Woo Hoo!

I finished my quilt top today!

The lighting doesn't do it justice.

When the weather is nicer I may take it outside for a better picture.

Now all I need is to get the backing so I can start quilting.

Closer

I've made some good progress on piecing my current quilt.

Today I finished piecing these six squares.

Now all I have to do is add some white sashing and the border.

I'm almost done!

I'm happier than a duck in a puddle on a rainy day.

Release the Hound

OK, she's not a hound, but a mutt-labrador.

She was spayed and has healed.

We "released" her to live outside once again.

I'm not sure who was happier, her or us.

It will take us days to rid the utility room of all her fur.

We had to vacuum multiple times a day while she was inside.

Note to self: don't get the dog spayed during shedding season.

Seriously, it looked like she shed her entire winter coat.

I'm thankful we confined her to one room!

It didn't take her long to find a hole to dig.

She's running and playing with her toys again.

She's quite a happy dog now.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

I was able to knock out four of these over the weekend.

There are four of each color set.

Only five more sets to go.

Connor's Creation

Nolan is our author and Connor is our builder.

Connor recently built this while sick this week.

Nolan seems to have a talent for writing.

It comes easy to him.

His stories are amazingly creative.

As much as Nolan creates with words, Connor creates with Legos (and Bionicles).

That comes easy for him.

He builds things like this all the time.

No instructions, just a boy's imagination.

Keep on building Connor.

A Quacking Good Time

I think I like the ducks better than the chickens.

They're more fun.

They don't pinch when you hand feed them.

They nibble but it doesn't hurt.

They're not quite as skittish as the chickens.

We are trying to tame them.

They sometimes come when we call them...

which is awesome.

It's funny to see and hear them run in a flock together.

All their little webbed feet pounding the ground is the cutest thing ever.

As I've said before, ducks love peas.

They run for them.

They will even jump for them!

I'm not sure if this duck is mesmorized by the camera or if it's waiting for more peas.

Quack!

Not sure what the one in the back is looking at.

Must be something interesting.

For some reason they like to go by the gate when they're in the yard.

++++++++++++++++++++++++

And now a chicken update...

One of the Aracuana chicks.

I think I woke her up with the flash.

The one on the right is our Jersey Giant.

We've named her Gigantor (from the Night at the Museum).

As you can see, she's slightly bigger than the other chicks.

She seems to be a little bossy at times.

We're trying to tame these gals too.

Doesn't everyone sit around their living room holding chicks?

Working On It

After several days, I have finally returned to this quilt.

I got to a step that I didn't really want to do.

Trimming a ton of half square triangles (the ones at the top of the photo).

There were over one hundred of them.

Had I paid attention to the instructions (haha), I would have trimmed them as I did them.

The instructions had you trim them after you made all of them.

It took a while but I finally got all of them done.

With all of that trimming out of the way, I could move on to the next step.

Thankfully it didn't take long to do this.

I realized along the way I needed to label my work thus far.

I usually do this but hadn't because I had my pieces

separated into plastic bags thinking that was good enough.

It turned out I still needed to label them.

There are six sets in total.

That's a lot that needs to be kept in order!

I'm hoping to start making some blocks this weekend.

Bored

This is our dog, Miss Bored.

Yes, that's cotton stuffing hanging out of her mouth.

I was getting ready to take Nolan to his writer's club when

I discovered the extent of her boredom.

It was bound to happen.

What do you expect when you take an outside dog and suddenly force her to live in a confined space?

That's going from about an acre and a half to one small room.

I'm just thankful she didn't destroy anything of ours!

This was her brand new Lambchop.

We gave it to her three days ago.

When I got home last night there were two more piles of stuffing.

I'm not sure we're going to survive her boredom or her FUR.

We swept the utility room more times than I can count...

and that was just yesterday!

Only seven more days to go...

we may not make it that long.

Silly Sleepers

This is our fifth year raising chickens.

We've had lots of chicks to watch over the years.

They are entertaining to watch when they fall asleep.

They can fall asleep standing up, but often they wake the moment they start to fall.

Other times they slowly sink to the floor.

They get so relaxed their wings fall to the side and their head droops.

They almost turn into a chick-puddle...

falling asleep in the most peculiar ways.

You haven't lived until you've had a chick fall asleep in your hand.

They kind of melt.

At one point this one had her head drooped between

Dwayne's fingers, but we couldn't catch it on camera.

I honestly thought this chick was dead.

I've never seen one sleep with its feet out like this.

It was so funny I had to take a picture.

Crazy chick.

Feathered Friends

Since our flock was taken out by a mink we have to build a new one.

We got six new chicks today.

Isn't that a cute little take-home box?

It has windows!

Now we are in cuteness overload again.

We got three Araucanas, one Rhode Island Red,

one Black Jersey Giant, and one Black Australorp.

All of them are hens.

We plan on getting a rooster sometime in the future.

It's so good to hear the cheeping again.

They're quieter than the ducklings.

The chicks are soft and gentle while the ducks are rough and rugged.

We are enjoying them both!

Speaking of ducks, they're about 4 1/2 weeks old.

We moved them outside a week ago.

They were getting too big to be inside.

They thought I was going to give them peas.

They're not dirty.

It's the fawn coloring coming in.

If you look at the duck on the far right, you can see

the whitish neck while the rest looks brown.

Eventually, the rest of the white feathers will grow in.

For now, the yellow down still shows.

We've learned that ducks love snow.

They do have a heat lamp inside the coop...

they just preferred to be out in the snow.

 She's not feathered but she's still our friend.

She was spayed a few days ago.

She is an outside dog but for the next 10 - 14 days she'll be inside.

We're supposed to keep her from running, jumping, and doing fun doggie things.

The vet tech actually told me, "Good luck with that."

So we're doing the best we can.

We keep her confined to the utility room at night.

During the day, we've been letting her in the kitchen and

part of the living room (as long as she stays on her rugs).

And she hasn't had any accidents!

We have an awesome dog.

Poor Pepper just wants to be outside.

I think the novelty of being inside with her people has worn off.

It will get really hard when she starts feeling better.

Where are the Bowls?

Confession time.

My dearly beloved family needed bowls for their supper,

which was chili.

There were no bowls in the cabinet or dish drainer or dirty on the counter (let's be real, it happens).

So that night for supper we used three soup mugs and one toddler bowl with tractors on it.

Not ideal but hey, it held the chili.

So where were all the bowls?

Every last bowl was in the freezer.

I freeze left over food in them.

I also make large batches of refried beans and freeze those too.

That's what occupied all of these bowls.

Lots of beans and several meals.

In my defense, I just did a large batch of beans two days ago.

The rest were forgotten :)

The next morning I promptly took care of the bowl problem.

The food was removed from the bowls and wrapped in plastic wrap.

Then they're placed in labeled ziploc bags.

I have a sheet hanging on the side of our refrigerator with a list of frozen meals.

This has come in handy so many times.

We save money by not throwing out the left overs.

We save time when we were rushed for a meal.

It's also helpful when I'm sick or nobody feels like cooking.

I've been doing this for a while and everyone knows where the left over bin is in the freezer.

It's a win-win.

In case you can't read the labels: chicken noodle soup,

beef cabbage soup, beef cabbage hash, and two bags of refried beans.

Now, if only I could remember to empty the frozen bowls quicker next time...