Tuesday, February 12, 2008

staying busy

I've been working on headcoverings this week. I played with one yesterday and got it all finished before deciding I really didn't like it. I'll have to tweak that pattern so it doesn't make the wearer look like The Flying Nun when they have it on. Fortunately I have a lot of scrap and leftover fabric so I'm not wasting good stuff with my experimentation.

I also made a new jumper and I really like it. The last time I used this pattern, I gathered the skirt instead of doing the pleats the pattern called for. This time I used the pleats and found out very quickly that it is much more flattering and makes me look a bit smaller and not so round.

We had to cull a hen two nights ago. She was at the bottom of the pecking order and obviously ticked someone off. I went in to check on them and found blood spots all over the place. They'd been pecking at her head and neck and she didn't look too good, though she wasn't as bad as she could have been. Hens being hens, if I'd have left her there overnight she'd have been dead in the morning. I got hubby and we went to the garage and did what we had to do. I was able to clean the carcass this time and pluck most of the feathers so on Wednesday we'll have a nice roast chicken for supper. If I catch the head hen being mean like that to one more of her housemates she's next on the list. I don't need mean birds.

We definitely need more birds this spring. I just put 2 dozen fresh eggs in the outside fridge today and a new local customer showed up and bought both of them. I had emptied the fridge last week to take the eggs to the feed store owner and now I'm out again. 15 (now 14) birds just aren't enough. Once I get the new chicks next month and they start laying we'll have 25 pullets producing eggs. That should be enough. Where we are now I won't even have to go to the farmer's market to sell eggs this summer...I won't have enough to take!

Later today I want to make some more of the triangle headcoverings, assembly line style by color, so I can list them on Etsy and see what happens. I have plenty of fat quarters picked out and after I go to the post office and check the mail I'll have enough lace for them as well. I'm making some with lace and some without. I'll see which sells best, and also have the option on my Etsy page for people to contact me about specific preferences.

I'd like to get on a regular sleep schedule again. This staying up most of the night thing really throws off my routine.

I guess that's it for now. I'm going to try and take some pics of my headcoverings so I'll have them to post on Etsy and I'll put them here, too.

1 comment:

Shari said...

Thank you for visiting my blog and leaving a comment. Last year, we tried raising chickens but it didn't turn out too well. We started with 25 hens. One chick got trampled, and one "runt" was getting picked on. I couldn't cull her. So, we put her in her own box in the kitchen. That turned into a long term smelly problem. When the foxes discovered our full grown hens, they ate 1/2 of them. We decided to give the rest away to a neighbor, since we didn't have what it takes to butcher them. It was fun, but a lot more work than I had expected. I saw that you have another blog that talks about your chronic pain. I can't imagine how frustrating and depressing it must be for you. It sounds like you have some hobbies - animals, sewing, and blogging - to try to give your mind some relief. I'll check back later to see if you posted again.