while it lasted

I haven't mentioned that my Urban S quilt is in an Etsy gift guide yet. It's been in the Cozy Home guide for a couple weeks now and tomorrow it will no longer be.... :( Because it's sold! :)Yahoo! I'm so happy to see it go to a loving home but so sad that I will no longer be getting free promo from Etsy Admin. Bummer. Maybe I can sway them to choose another quilt of mine for their gift guides?! If you want to see it before it ends here's the link.

Oh, and I promise to post pics of the chicks soon. My mom's wondering what the heck has happened to my blog and all I can say is three things, Spring, kids and pregnancy. There. That's it! :)

hallelujah!!!

I hear chirping!! That means we've got at least one chick! He or she is still under mama and will be for a bit so no pics yet. I'm hoping that over the next day or two all the other eggs will hatch too. Pray for pullets!!!

*******Update as of 4/23, I see 5 heads. So we have at least 5 chicks. Hopefully the last two are just being shy. So far, 4 black colored ones and one so sweet yellow one!**********

******Update 4/24, There are 6 chicks. 5 black and 1 yellowish/white. They are up and moving around. Somehow there are still 3 eggs left in the nest that did not hatch- which is weird. I swear that I counted 7 eggs that she was laying on. I don't think the chance of twin chicks is high, is it? I must have miscounted somehow and there were actually 9 eggs. Kind of a bummer that 3 of them didn't hatch but that's o.k. I'm hoping to get at least 2 hens out of the six. The rest we'll sell to the feed store in town. We're moving our hen and chicks to a little coop today that will house them for a couple months. The boxes in our main coop are about 4 feet off the ground and I don't think that the chicks are going to find it easy to get up and down from them. I'm already worried about one of them falling out.********

new listings!

I listed some new fabrics in my fabric shop today! Check them out!

shoofly pie

Today I saw this and it got me thinking again about this pie. I'll admit that I tried to make it once, about 8 years ago. The recipe looked easy enough and it sounded as though it would be tasty. But, is it really? Have any of you had this before? If you have, what did you think- what's your opinion of it? I will say that the pie that I made turned out horrible. As in, one bite and it went into the trash! It was one of those, "wouldn't even feed it to my dog" kinda things. If it really is good though and I just completely goofed the recipe, I'd love to make it again. Any thoughts?

All right, back I go to boiling diapers now. :)

a new quilt

Here's the new quilt I am making for the baby. Well, I shouldn't exactly say I'm "making" it right now because I haven't cut or sewn a single fabric but I did BUY the fabric and that has to count as something right? :) The garden and the sunshine lure me outside pretty much every second of the day so I still haven't been sewing much. Gavin said that this is the time of year that we need to hire a housekeeper. :) If we don't have to be inside then we're not. There's plenty to be done on the property and staying inside to wash and fold laundry isn't anyone's idea of fun this time of year!

Oh, and P.S.- still no chicks. I am begining to doubt that we will acutally see any babies and that all 7 of those egss were a total waste. :( I still have a few days though to wait. If there are no chicks by this weekend then all the eggs were duds.

birth

Spring is such a new birth of all things good! I'm hoping and praying that by next weekend (the 25th) I can share some news with all of you that we have baby chicks! Our bantam hen decided that she would be the one to sit on the eggs. So here she sits, patiently waiting for the arrival of a pretty mutt selection of babies. She is currently sitting on 7 eggs, randomly laid by all 4 of our hens. And hopefully fertilized by one cross bred rooster. So, basically we'll end up with a bunch of pound pups, er, chicks, if any. All I can say is that, if no chicks hatch then it sure was a waste of 7 eggs.Other things have begun to grow as well. Our Santa Rosa Plum is loaded with plums this year, as is our Shiro. That means tons and tons of fresh plums to eat and jars and jars of jam to can!Our peas are also slowly making their entrance into the world.The Romaine lettuce is up and growing and a kind lady that Gavin worked for last week gave us a few tomato starts to try out. Those are Gavin's tomatoes. He now has 4 plants that he is taking care of. Don't get me wrong, that man can garden with the best of them, but I tend to get a little selfish with the garden deeming it "mine." Gavin also tilled up our side garden last week and we planted trial corn. I call it "trial" just because it's not in the main garden and it certainly won't get as much tending to. It was just the result of an overflow of seed and a little bit of room.

Gavin also got some extra sand for the kids to play in while I garden.

All in all, great things growing and fun stuff happening! Hope that you all are having a great week too!

The Ten Commandments- Southern Style

Gavin's grandma sent me this in an email this morning and I thought it was too perfect not to share with all of you:


"This is cute! And much easier to remember!!"

The Ten Commandments

(1) Just one God

(2) Put nothin' before God

(3) Watch yer mouth

(4) Git yourself to Sunday meetin'

(5) Honor yer Ma & Pa

(6) No killin'

(7) No foolin' around with another fellow's gal

(8) Don't take what ain't yers

(9) No tellin' tales or gossipin'

(10) Don't be hankerin' for yer buddy's stuff

Now that's plain an' simple. Y'all have a nice day.

Easter Hunting

Well we had a terrific time yesterday at church (three people got saved on Easter!!) and then over at Gavin's parent's house. All the family came out and the kids had fun hunting for eggs. The rain held off until later that day so we, thankfully, had a dry hunt- for once in our lives! I was surprised at how well Timber carried her little basket and collected her little eggs. She was so stinkin' cute! I think we had about 25 adults watching 2 little ones collect eggs. Everyone had out their cameras and video recorders to capture the fun.

I once again have picture overload for you. How many pictures can you see of kids hunting eggs before it gets repetitive? Surprisingly, not than many. :)

O.k. I'm done now. Sorry it was so long! :) Hope that you all had a great Easter!

Treasury Love

Are you feeling the love? Wanna share? If you get a chance check this treasury out, I think it's one fo the best I've ever been in: http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list_west.php?room_id=49858
Thanks! :)

we have a baby!

and yes, there is only one!

My ultrasound today bumped up my due date to October 26th but knowing how my babies are always late I'm sure it will be closer to November 1st (which is what I thought my original due date was anyway.)
So, I'm slightly relieved that there is only one and can't wait to meet this little one in person!
My MIL gave us the idea for a girl name, Meadow. I actually kind of like it but told Gavin that we'd probably be called "hippy freaks" for having daughters named Timber and Meadow...lol. Oh well, we sort-of are!

yeah

I seriously think this is the coolest thing I've seen on Etsy in a really long time. I want to buy like 50 of them and put them up all over our town. I love it!

From piratecore, $7.00

how difficult is knitting?

As if I need another hobby. I haven't even been sewing! I've been thinking of knitting though lately. A knitting group at our church is starting this weekend! The thought has crossed my mind a time or two but should I really do it???

I found a pattern for these little dolls today and I SO want to make them for Timber. For you knitters that know- do they look difficult? Would they be too much for a first time project? If it helps any, the first quilt I ever made was a queen sized one. And the pattern was intermediate. The woman (and friend) who taught me to quilt was like, "Um, do you want to start with a wall hanging instead?" No way Jose! Go big or go home.

Any advise would be welcome!

fiddlesticks

It's cold. The soil is cold. I've been tracking it for the past few days and this morning it was 42 degrees. Barely even warm enough to germinate peas let alone anything else!

We tried a little experiment last night though. By laying a thick layer of grass clippings over a 2 foot square area in the garden we were able to take a soil temp reading this morning that was far better than hoped. It was almost 50 degrees. 8 degrees warmer than the non covered soil! The outside temp this morning was 37 degrees so 50 degrees aint all that bad.

I'll continue tracking for the next few days to see what will happen. I'm chitting my peas right now so they will be ready to plant in the ground by Monday or Tuesday.

couldn't resist

Well, it's raining today and it's supposed to rain all of next week. So much for planting seed. In my opinion, it is still a little early but Gavin is positive that we can plant now because he was by Open Air Farms yesterday dumping a load of wood chips and they have corn growing- already!! I don't know how they did it but apparently they did. I still am not convinced it's time. I'm going to buy a soil thermometer today to watch the ground for a week or so first.

And since there is no planting to be done, there is still shopping on Etsy to be done.....right? :) Lookie what I got Timber today- soooooooo sweet.

from Natural Kids and Toys $9.95

gotcha!

Happy April Fools! :) Seems I'm pretty good at this since my phone was off the hook today! Mt friend Stephanie said that it would be just my luck that I'd go in for an ultrasound and I WOULD be having twins!! lol

Wordless Wednesday- Really Speechless