Baby gate needed

I would have all four of them roaming around the house if I didn't have this baby gate. Thank goodness for good neighbors - they have a six yr. old and I called them to see if by chance they might have an old baby gate they didn't use any more, and bingo, there it was on my front step.

I need to take it apart and make a real hinged gate, but it works 98% of the time. Sometimes the trio will fly up on top of the gate - wing clipping time! - and sit between the gate and the hanging screen I have there. I've tried to get a real screen door, but the opening is very short of regular door height, and if it opens out, it would hit the eave rafters. I just tacked a fiberglass screen to the top of the opening - it helps with the bugs just fine, but is no match against chickens! LOL

More craft room stuff

I have been slaving away (ha, ha, ha) at moving stuff into the craft room again. My next 'thing' that comes into the room is another bookcase. It will go to the right of the small shelves and bulletin board in the picture below.



Right now there is another tote full of stuff sitting there, but I will just pull it out of the way into the middle of the floor and find a place for it later. I have a lot of those 'later' things to find places for! The tall bookcase you see here has some containers with stuff in them, the rest are empties that will soon be filled with fabric sorted by color. I'm sure I have more fabric than containers, but eventually it will all find a home!

The two light blue totes under the table below are full to overflowing with fleece - I didn't know I had THAT much fleece ... go figure. The purple one has some quilted fabric, like burlap and corduroy and other odds and ends.



This is under the other end of the table! The bottom green tote is filled with batting and by-the-yard felt, the top one is fabric that needs to be sorted and so is the fabric in the three clear containers.



Remember in this room I have a walk in closed too. It is also being filled up! The one bookcase at the end will be ribbons, cords, ruffles, embroidery thread and pattern books. You can see it is filling up fast.



The closet also holds my yarn, knitting and crochet books, needles & hooks. I'll be sure to take lots more pictures when it's done. Will it ever be done ... I think it will just be one project after another until there is more room and then I'll bring more stuff in! Most of the fabrics I have are from remnant racks. I do have yards of fabric that were bought for a specific project - long-forgotten now - but I can always come up with some new projects for it.

Hope you all have happy crafty days ahead.

Hugs

Changes and chickens

The Changes:

I canceled my website registration and hosting company - just too much money a month right now. I've transferred my domain name to a holding site and will transfer it to my final choice in 60 days and begin again.

I am NOT letting it die, there is just a wait for the time being. I should be able to write a whole bunch of content before I launch it again. Like I said, I SHOULD be able to ... and hopefully I will get off my butt and DO IT!!!

I wish there was some way to notify my visitors that I haven't dropped off the earth, but when you didn't own the site, it is still listed in a search, but you don't get the site when it's clicked on. I really wish I could have just changed the first page to read "site under construction", but I can't ... bummer!! If anyone knows how I could do something like that, PLEASE let me know.


The Chickens:

Well, I have three more chickens. These girls are young, not little chicks, but young pre-laying hens. These three girls were raised in a household where they came in the house, sat on laps and watched TV. Ummm, NOT HERE!!

They have made it up the back stairs, but I can hear the clucking and come shoo them back down the steps. None of them have made it inside, but I can't say that for Cinnamon! I don't know how many times I have been out front and here comes that DARN chicken, walked through the house to where she could hear my voice. Thankfully I haven't had any poo to clean up yet, but I know the day is coming ... Uggh!

Update: This evening I had one of the new girls come in. I caught her just inside the door where she left me a present! Thank goodness it was on the back porch linoleum. I think I invited this since I mentioned it in the paragraph above ... LOL


These are the three new girls, aren't they lovely?


And just to be fair here is Cinnamon the "bitchy chicken" that wanders in the house!



She is the only one that laid eggs, but I got one a day, which is enough for me since I'm by myself. I'm waiting for her to stop due to age, and I think Frazzle is past laying, but she is sooo cute!



When I got her she had tons of feathers missing from being picked and pecked on, but she has come a long way. She still looks frazzled because of her Araucana cheek feathers, but that is natural for this breed.


Here are the Three Chickenteers, they are never far from each other. Hopefully that will change as they get use to the yard and the other two. See the dark chicken in the above picture ... if you look real close you can see the second one reaching up to taste the cedar branch. Didn't like it.

I can't keep calling them Chickenteers, but I don't have any names for them yet. I really don't want anything like Tom, Dick and Harry or Larry, Moe or Curly Joe - they are girls and need fine names. I'll come up with something pretty - maybe I'll think of names while we are at deer camp the first week of October.


Here is my big tom cat Joey. He leaves all the girls alone even if he does catch other birds, but he will go into the pen and drink out of their water dish. He was about two feet from Frazzle when I took this picture - neither of them minded.

And my little, itty, bitty tomato garden is coming right along. The plants are still setting a few flowers - the days are nice, but the nights are getting down into the low 40's at night so I don't know how long this will last. The fruits on the plants are still green and it worries me that I might loose them. The hanging plants in the milk jugs, that I showed you in a previous post, just didn't work out. The water sat too close to the stem and they rotted and fell out. Won't do that again!


If you look real close, right in the center, there is a shaded tomato hiding in there! I didn't get very many tomatoes, but I know what I did wrong - planted them too close and not enough water! Now I know!!

Phew, this post ended up covering a lot of ground! I need to pace myself and write less per post but post more often.

Hugs

Last camping trip of the year, except hunting season

We pulled out of my driveway towing the boat, on Thursday morning around 10. Got to the campground at 10:30, got our favorite sites, and set up. It was just Candy and I and SueAnn, my dog. Dale, K and Chaps, their dog came up later after Dale was off work. The first thing after getting the 5th wheel level was to launch the boat.




Park the boat trailer and get the boat ready to go. It needed to be moved to the other side of the dock. In the process of trying to move it, the gear mechanism broke. Bummer. The boat was not able to be used except as a comfortable seat to fish from while tied to the dock.




Our camp is comfortable. The picnic table is under the canopy to the left, lawn chairs close to the fire pit, wood, and SueAnn staking her spot by the fire. The hammock has been hung and relaxation is under way.




Father and daughter trying to share the hammock for an afternoon nap. K couldn't stand it for long, she told Dad that his hands smelled of fish and that the rest of him wasn't too fresh either (this was the 2nd day without a shower); she bailed and Dad slept. We always know when he's asleep - he snores!!! LOL




And lots and lots of fishing got done. In four days there were probably 45-50 fish caught. Croppie in the mornings, perch during the day, and lots and lots of catfish in the evening starting around 7 and going until 10. There must have been about 25 lbs. of fish! The fish in this picture is a channel cat! The channel of the Klamath River is about 40 feet deep - this one must have come up a ways to get caught!




On the last morning, it was fishing in the fog! When I first looked out my window I could not see across the lake; by the time I got some shoes on and out the door it was burning off fast. Most of the catfish were caught the night before, but there were four croppie caught that morning. Dale cleaned 12 fish!




It was predicted to have 20% showers on both Saturday and Sunday, but none came. The sky was filled with dark clouds late in the afternoon and by sundown I thought there was no chance of getting a good picture. But I did capture this, with just a bright spot on the clouds lighting up. It was beautiful!



I think the most amazing part of this trip - a holiday weekend - was that the campground was only half full. And there are only 13 sites for the public! Nice, quiet, peaceful, restful and all other nice descriptive words you can think of.

It was, as it always is, a bit sad to leave. But we will be back there for hunting season. The BLM is keeping it open for hunters, which is nice.

Hugs to everyone and I hope your weekend was just as nice and relaxing.

What I have been doing ...

Nothing ... really, not much, but then again why do I always feel I'm busy? I read my favorite blogs and comment once in a while. Clean the chicken pen and gather my one egg a day. Water my 9 sq. ft. garden, and wait for the tomatoes to ripen! There are now 10!! Woohoo! Next year I will expand, I need more to eat than tomatoes.

Last Sunday, the 30th, Dale and Candy came down and we split wood, and split wood, and split wood! Somewhere between 2 1/2 to 3 cords. Filled the wood shed completely.



The shed is about 6' x 6' x 6' and we filled it - not one more piece would fit! And this is the trusty little machine that made it all possible. Along with Maggie the cat.



We are leaving again for a camping trip in two days. The last shebang of the summer. We don't usually go camping on holiday weekends, but we will try this again. We went on the 4th of July and it was wonderful, so we are taking a chance that it will be so again. I finally got my Senior Pass, so I get 50% off the camping fees - Woohoo! There is still hunting season to camp, but that is sort of a working trip as we need to fill the freezers with meat for the coming year. Still a lot of fun even if the weather is cold - please no snow this year!!!

Yesterday was a funny sort of day. I just lollygagged around cleaning the carport of bark from the splitting, watered the yards (3), and futzed around the house. I woke up at 3:45 this morning in a panic. We are leaving in two days and I'm futzing?? What is wrong with me?? I love camping, so why am I not getting stuff done?? I have no answers. But ... this morning it was move the truck and plug in the camper, do a couple of loads of laundry, take stock of what I need to get at the market for the trip, load some clothes and wipe out the dust from the last trip! All this before 8 a.m. I still need to go to town to shop, but that should be simple, as the camper is usually stocked with staples until after hunting camp when I empty it completely. I just need to get the goodies, and the beer! I've also planned out what yarn I will bring to make more dishcloths. I love knit dishcloths!

I've already set up the mister for the garden even though it is suppose to cool down for the weekend. Four days is just too long without water.

I got my electric bill today. I am on level pay and it will go down by $9 starting next month! Love it!!!

I hope you all have a fun and safe holiday weekend - see you when I get back! This time I will remember to bring my camera and USE it.

Hugs