Red and White

In October 2011 I saw a simple red and white quilt on my friend Jay's blog, Midwest Quilts. I don't know why it caught my imagination. All I can tell you is that I went and dug out all my ancient red scraps mostly from a 1999 Fat Quarter Bingo win and made my own version of it. With all the ancient and ugly red scraps used I was able to buy lots of lovely new reds with a clear conscience.

Click any image to embiggen (I hope)

I dug out some backing fabric, made some bias binding and sent it off to Lori to quilt.

Lori didn't like the backing and she hated the binding so it sat, unloved, on a shelf.

When I came back to South Dakota last year I brought some chicken fabric with me. I bought it in 1996 from JoAnns, mainly because of its name. Who could resist "Tossed Chickens"?. Those were the days when they had nice fabric, before they got so cheap in quality and expensive in price.

The chicken fabric met with Lori's approval. Phew!

The finished quilt measures approximately 60" x 72". It was quilted and bound by Lori. The large Hibiscus pantograph is by Diff'rent Strokes, and as you can see, the quilt is undergoing the nap test.

Done is a feel good moment and this is Number Two for 2013.

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My Little Helper & Friends

Bella is very attached, and needy. She was very ill when I found her but physically fine now. She positions herself strategically between both computers. She seems to like the fact that my mouse hand is constantly touching her.

Dottie is much more independent. Her main concern is that the food bowl is kept full. She is much older than the other two who are still kittens.

Boysie is a Jack Russell Terrier, also a rescuee, we adopted him and a cat when his previous owner had an ultimatum from her employer/landlord... He will be three years old May 1st. Sandy is exploring the vacuum cleaner box and Boysie would dearly like to get in there too but he is just too big, or the box is too small, or something. Bummer.

Bella and Dottie share a deep appreciation of quilts, especially when they are on a bed. This is a scientific nap test.

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Monday Design Wall

Having cleared all the works in not very much progress off my design wall, this is the current project to be finished before I even look at anything else! It is my Domiciles house quilt, pattern by Aardvark Quilts, available here with free S & H.

This pattern is not the tiny paper pieced houses that had such a following last year. These blocks are 6" finished, quite small enough, thank you

I am having difficulty keeping blocks up on the design wall.

Kitty Bella has developed a passion for the yellow glass head pins I use. As fast as I put blocks up she takes them down and runs off with the pins.

I had six rows arranged before she fixed it! Grrrr!

See lots more design walls at Patchwork Times.
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A Little Tree

My friend Lori loves Christmas decorations and every time we go shopping these days we spend an inordinate amount of time in the seasonal decorations aisle.

Personally I have been pretty "bah humbug" most of my life, despite selling large amounts of Christmas stuff for years. Maybe I am getting senile but this year I am not as bah humbug as usual.

First I fell for a reindeer with a sweetly goofy face.

Click on the little ones to see the big ones

Then about a week later I found a three foot tall pre-lighted tree at 50% off, AND a bunch of shatterproof or katten proof ornaments, also at deep discounts.

I get plenty of knee bend exercise now. In addition to picking up Boysie's toys I get to pick up and rehang the ornaments several times a day.

Dottie pretty much ignores the tree, at a year old she is far too grown up and dignified for such nonsense. Her idea of a good time when she is not eating is to stretch out in front of the infra red heater.

Sweet Bella decided after being sprayed once with water from the ironing spritz bottle that she wasn't that interested either. She was far too busy washing the water off herself to bother any more.

Sandy Paws the storm drain kitten is made of much tougher stuff. When I sprayed him the first time he climbed up the tree. That was interesting. Now he just shuts his eyes and hunkers down, never letting go of whatever ornament he has grabbed.

When he is not playing destructo cat he likes to sleep close to the tree. On my chair. Not on the lovely new soft blue geometric animal bed. I guess he thinks if I like it so much I should use it. Yah.


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Henyard Chronicles

Early this spring the rooster situation had gotten out of hand. I was being overrun with little chickens who were not promoting good relationship with my neighbors. I embarked upon a chicken roundup, catching the roosters and taking them up to one of our mountain horse pastures to make a living scratching the piles of manure and hopefully consuming the fly larvae.

Late in March, Bella, who had been missing for a while, showed up with 12 new chicks. Bantam hens are ridiculously good mothers, brooding enormous amounts of eggs. I can't say I was particularly thrilled with the addition to my flock at least half of whom would be roosters, but I was hopeful that this would be the last batch. Click images to enlarge.

About a week later, tragedy. Twelve little chicks peeping and no sign of Bella. My dear soft hearted husband helped me catch them and they were installed in a small water trough in my bath tub with a light for warmth. They would not have survived the night otherwise.

A few days later I found what was left of Bella who must have tried to defend a chick which had unwisely ventured too close to a Big Dog. Meanwhile I had a bathroom full of chickens.

Himself is very good about helping in an emergency. Not so good about scheduling time for my projects which require assistance. It is a man thing.

After a week or so the chickies were growing and of course the end product grows in equal volume. I don't care how many times you change the newspaper each day, they stink. They needed to move outside into a movable roofed pen. I did the nice reasonable wifey thing.
"Um, could you try to come home before dark to help me with the chick pen? I would really like to have my bathroom back." Smile. Things progressed to a whine, then cold shoulder. By this time they REALLY stunk and I was getting desperate. More days and then weeks passed.

Inspiration!

The ultimatum, "If you do not get home at a reasonable hour today and help me with the chicken pen, I will move them into your bathroom tomorrow morning." That very afternoon, eight and one half wood studs were converted into the Chicken Palace. Covered with chicken wire and a sheet of plywood on top it was lugged out onto what we like to call 'the lawn'. The very next morning the chicks moved into their new abode, and I started scrubbing.

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Henyard Chronicles

The hen project is not just about eggs, I get vast pleasure watching my chickens go about their daily business from my office window. In many ways it is more satisfactory than sitting in front of the tee-vee.

My henyard is a perfect microcosm. (def. #1) There are characters; bullies, braggarts, complainers, followers and leaders; there are noisy dramas, both tragedies and moments of communal joy.

One of my favorite hens was a little bantam cross I called Bella. She was one of a bunch I trapped for Click picture to enlarge an old friend, a neatnik who was being driven crazy by hordes of prolifically breeding and prodigiously (def. #1) pooping chickens. My suggestion that I trap and remove the roosters, imposing a halt to the breeding was rejected out of hand. It was the poop fouled up (sorry) that course of action. Over a period of weeks I trapped and brought home literally dozens of small hens. The roosters were dropped off after hours at the Humane Society.

Many of the hens flew out of the henyard just as soon as their wing feathers grew back and departed for points unknown. Bella was one of the ones who stayed, she was easy to recognize, among the serious eggers, the heavyweight black Australorps and Silver Lace Wyandottes. Each of Bella's feathers, delicately shaded from tan through salmon to brown had a perfect round white dot. The picture above is of her daughter who is not quite as pretty, but much tamer.

Bantam hens brood often on huge clutches of eggs and nature has good reason for this. It is not uncommon for the proud hen to hatch nine to twelve chicks and raise just one to adolescence, at which point she abandons them and enjoys a few weeks of freedom before starting on the next batch. Like people some are good protective mothers and others are more casual. Attaining adulthood is equally perilous for the young, especially if they are raised by one of the wilder hens. Chicks meet cats and dogs and quite often simply get lost.

Each day the small chickens greet the dawn with noisy enthusiasm from the olive tree in which they roost at night. The big hens prefer the hen house, which has a roof and proper roosts, no clinging to a branch on a wet night in a howling gale for them. Before it is properly light the little hens have flown over the fence to start their daily rounds, busily scratching up the neighbor's flower beds and patrolling the paddocks in search of seeds and delicious bugs. In the evening they return to eat before fluttering up into their tree, grumbling and squabbling as they decide where to roost for the night.

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