I can’t post a blog entry without a picture, but I’ve got no pictures. I did get a few new Photoshop brushes, however, and have been playing around with them a little bit. I made a new banner, but I may need to work on it a little more. It seems just a little off to me somehow. At least the colors are bright and cheerful on this dreary day. It’s been snowing this morning, but by the time I get home from work tonight it should be clear and cloudless and the snow will probably be all gone.

My reading cycle has slowed a bit, but I always must have something to read, so I’m quite interested in this new website, Revish. You can go sign up now and possibly become a tester, and share book reviews and recommendations with others. I’m still finding my way around, but it’s sort of like Flickr for book lovers. Come and try it out!

I have a little bad news on the chicken front. It seems that the co-worker with the three chickens, one of which was General Tso, has yet another rooster. So tomorrow we’re going to switch out his Rhode Island Red rooster for another of my hens. I know it’s silly, but I just feel so bad disrupting our little flocks like this. They’ve got brains the size of peas, and so they have a day of big changes and re-adjusting their chicken hierarchy, and then they’re fine. I’m sure they don’t actually remember the trauma of it all, and just go back to scratching and pecking and pooping and sleeping, but I still feel bad about the whole thing. Luckily, their third hen has started laying eggs, so we shouldn’t have to go through this again. What are the chances, eh? I’m just hoping that the two roosters will be okay together. They were once before, obviously, so I’m hoping they’ll be able to live in peace and harmony again.

I mentioned in my anniversary post that I wanted to have a little Heylucy blog reader appreciation giveaway, and I’ve been getting a few things together, so come back this weekend, and all will be revealed!

Edit: It appears that Typepad doesn’t like paragraphs today. Does anyone have any idea why?

I have been on a self-imposed fabric diet for a very long time. I don’t think I’ve bought hardly any fabric in the past year, as a matter of fact. So when I got a little gift card to Joann’s for Valentine’s Day, I had to go spend it right away:

Actually, the fabric diet ended a couple weeks ago, when I went to the dentist, which happens to be next to a quilt shop. I was such a brave patient that I thought I deserved a little treat, so I got the tape measure fabric and the red floral underneath it in the top picture. It really helped with the pain in my jaw. Really, I recommend fabric buying for toothache pain. And then I also need to try out Superbuzzy, so see if they really were as great as everyone is saying. I ordered the green fabric with the words and the orange dot fabric, and I’ll have to agree that yes, Superbuzzy is all that. The rest is what a $40 gift card gets you at Joann’s when their quilting fabric goes on sale, 30% off. I had to get the chicken fabric after seeing it over at Alicia’s, and I love the apple and pear print, the colors are so pretty!

I love, love, love this quilt from the Tokyo Quilt Show, and I’d like to do something similar, so that’s what I was thinking while picking out a lot of the fabrics. I love how it’s a traditional pattern, but the colors and fabrics make it seem so modern and fresh.

I haven’t taken pictures of the chickens for a few weeks, so I attempted to get a few yesterday morning. They’re getting a little harder to photograph, because, like Pavlov’s dog, when they hear the screen door slam, they all come running, hoping that I’m bringing them a treat. So they get very very close to me, and it’s not so easy to get pictures that way. I managed a few decent shots, however:

They’re trying to get closer to me, hoping that the shiny silver thing in my hands is actually some food.

I don’t think there is much of anything cuter than a chicken butt:

A few more of the chickens have names now. The four Barred Rocks are named Ruby. I can’t tell them apart, other than the one is always the first to run to me when she sees me. When I don’t give her something to eat, she clucks indignantly and trys to stare me down.

This is Curly:

I can tell her from the other Buff Orpingtons, because her comb and wattle are much bigger and redder.

And of course, here is what Fuzzy Penelope Caramella looks like these days:

I have to try and get a shot of Bluebeard, so you’ll be able to tell where that name came from, and then there is the Free! Exotic chick, who is either Snow White or Snowball, I haven’t decided yet.

We’ve been getting one little egg just about every day. I found one of the Ruby’s in the nesting boxes twice, so I’m pretty sure one or two of them is the layer. They may be tiny eggs, but they are delicious! And, like Amy suggested in the comments, I blew out the first two eggs so the shells are still intact, and it turns out I had the perfect spot for them:

It’s hard to get a good picture in my dark living room, but you get the idea.

Finally, the big day is here:

I was closing up the chicken coop last night, and looked over into the newly installed nesting boxes, and there was this tiny little egg, sitting all by itself in one. Isn’t it pretty? I was so excited I nearly cried. I wanted to hug all the chickens, or give the layer of the egg a high five, or something, but they were all on their roosts like nothing out of the ordinary had happened that day.

I have a couple egg cartons saved, so I promptly put it in one and placed it ever so carefully in the refrigerator. I keep taking it out and looking at it. Since it’s the first egg, and I didn’t see who was in the nesting box, I have no idea who laid it. I loved the February 5th post on the hen blog (you have to scroll to it, there aren’t permalinks to the entries) about how different all the eggs look. Finally, the girls are earning their keep!

So, how should I cook it? Boiled? Scrambled? An omelet? Maybe a frittatta? I think I’m going to have to wait until there are a few more, it’s so tiny, it won’t make much of anything by itself.

This is why I haven’t been around for the last week or so:

Also this:

And then there is this:
 
I wrote about losing my sweet girl Gigi last summer. I didn’t write about how almost exactly a month later, Dune also died from a tumor in his lung. It was just too sad. So now, after living for seven months with no cats in our house, we brought home two new babies. Officially, they are Mr. Lucy’s Birthday/Christmas presents, although, honestly, I was ready for a new kitty myself. So up there at the top is Petey, and the little calico/bengal mix is Lucy. We decided that we really ought to have someone in our house actually named Lucy. Now that I think about it, I’m going to have to come up with a new nickname for Mr. Lucy, because otherwise that would imply that he is married to our cat, which is just weird. As he is a very private person, he doesn’t like his actual real name to be used on the internet. Maybe someone in my family will have a better suggestion?

So, anyway, Petey and Lucy are 8 months and 9 months old, respectively. We got them from the Helen Woodward Animal Center, which is such a nice facility. They had been there for about 6 months, and were living together in the same kennel. It’s completely different having two kittens, we didn’t realize how used we were to our old cats. These two are either bouncing off the walls, or doing this:

There doesn’t seem to be an in-between state for them. Although this morning it was so warm we had the back door open and they discovered the chickens:

One or both of them were at the door until I left for work. As far as I know, they could still be there. It’s like television for cats!

Expect to see more of this little buggers, although it’s taken me all week to get any decent pictures of them, they move so fast. I still have to get a good picture of Lucy with her golden tiger eyes open.

As for the chickens, remember how I had 19 hens, and had given 4 to one co-worker and 3 to another? Well, the three hens turned out to be 2 hens and a rooster. And since that co-worker lives in a residential area, the rooster was kind of a problem. So we agreed to trade one of my hens for the rooster, and now the lucky devil gets to live here with 18 hens. Oddly enough, they had named him General Tso, before they realized she was a he. How’s that for foreshadowing? Here is another picture of him:

He’s quite the looker. He’s an Araucana, and he crows. A lot. This morning at 4:30 our neighbor started up his Harley. This woke up the General and he started crowing. We didn’t hear the Harley, but we sure did hear the General. If nothing wakes him up during the night, he starts to crow at about 6:30, which is alright during the week, because I should really be up by then myself. On Saturday? Not so much. We’re getting used to the sound though, and I think it will eventually just be another background noise here on the farm.

It’s always good to come home. I’ve been back since late Monday night, but have been busy catching up at work and at home. Next week will be all about catching up on blogs and comments, I think! I love getting comments so much, so if I haven’t responded to your comment in the last couple weeks, you’ll be hearing from me soon, I am definitely not ignoring you!

I went to bed last night to a light, sprinkling rain, and woke up to a few inches of snow. The picture above is my little town. Click it to see a really big version. That’s pretty much the whole town right there. Sometimes it feels like stepping back in time when I come home.

This is chicken alley. You can’t see it, but our shed is to the right (the bikes are leaning against it), and there is a short wall on the left, so the chickens hang out there a lot because it’s sheltered from the weather. We had some pretty high winds last week, and Mr. Lucy told me that one of the Barred Rocks had ventured out of the alley onto the driveway where she was caught in a gust of wind and went feet over tail, just like a tumbleweed. And then she went back into the chicken coop. I guess she didn’t like the wind too much. In this picture, several of them are running to me, hoping for a treat. Too bad I just have my camera, they already had plenty of treats today!

In another wind and animal story, there were also some very large gusts that blew a chunk of shingles and the top of our chimney off the roof. Our insurance company sent someone out the other night to tarp the roof, knowing that we had a storm coming in. The contractor put a big, black, plastic bag over the chimney pipe. Yesterday morning when I let the dogs out, Bear was looking at the roof and barking suspiciously. I think he thought the plastic bag was a person standing on the roof. It’s good to know that we are safe from suspicious plastic bags.

So it’s a new year, and I’m not making resolutions, exactly, but I do have plans to take better care this year. I’m going to take better care of myself and my home and of course, Mr. Lucy, who is going to be eating more vegetables this year, whether he wants to or not. Happily, I have a three day weekend, so there will be much cooking of aforementioned vegetables, as well as some serious cleaning and clearing out of the house.

Oh, and you can read more about how I rang in the new year here. There may be video of me behind the microphone, but I plan on doing every thing in my power to insure that it does not see the light of day. All in all though, it was a crazy fun time. Although why does silly string take less than 5 minutes to spray out of the can, and 5 hours to clean up?

I haven’t taken pictures of the chickens for a few weeks, so while I’m home this morning waiting to go to the airport to pick up my sister-in-law, I braved the cold wind and took a few. The girls are already 9 weeks old. They’ve grown up so fast *sniff*. I was at the feed store, my new weekend hangout, recently, and they had just received a new batch of chicks. I was amazed by how tiny they were. They were so cute, it made me want to get some more. I’m going to resist the temptation for now. Our little coop is crowded as it is. I don’t remember if I mentioned that seven of then have gone on to new homes. Three went to one co-worker and four went to another. I was relieved to find good homes for them with owners willing to provide the occasional photographic evidence that they are not being eaten, but are being kept as pets and for egg production. :o)

After a short period of typical teenage attitude, I’m happy to report that Fuzzy is once again my favorite girl. She ignored me for a few weeks, and I thought she had forgotten all the good times we shared watching TV and knitting. It turns out that it was just a phase, and she once again is the first at the door when I open it, and is quite happy to jump up on my knee or climb up on my shoulder. It looks like the last of her feathers are coming in on her back, under her wings, and she suddenly has this big tail:

The Buffs are still adorably cute and fluffy, but this one was a little nervous when I carried her over to this table and set her down. She wouldn’t stand up:

How cute is she, though?

This little Barred Rock is the piglet of the group:

Besides Fuzzy, she is always the first at the door when I come visit. I’m pretty sure it’s not my company she’s after, but the treats that I always bring with me. She always gets more than her fair share, but she’s one of the smaller chickens. She’s also the most curious. She was pecking at the camera lens while I was trying to take pictures. I have a few shots of nothing more than blurry black and white feathers.

The other day I had some left over brown rice, so I thought I’d see if they’d like it. I held out a little, and they sniffed at it suspiciously, but sort of backed away from it. Meanwhile, as he usually does when I’m at the hen house door, Bear had sidled up and stuck his head in to see what was going on. He sniffed at the rice and then started eating it. That was all it took. Suddenly the chickens all wanted some rice, and I couldn’t feed it to them fast enough. It was so funny to watch. The chickens all seem to like Bear, or at the least are very curious about him. He’s also gotten to the point where I know that when I’m out there, he won’t hurt the chickens. He sniffs at them and watches them, but he doesn’t drool as much any more. I know it just about kills him that there are all these birds and he can’t have them, but he also knows that I love them and he better not hurt them. I don’t have any plans to let them free-range while he’s out there, though. That would just be asking too much from him.

UPDATE: I almost forgot, one of my brother‘s songs will be featured on tonight’s episode of Men in Trees. Please watch! We’re pretty excited here at chez Lucy :o)