house at the older doors and the newly installed air conditioners. A huge branch missed the newly set up pool only by a few inches -- so we are counting our blessings. We will miss the old choke cherry tree though. This tree provided one hook for our much loved hammock. Sirens were speeding up the road to some unknown disaster. After everything settled down we cautiously crept out to inspect the damage. I noticed a helicopter circling above not even a mile away. For nearly a half hour it continued its circling. This is where the sirens were headed so I wonder what happened. The evening news indicated that there was a possible micro-burst in our town.

A wonderful blog called Lily and Tulip featured my little singing bird from my Etsy shop. I love the layout of this blog and will definitely keep an eye on it.

A splash of cold water

The girls are enjoying the pool but the water is still very COLD. A lot of screaming is obviously required for pool play too. And often its when they are quiet in the pool that I get worried. As long as they are making noise I know they are still breathing! Of course I am watching them pretty closely when they are in the pool but I sometimes bring a book out to read and sit in the shade to relax.

A white hen and two chicks....

Toasting marshmallows

Last night we enjoyed our third Friday night craft get together. I brought a bottle of homemade blackberry/blueberry mead (made by my friend's husband). This was perfect with the chocolate brownies and chocolate covered strawberries that other friends brought.

The cut backs in school funding and the upcoming (next Tuesday) tax override vote was discussed as we worked. None of my children have teacher assignments -- nor will they get them until sometime in August when the final cuts in teachers are made. This whole process is so frustrating. I only hope that the town votes in the override or we will suffer with cuts in the town budget and fire and police. The class sizes are already going to go up and they are losing many teachers.

We spent most of the day outside doing yard work. The weather and the temperature were perfect. I mulched the vegetable garden pathways with relatively fresh stinky chicken manure and covered this with pine needles to hide the smell a bit. Next year when this has aged a bit I will shovel this mulch onto the raised beds as fertilizer. The older girls returned from a sleep over and I gave them some outdoor chores to help with. My sister and her children will visit next weekend and we need to get a so much done before they come. We also set up our replacement pool that my husband brought home from a friend at work. They no longer used this pool so I think this is perfect solution for us this summer. I think the older girls are a bit disappointed because it is only 42 inches deep but I promised them a deeper one next year.

We ended the day with a fire in our little fire ring. We toasted marshmallows and tiny hot dogs on sticks for dinner. Then the girls played a little softball with dad. My youngest was looking out for fireflies but we didn't spot any. I was surprised when she announced that this was our summer solstice party and of course there should be fireflies. It was probably a bit too cool for them yet.

Another pretty pair...

This pair of hens and chicks were finished this week. I just thought I would get a nice picture of them before I send them off to their new home. I picked up some new material yesterday that I am so excited about using to make more hens. I can't wait to start on more.

My project in the hen house turned into longer ordeal the other day. I moved out the old shutters and barn board doors we had been saving in there for lack of a better place to put them. This enabled me to do a much better cleaning job and assessment of the damage caused by intruders to the hen house. After a long day of it I was treated to a hen crowing in the outside pen. We have been without a rooster for nearly two years now but I have often suspected that I heard a few crows from the hen house. So now I know I'm not crazy. And she is definitely a hen too!

Beauty in small things...

Our roses are just peeking out now -- nearly 2 weeks later than normal. My daughter's middle name is Rose so we have been keeping a close eye on our roses for several weeks now. All roses are hers -- claimed by her middle name of course. Today she was so excited that we had to run out and cut some flowers for a vase first thing. So much joy for such a small thing.



Here are the roses climbing along the front of the playhouse -- called "rose cottage". In a few days I will take another photo when the roses finally bloom. This will easily be the best year for our roses due to the milder winter.


We headed off to the weekly town band concert with a carload of excited children. As my daughter's friend put it -- "Band concerts are the Bomb!" During the summer this is the place everybody sees each other. This is true for all ages too. Unfortunately the rain moved in during the concert. A mass movement to hide under the trees to stay dry was followed by everyone running back into the rain once the thunder/lightening started.

Amusement

We had a lovely father's day here. The girls and I worked on breakfast in bed for dad. We made Swedish pancakes (crepes with confectioners sugar sprinkled on and rolled), espresso, a slice of grapefruit, and a dessert dish of rhubarb pudding and whipped cream. The girls picked flowers and drew up cards.

On Monday we took a trip with the Middle school band to an amusement park for the day. I had volunteered as a chaperon and brought my younger two along this year. My youngest got sick on the bus ride and I thought we had made it to the park without incident. But as we were waiting for the tickets... well I will say no more. This wasn't exactly how I was planning to start the fun at the park. But we did manage to improve upon the day once the girls enjoyed a few rides. At the end of the day I was completely exhausted and climbed into bed early. The weather was perfect but being out in the sun all day usually does me in.

Tuesday was basically a day to relax a bit. My oldest seemed to suffer "friend" withdrawal. I struggled to get her off the computer and she finally sat down to enjoy a book in the later afternoon. The younger two worked for hours on a mysterious project. That evening we were treated to a puppet show of "Cinderella". They made the puppets out of paper and Popsicle sticks. They even made up a detailed script of who would say what. We enjoyed this and asked for an encore (for tonight) so we can video tape it.

My day was basically busy doing a few little odds and ends. I moved my indoor ivy outside. This plant has strands that are probably about 15 feet long now so this was no easy task. The strands do get tangled and the leaves seem to want to hook together. This year I put it on my porch and attached the strands to run along the ceiling around the porch edges. It looks quite pretty.

I also began more work on a two more of my larger hens. They are so cute once I finish them. I will finish a few of the chicks today if I can.

My friend dropped off a HUGE load of wool this weekend for washing. I decided to do the preliminary washing outside in a plastic bin. This was a good idea because the wool was so dirty. I took one load up in the evening for a wash in my machine with hot water but ended up with a rash on my cheeks. Either I am more allergic to the hay or these sheep have been in poison ivy. In either case I am going to have to take more precautions when washing. I have my drying rack outside with wool hung on it but the drizzly rain is not helping.

Well I'm off to work on the hen house. We have lost 3 hens recently to some unknown predator so I have to determine how they are getting in. It is an older building so it is easy for predators to force themselves in after a little work.

Happy Father's Day!

Summertime.

We enjoyed a quiet morning puttering around the yard. My husband made breakfast and espresso while I watered a few gardens and planted a few new plants in some hanging baskets. The kids found the water balloons and played with them for a while. We made one last attempt to see if we could find the leak in our pool without any luck. My youngest was fascinated with the mosquito larvae that were now swimming in what should have been our pool. Yuck! I finally picked up the utility knife and sliced it up for the trash draining all the small wigglies.

Meanwhile my husband donned the bee suit and added "supers" to the hives. Supers are shallower hive boxes that the bees will fill with honey that we will collect in late summer/early fall. The queen is prevented from going into these supers by a screen called a "queen excluder". That way we don't have bee eggs or larvae in our honey frames. I am sure my husband was a bit hot in his bee suit even on a cool day like today. I love the smell of the smoker as he puffs the smoke into the hives. The hive we positioned to get the morning sun is doing much better. We talked about moving the two other hives. As my husband says you can only move them 2 feet or 2 miles. In between the bees will get confused and be unable to return to the hive. With the honey in the hives and the bees this would be quite an undertaking to move them week after week until we finally positioned them better.

One of my mother hen and chick is featured on an Etsy treasury called Nifty Neato by cutegirlcreations.



We headed out to a friend's barbecue for the afternoon. We all had a lot of fun. All the children played together and enjoyed themselves.



Our little chicks continue to do well. They enjoyed a little blanket play outside in the sun. The occasional ant running across the blanket created quite a stir as each scurried to get it first.

Here is the sleep inducing tilt of the hand guaranteed to put your chick to sleep.

Running around like a chicken ...

I had to drag them out of bed today for their last school day. A late night return from the Thursday night band concert was the culprit. It was a rather cool night for a summer concert. The girls headed off to school this morning with wrapped bottles of our own maple syrup as teacher's gifts. My youngest made up the bottle labels this year and they are rather cute.

Once they were off to school I hurried up my work on a needle felted set of little white hens. Yesterday I finally dragged myself and some of my work down to a local antique/plant/art shop to show the owner my work. She really liked a little white hen that I had made and wanted a bunch more for today (she has a show somewhere else on Saturday). I am not sure why I stood there tongue-tied -- obviously I should have said "no". With the band concert that night it was a near impossible task. I spent most of the afternoon working on these and even worked on the little wire legs and feet while sitting at the concert. I worked late into the night and stopped when I found I was stabbing myself more often than the wool --- ouch!

I had a vet visit scheduled for our older dog and the Farmer's Exchange called and said our chicks were in. And before you know it all the kids were home from school (half-day). I scrambled to get the little cage ready and drove down with the kids to pick up the chicks. They were SO tiny and SO cute! I just wanted to sit on the porch and cuddle them all afternoon. But I was supposed to be down at the shop around 1pm with my hens and some pottery chicken families. I didn't make it though. I wasn't done until nearly 3 and dragged everyone down to the shop with me. But the small parking lot was full of trucks and was dug up since they are repairing the septic system after spring flooding ruined it. So all this rushing for nothing. Arghh! I missed out on a perfectly beautiful day stressing over getting this done. Ah well.

But I do have some rather cute hens to show for all this fuss. Here are a few photos of my little needle felted hens. They look so cute in their chorus line.







And I have to share these little darlings, Rosie, Moe, and Johnny...




The girls discovered that when you tip the little chicks nestled in the palm of your hand -- they go to sleep. These little bantams are the smallest chicks we have ever had.

We ended our evening with the last 4H meeting of the school year. The kids made yummy vanilla ice cream in a ziplock bag. Ice and rock salt in an outer ziplock bag and a lot of jiggling, jumping children made some very good ice cream.

The start of summer...

Just a few more hours of school tomorrow and our summer will begin. I am looking forward to having the kids at home -- I just hope I can keep them from getting too bored. When they were younger it was so much easier -- just a little attention from me or a brief walk "around the block" with the wagon was enough. But as they get older they really crave more excitement with their friends. At the very least they will enjoy sleeping in a bit and less running around. I haven't signed them up for any camps so we can relax a bit more.

I took a few pictures of my new little needle felted bird named Rose. I love photographing outside because of the lighting and the scenery.

A few peaceful mornings...

Yes... that's what I need. The girls will finish up with school on Friday so these are the last few mornings I will have to myself until next fall. I have thoroughly enjoyed these past two whirlwind weeks and weekends (busy with the girls' recitals), but I am a little frazzled to say the least. I think the stressful part is getting everyone from point A to point B. And when there are timing issues involved too with three ... well it takes its toll. My husband just goes on oblivious to these issues but honestly I feel like an air-traffic controller here. So I am going to take a break for a few days and catch up on some much needed gardening and house cleaning. Its difficult to attend to these with guests visiting. And gardening outdoors and enjoying the warm sun is so calming to me.

I want to share a beautiful new treasury on Etsy called Nesting: Home sweet home by sheridesthelion includes my little bluebird in a nest.



I listed my hen and chick pairs yesterday. The sky was overcast and bright so I ran down to the field out back to photograph them. I guess it was a good thing I have been too busy to mow the field because the yellow flowers were beautiful. The bees are enjoying them too so I will probably hold off on mowing for another week. The mother hens are basically the same pattern I made several years ago but I have been modifying the chick pattern a bit with some successes. My family likes one pattern and I the other so I will probably solicit more opinions on this. If any of you have any opinions let me know! I love how they display in baskets.



And while we are on the subject of chicks I have to confess that I signed up to get 3 little bantam chicks when I was last visiting the Farmers Exchange. I had every intention of resisting temptation this year and look its already June and I have seen several batches of chicks come in and leave. I haven't mentioned this yet to my husband to avoid getting the "rolling eyes" look but the kids know now and are excited.

Sharing Treasures...

I did manage a bit of time out in the garden yesterday. I finished planting the window boxes for the front of our house. They look a bit pathetic right now but I am hoping they will fill in a bit. Its so easy to spend a small fortune at the greenhouse/farmstand so I try to get the six pack plants and use them sparingly. Meanwhile my daughter discovered a dead gypsy moth caterpillar (injured on a rock). This involved a rather dramatic two hours of tears and a rather elaborate burial at sea (in my small container pond). Many prayers were said and stories of this wonderfully kind caterpillar were shared. Even water spray "fireworks" went off. Most of this was her idea and she was genuinely distraught over this. I didn't want to dismiss it but played along hoping she would snap out of it. I loved her stories about the kind caterpillar and all the qualities he had that we would miss.

Being out in the garden made me realize how much damage was caused by that hail storm Leaves litter our yard and many of the flowering plants are damaged. During the summer when I have more free time I like to make cement leaf castings of some of the larger leaves. The rhubarb looked so lovely this year but now the leaves are full of holes. Unfortunately I hadn't been able to work with cement sooner due to the weather and generally busy schedule. This photo shows some of the leaves I made last year for my porch and gardens.



The first Thursday night band concert of the summer began tonight on the town common. The girls were so excited. We ate chili dogs and cheese and the girls enjoyed cotton candy and popcorn. My youngest enjoyed the children's games but the older two were off socializing with their friends. Its difficult to let them go off without worrying about them. My husband's parents came along too (since they are still visiting us) and hopefully enjoyed themselves enough. I really enjoyed meeting up with friends too and chatting a bit while listening to the music and keeping an eye out for the children.

And now for the treasures...

Ever since I discovered Etsy treasuries I have wanted one but they proved much too illusive for my schedule. Too many interruptions go on in my life to sit patiently waiting for one. I figure that one rainy day in the future I might just have the patience to catch one. In the mean time I will enjoy the ones created by other Etsy members. One of my pottery chicken families is included in an Etsy Treasury called Little Jewels by Majo



My newly listed bee is also included in this Etsy Treasury called Bring Back the Bees by amianda.

On my window sill ...

I thought I would share a few photos of my window sills that I love so much. Many of these old bottles have been found around the yard of our >200 year old house. When the sun is shining through them they look like stained glass windows to me. I must admit that they do get rather dusty at times and contribute to the rather daunting task of cleaning house. But as you can see even when they are a little dusty they are still amazingly beautiful. A bare window sill would be easy to clean but would lack the personality of these beautiful displays.









The window sill with the roosters show our bees wax roosters made with beeswax from our own hives. I love the smell of beeswax ... so sweet like honey.

Ice from the sky

We had a surprise hail storm yesterday afternoon. It was so noisy outside and in the house my youngest was terrified and I was a bit surprised too. I just looked out the window at the plants getting pummelled by the 1/2 inch balls of ice. There wasn't much I could do to save them because the lightening was very close. Thunderstorms kept rolling through all afternoon so I opened up the sewing machine and started a few sewing projects. I am working on some stuffed fabric hens and chicks. I have sold the hens locally in a few shops and at fairs. I have a basket of them in my living room that makes me smile too. I made up the pattern myself but I am having a little trouble getting the little chicks to look cute enough. I want their heads to be larger and round but they aren't quite coming out like I am imagining them. I guess a few trials will be in order.

I finally finished painting the wooden base for this handsome rooster so he could be ready for the shop. I love the black and white coloring on him. Mounting him to the base was a bit of a trick but I have a tiny drill that worked out fine with a little patience. I loosely modeled him after a photo of a Fresian rooster that I saw on Flickr and loved. I am thoroughly enjoying all the beautiful pictures shared on Flickr.

Ahhhh! The sun.

I am enjoying the sun shining through the windows cheering me up. After a few morning chores I will make my way out to get my hands dirty a bit in the garden. I finished photos of this needle felted rooster and bee this morning and listed them in my Etsy store.



This little bee looks more like a bumble bee than our dear honey bees. Our honey bees were out this morning enjoying the sun and flowers. While waiting for the school bus we watched them gathering nectar and collecting pollen on their legs. They seemed to be humming happily.

We haven't heard any word from the sheep shearer that didn't show up so maybe today will be the today. He never did show up on Friday or over the weekend. I am looking forward to seeing the silly faces on those adorable sheep. Maybe someday we can get two to keep out in the field. We only have a single acre so I'm not sure if that is enough space for them.

One of my little birds was included in another Etsy treasury today. This treasury is called So Precious by cynmb.

Survived the weekend!

We survived the first crazy weekend in June and have another coming up next weekend. This is due to music recitals, dance recitals, and end of the year church plays for all 3 girls and husband as well.

As a break from all that turmoil I sat down on the couch and worked on these little guys today. It was too rainy and drizzly to tempt me to go outside -- though I have much to do to get caught up on my gardening. My daughter needed to make a model of a starfish for science class but our cement casting didn't set properly due to the cold. I suggested that she needle felt her model and she did a very good job on that. I am sure that her science teacher will be curious about the wool though.

Hot sheep!

I took my youngest over to the farm with the sheep and met my friend there at the barn. The sheep shearer hadn't shown up yet and the hot woolly sheep had been cooped up in the barn all day. We visited them in their barn stall and fed them a few slices of bread. This barn was clearly the cleanest barn I have ever been in. It nearly inspired me to do a scrub down on my chicken coop -- but I have company coming so that was clearly not the best idea. We have a multitude of old house shutters and windows stored in our coop and they really need to find a new home in order to get the coop cleaned out properly.



When I was adding the story about our sheep visit I had no idea what the rest of my day would involve. My two eldest children had their orchestra concert at the New England Concervatory in Boston. The concert was lovely but the beautiful old hall is not air conditioned. The air was inredibly hot inside the auditorium. With the stage lights and incredible amount of human bodies in that room one could barely breath. I actually think the sheep in the barn yesterday were much better off than we were. The music was incredibly beautiful though and worth enduring the heat. I did feel bad for the children playing in the orchestras and the conductors on the stage. My eldest said it smelled like meat cooking up there. Anyway I can't believe these young children make such beautiful music.

The rooster crows

I worked on a smaller needle felted rooster last night. I have a little wooden base for him that I want to paint with the sounds of a rooster crowing as they are known from around the world. Here is what I found in my search on chicken sounds. Hen and Rooster animal sounds in several different languages from Sounds of the worlds animals from Georgetown University.

Chicken (hen) clucking
Afrikaans: kloek-kloek
Albanian: ka ko ko ko
Arabic (Algeria): cout cout cout
Bengali: cokor-cok
Catalan: cococ
Croatian: ko-ko-da
Danish: gok-gok
Dutch: tok tok
English: Hens cackle and cluck.
Estonian: kaa-kaa
Finnish: kot kot
French: cotcotcodet
German: gak, gak
Greek: ka-ka-ka
Hebrew: Tarnegolot mekarkerot.
Hungarian: kot-kot
Icelandic: gaggalagó
Italian: coccodè
Japanese: kokekokkoo
Korean: kko-kko-daek-kko-kko-kko-kko
Norwegian: Høna kakler.
Polish: ko ko ko
Portuguese (Brazil): cocoricó
Russian: ko-ko-ko
Spanish (Spain): coc co co coc
Swedish: kackel
Thai: gook gook (with high tone)
Turkish: gut-gut-gudak
Ukrainian: ko-ko-ko
Vietnamese: cuc-cuc tac


Rooster (cock) crowing
Rooster
Afrikaans: koekelekoe
Albanian: kiki ri ki
Catalan: kikkirikí
Chinese (Mandarin): gou gou
Croatian: ku-ku-ri-ku
Danish: kykkeliky
Dutch: kukeleku
English: cock-a-doodle-doo
Esperanto: kokeriko
Estonian: kikerikii
Finnish: kukkokiekuu
French: cocorico
German: kickeriki
Greek: ki-kiriki
Hebrew: kukuriku
Hindi: kukru:ku:
Hungarian: kukurikuuuu
Indonesian: kikeriku
Italian: chicchirichí
Japanese: kokekokkoo
Korean: kko-kki-yo
Macedonian: kukuriku
Norwegian: kykeliky
Polish: kukuryku
Portuguese (Portugual): cocorococo
Russian: ku-ka-re-ku
Spanish (Spain): kikirikí
Spanish (Argentina): ki-kiri-ki
Swedish: kuckeliku
Thai: ake-e-ake-ake
Turkish: kuk-kurri-kuuu
Ukrainian: kukuriku

My needle felted tree sculpture is listed in an Etsy treasury called a House wife's wish by wired. I love this nest of eggs from wired's shop.



This afternoon I will head out with the girls to watch a sheep shearing. I will let you know the details of this excursion.