I am feeling grateful for flowers and yarn and mud and enough sunshine to get the hens laying again. And I am also especially thankful hot running water and (once we get these sugared up mosters to bed), bourbon, and good pho places that deliver.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Monday, February 13, 2012
brooding
Most of the information on broody hens out there is telling you how to get a hen to STOP being broody. We want some more chickens though, and we want to outsource the whole chicken multiplying operation to the chickens we currently have. Which means we need at least one of them to get broody.
Friends are happy to provide a short term rooster, but that won't help if we don't have a hen who wants to be a mama hen. I HAVE found a few suggestions- one said you should stick your hen on a stack of eggs, in a five gallon bucket, with wire on top, for 12 hours a day. This seems.. kind of mean? What kind of mother hen is that going to make?
Anyway, if anyone has any tips on convincing some freewheeling single ladies that they should allow the attentions of a fellow, be wooed, and subsequently embrace motherhood without pecking to death and eating their young... just... pass those on. We could use them.
Friends are happy to provide a short term rooster, but that won't help if we don't have a hen who wants to be a mama hen. I HAVE found a few suggestions- one said you should stick your hen on a stack of eggs, in a five gallon bucket, with wire on top, for 12 hours a day. This seems.. kind of mean? What kind of mother hen is that going to make?
Anyway, if anyone has any tips on convincing some freewheeling single ladies that they should allow the attentions of a fellow, be wooed, and subsequently embrace motherhood without pecking to death and eating their young... just... pass those on. We could use them.
Friday, February 10, 2012
rainy day crafting
Things have been a dark and low and overcast here - so gloomy and cool they're even selling ranunculus at Lowes. It's like torture for me, of course, since I desperately want a little English cottage garden, and I manage to resist temptation most of the year because that kind of flower can't get within 100 miles of central Texas with a bloom still intact. Except in February, apparently. When it looks so adorable and delicate and perfect and not like a single beam of mid June sunshine would kill it dead.
Anyway, since I can't have my cute little cool weather flowers, I've decided I need some thrummed mittens. Bizarrely I've grown up to be the kind of person who 1. - wakes up wanting something like that? and 2. - has everything in the house to make them. What's that? Some raw wool roving? Yeah I think I saw some in the back of the hall closet. 16 year old Kate doesn't know whether to be impressed or disgusted. Mostly disgusted I guess. With everything. Except Goldeneye and Kid A. And cheetos. We both still love cheetos.
Also consoling me for the lack of a delicate cutting garden in my future is my flannel quilt. I finished this a week or so ago, and it's 1000 times warmer and cozier than your average blanket. I backed it in an old worn-soft flannel sheet, and tied it with wool (which fuzzed down to little blue pom-poms in the wash). The fabric is Anna Maria Horner, from my birthday two years ago, and I can see a line of gray Februaries stretching out before me, when I grab my gorgeous bright warm quilt off the stack of blankets and feel somewhat better.
So. Mittens and blankets are my current strategy. Also paying the library $40 (FORTY DOLLARS) for the missing read-a-long CD from Sheep in a Jeep and being able to check out hip high stacks of books again. How are you coping? I've heard good things about meth- anyone trying that? My teeth are already pretty bad.
Monday, January 23, 2012
tunnel vision
I am full of great big hard things to write about and empty of blog-sized topics.
When I get energy to make something, I find it's -just- to make something, not to document it or share it.
And my parenting days. It seems like I'm holding them to close to me right now. Challenges, sleepless nights, a garage that looks like The Room of Requirement and is in desperate need of some Fiendfyre (and yes, Thank God, I had to look up how to spell that.)
We have all of that going on, we are still here. Making chore charts, doing spelling homework, changing diapers, gardening, feeding chickens, making pies and socks. Watching Sherlock and Downton Abbey.
I am just narrowing down these days. I have exactly -so- much energy for social engagement, and I can't spend it all in one place.
When I get energy to make something, I find it's -just- to make something, not to document it or share it.
And my parenting days. It seems like I'm holding them to close to me right now. Challenges, sleepless nights, a garage that looks like The Room of Requirement and is in desperate need of some Fiendfyre (and yes, Thank God, I had to look up how to spell that.)
We have all of that going on, we are still here. Making chore charts, doing spelling homework, changing diapers, gardening, feeding chickens, making pies and socks. Watching Sherlock and Downton Abbey.
I am just narrowing down these days. I have exactly -so- much energy for social engagement, and I can't spend it all in one place.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
irresolute
My resolutions this year.... let's see..
Last year I resolved to make socks AND I DID! Two pair! I gave one to my dad for Christmas and he could probably write a book on "Proper Reception of Knitwear Gifts" so great was his appreciation. He exclaimed at their beauty, immediately put them on, repeatedly commented on their fit, warmth and comfort, and took his shoes off at random intervals to make strangers look at his socks.
As a general rule, this is absolutely the way to make sure you get more socks. I'm yarn shopping for him right now.
It's also the way my dad does anything- full of gratitude and appreciation. Poor Chase is always caught off guard by how MUCH I need that. Like I want a fucking parade when I wash the dishes and take the kids to the park and fold laundry. But it's because my dad is SO APPRECIATIVE of everything anyone does for him. It's an amazing feeling to be loved by someone like that.
Chase's resolution loosely coincides with the new year, but he actually started exercising and calorie counting in December (seriously?! December?), and he's lost a lot of weight at this point. I guess I should try to sort of slow down the gain? So he doesn't leave me for some tattooed and be-Ugged undergrad? But these are my winter stores! Little House on the Prairie taught me that if I'm stuck in a blizzard and I can't find a haystack to burrow into, then I need to just keep walking as long as I can, and hope that my body can fuel itself with built up nutrients. How can I do that if I'm all thin and shit? Nope. This is self preservation.
Chase commented last week that he thought the BMI index needed to ask - "Do you get winded while making a quilt?"
His guess was that it would take my score up a point. What can I say? Haters gonna hate.
This years crafting resolutions - Finish my flannel tied quilt. Finish my white work whole cloth quilt. Make a map quilt. Make myself some mittens (like Laura Ingalls, however unlike Laura, when the Christmas train gets snowbound, I will not give my mittens to stupid blind Mary). I... um.. also resolve to go check some new books out of the library, so I'll stop rereading Little House. I might be getting too involved.
ALSO - I am going to try Fair Isle knitting this year. I will no longer let fear govern my knitting! FAIR ISLE OR BUST.
Let's see. What else? Probably work out a better system for monitoring baby play than "Loud or Not Loud," those being my current determining factors in acceptability.
Double up meals and freeze them, at least twice a week. This has been so helpful in the past and I don't know why I don't do it more often anyway.
Lobby to get my egalitarian church small group to read Mark Driscoll's new book. Come on guys. You know it would be a blast. For real though, try reading Pynchon again. Maybe if I stick with it, I'll get it eventually?
And that's all I've got at the moment. Other than the general- take better more loving and present care of the people (and animals) in my life. And let people take care of me.
Last year I resolved to make socks AND I DID! Two pair! I gave one to my dad for Christmas and he could probably write a book on "Proper Reception of Knitwear Gifts" so great was his appreciation. He exclaimed at their beauty, immediately put them on, repeatedly commented on their fit, warmth and comfort, and took his shoes off at random intervals to make strangers look at his socks.
As a general rule, this is absolutely the way to make sure you get more socks. I'm yarn shopping for him right now.
It's also the way my dad does anything- full of gratitude and appreciation. Poor Chase is always caught off guard by how MUCH I need that. Like I want a fucking parade when I wash the dishes and take the kids to the park and fold laundry. But it's because my dad is SO APPRECIATIVE of everything anyone does for him. It's an amazing feeling to be loved by someone like that.
Chase's resolution loosely coincides with the new year, but he actually started exercising and calorie counting in December (seriously?! December?), and he's lost a lot of weight at this point. I guess I should try to sort of slow down the gain? So he doesn't leave me for some tattooed and be-Ugged undergrad? But these are my winter stores! Little House on the Prairie taught me that if I'm stuck in a blizzard and I can't find a haystack to burrow into, then I need to just keep walking as long as I can, and hope that my body can fuel itself with built up nutrients. How can I do that if I'm all thin and shit? Nope. This is self preservation.
Chase commented last week that he thought the BMI index needed to ask - "Do you get winded while making a quilt?"
His guess was that it would take my score up a point. What can I say? Haters gonna hate.
This years crafting resolutions - Finish my flannel tied quilt. Finish my white work whole cloth quilt. Make a map quilt. Make myself some mittens (like Laura Ingalls, however unlike Laura, when the Christmas train gets snowbound, I will not give my mittens to stupid blind Mary). I... um.. also resolve to go check some new books out of the library, so I'll stop rereading Little House. I might be getting too involved.
ALSO - I am going to try Fair Isle knitting this year. I will no longer let fear govern my knitting! FAIR ISLE OR BUST.
Let's see. What else? Probably work out a better system for monitoring baby play than "Loud or Not Loud," those being my current determining factors in acceptability.
Double up meals and freeze them, at least twice a week. This has been so helpful in the past and I don't know why I don't do it more often anyway.
Lobby to get my egalitarian church small group to read Mark Driscoll's new book. Come on guys. You know it would be a blast. For real though, try reading Pynchon again. Maybe if I stick with it, I'll get it eventually?
And that's all I've got at the moment. Other than the general- take better more loving and present care of the people (and animals) in my life. And let people take care of me.
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