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.