At times I just don’t know

– I think that I was made for you

Yesterday we got the thing I’ve been talking about for 3 years.

Chickens.

Patrick built a coop that you would want to live in, if you were a snooty chicken.

They settled in pretty quick and today they explored their mini front yard. Eventually they will be free rangin’ but they’re penned up a bit till they figure out that this is home. The girls fed them earthworms and beetles yesterday and they gobbled up the French Toast leftovers from breakfast

Many thanks to Melissa, Mr. Wonderful and Girl for raising such beautiful ladies. So far they are “thing1″ and “thing2″  but I’m thinking Wanda and Tulula. Patrick shot down Fricasee and Cacciatore.

Saeb took this pic of their bottoms – too cute.

Toots

I always though that I knew

– and you were laughing along

We had several mini projects/distractions over the summer. Early in August friends of ours were raising Monarch caterpillars – they do this every year – this year it was crazy! They have a friend who also raises them and he was going to be out of time when all the chrysalises were ready to hatch.

So, our crazy friends took over 200, amazingly jewel like, jade and gold chrysalises and hung them all over their mantlepice, bookcases and anything else with an edge.

We were lucky enough to come home with 4. We hung them outside so the butterflies would be able to fly free when they were ready and we waited.  

2 days later some began to lose their jade color and they seemed to darken to black until we realized that the shell had actually become clear and the dark color we were seeing was the butterfly itself, ready to emerge. It was all pretty cool.

It was really cool to see them climb out of their little sleeping bags, their wings all crumpled up and short and their bodies short and fat as well, and to watch them slowly pump all the extra fluid from their bodies out into their wings.

They each took about 24 hours from hatching to fluttering away and we had 4 females. The males have a little black spot on their back set of wings and none of ours had that.

Hope you had a couple fluttery moments of excitement and new beginnings this summer! For more info on Monarchs you can go here. Enjoy.

Toots

Call my name, or walk on by

– Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!

Sorry, I sorta dissappeared on ya there for awhile

I’ll try to catch you up in small installments.

I made (and am teaching) crochet socks this fall.

I made (and am teaching {and am selling the pattern for[ Rav link]}) awesome slippers.

I got AWESOME mugs! See Malea, they DO match my kitchen. 

Really so much happened in the last 2 months its still kind of a blur. Just wanted to pop something up to let you know that I’m still here. More soon.

toots