Sorry about that.
Just felt like writing a goofy headline. :P
I felt like quite a
homesteader the other day. For lunch, I had a kale and spinach salad
grown in our backyard garden,
complete with chopped-up boiled egg contributed by our very
own backyard chickens. SUCCESS!
That means we're REAL homesteaders now, right?
Yaawwwn.
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| Happy Homesteader Kissing First Egg Produced By Chickens. |
About
those chickens...ahem. We really want to free-range them, but they
keep frustrating our plans to give them the happiest life possible
before we eat them in another year or so. (!) At one point, Andrew
had a moveable fencing system in place that really seemed to work
well. Every couple days he would move the sections of wire fencing to
give the chickens fresh “pasture” outside of their coop. They
loved it! Buuuut, they finally figured out what wings are for, and
decided the grass was greener on the other side of the wire. And now
we can't make
them stay put.
So now, they get to stay inside their coop all day unless we have
time to stay outside with
them and make sure they don't
transgress certain boundaries.
Not
what we originally envisioned!
 |
| Dean has always been fascinated by the chickens. :) |
 |
| Dean inspects the chicken coop. |
 |
| We have seven chickens altogether: Henry VIII and his six wives, Miss Minchin, Becky, Josie Pye, Nellie Olson, Mortola, and Mrs. Chick |
 |
| This is the free-range set-up we had for the chickens this summer. |
Once
the weather gets cold, the plan is to enclose the garden with wire
fencing, pile it up with straw to protect the chickens from
frostbite, and let the chickens roam there all winter to fertilize
the ground for a spring garden. Good plan, I think, except those darn
chickens still have wings.
We
could always clip their wings.
Whiiiiiiich
I don't know how to do.
Does
it hurt a chicken to clip its wings? Do you have to have specialized
equipment or something? (OK—I seriously doubt it.) How do
you clip a chicken's wings?
There's
always Google, I suppose.
So
we're not real
homesteaders quite yet…
The
other idea is the keep the coop in the middle of the enclosure so the
chickens won't get on top and fly over the fence from there (which is
what they've been doing). They can't fly very far, so if there is
enough space between the coop and the wire, they might not be able to
make it over the top. And I don't think they can fly to the top of
the fence – it's too light to make a stable perch. We've never seen
them perch on the wire.
Maybe
that's the answer.
Or
we could just booby-trap the top of the coop with something...
We'll
have to come up with a solution before the cold weather really hits,
though, so I imagine I'll be posting about this again sometime soon.
Any ideas? Any chicken experts out there who could offer some advice?
(I know there's at least one...)
Anyway.
Gracefully
changing subjects…
...to
quilting!
So,
here's what I learned making my first quilt a couple weeks ago:
1.
Cutting up strips of fabric on an ancient, buckled sewing mat leads
to inaccurate measurements
2.
Old sewing mats provide an excellent excuse for one's own inaccurate
measurements
3.
Inaccurate measurements lead to embarrassing mistakes, such as
squares not lining up properly, “invisible” stitches flaunting
themselves, and so on
4.
If you measure accurately, everything is a lot easier (at least
theoretically – can't say I know this by experience)
Have
you noticed a trend yet?
5.
Designing your own quilt is REALLY FUN and REALLY DIFFICULT
6.
Even when you arrange all the patterns and colors into perfect
geometric shapes, someone will still think the arrangement
off-balance
7.
If you know what you want the quilt to look like beforehand, don't
pick random fabrics from a) your mom's closet and b) the fabric store
8.
If you do a&b, you will have to give up your original idea
9.
If you give up your original idea, you may come up with something
better…
10.
...that ends up being not-so-better
Actually,
I like the baby quilt I ended up making. Not what I originally
envisioned, and my first idea was better, but it's still kind of fun
to just work with what you have and make it work.
 |
| The quilt was still in progress at this point, obviously. I can't find a picture of the finished quilt! |
11.
Even if you don't really know what you're doing, quilting is really
fun (especially if you have an awesome mom who can tell you how
to do the next step, and the next, and the next, etc.).
12.
Beauty has power to inspire you to create
In
Illinois, we visited a wonderful fabric store called Jackman's. They
had several quilts and other projects on display inside, some of
which I would love to replicate someday. I'm not fond of cutesy-country quilts, but
these quilts were beautiful, so beautiful. One quilt in
particular caught my eye:
I
would love to make this quilt in time for Christmas next year – I
may make that a New Year's resolution. We'll see! :)
Out
of curiosity, any quilters or crafters out there? Are you working on
any projects? Are there any projects you would like to work on?
