heylucy

my girls

I haven't taken pictures of the chickens for a few weeks, so while I'm home this morning waiting to go to the airport to pick up my sister-in-law, I braved the cold wind and took a few. The girls are already 9 weeks old. They've grown up so fast *sniff*. I was at the feed store, my new weekend hangout, recently, and they had just received a new batch of chicks. I was amazed by how tiny they were. They were so cute, it made me want to get some more. I'm going to resist the temptation for now. Our little coop is crowded as it is. I don't remember if I mentioned that seven of then have gone on to new homes. Three went to one co-worker and four went to another. I was relieved to find good homes for them with owners willing to provide the occasional photographic evidence that they are not being eaten, but are being kept as pets and for egg production. :o)

After a short period of typical teenage attitude, I'm happy to report that Fuzzy is once again my favorite girl. She ignored me for a few weeks, and I thought she had forgotten all the good times we shared watching TV and knitting. It turns out that it was just a phase, and she once again is the first at the door when I open it, and is quite happy to jump up on my knee or climb up on my shoulder. It looks like the last of her feathers are coming in on her back, under her wings, and she suddenly has this big tail:

The Buffs are still adorably cute and fluffy, but this one was a little nervous when I carried her over to this table and set her down. She wouldn't stand up:

How cute is she, though?

This little Barred Rock is the piglet of the group:

Besides Fuzzy, she is always the first at the door when I come visit. I'm pretty sure it's not my company she's after, but the treats that I always bring with me. She always gets more than her fair share, but she's one of the smaller chickens. She's also the most curious. She was pecking at the camera lens while I was trying to take pictures. I have a few shots of nothing more than blurry black and white feathers.

The other day I had some left over brown rice, so I thought I'd see if they'd like it. I held out a little, and they sniffed at it suspiciously, but sort of backed away from it. Meanwhile, as he usually does when I'm at the hen house door, Bear had sidled up and stuck his head in to see what was going on. He sniffed at the rice and then started eating it. That was all it took. Suddenly the chickens all wanted some rice, and I couldn't feed it to them fast enough. It was so funny to watch. The chickens all seem to like Bear, or at the least are very curious about him. He's also gotten to the point where I know that when I'm out there, he won't hurt the chickens. He sniffs at them and watches them, but he doesn't drool as much any more. I know it just about kills him that there are all these birds and he can't have them, but he also knows that I love them and he better not hurt them. I don't have any plans to let them free-range while he's out there, though. That would just be asking too much from him.

UPDATE: I almost forgot, one of my brother's songs will be featured on tonight's episode of Men in Trees. Please watch! We're pretty excited here at chez Lucy :o)

christmas cheer

I started my Christmas decorating this weekend, and made a little wreath:

I also got out my glitter and had a little fun. You can't see it in the picture very well, but I covered the little white bird on the wreath with clear glass glitter. The wreath itself is just sheet moss and reindeer moss and two berry picks from the craft store (on sale for 99 cents each!). I like the simplicity of it, although Mr. Lucy, who thinks bigger is always better, kept suggesting that I make it fluffier. Since this one is on the guest house, I guess I can make him a big, fat, fluffy one for the front door. It's all about compromise at our house.

I also made some joy garlands for the shop:

I made this green one, a blue one, a pink one and a clear one. They were all made using vintage book pages, which I think gives them a nice patina. They'll be just $10, but once they're gone, that's it. I'm not making any more. I'll be finding glitter for the next two months as it is after having these laying all over the place waiting for the glue to dry. They are fun to make, but there are a lot of steps involved, each of which involves a period of waiting for the glue to dry.

Speaking of the shop, a kind person, who's name starts with 'F' bought one of my little totebags, so this little package is on it's way across the pond:

I think I may get a small live tree this year, so we can plant it in the yard when we're done. I always feel so guilty tossing out a dead dry tree every year. Either that or I'll invest in an artificial tree.

curbly

This new site is right up my alley. It's all about DIY home stuff. Go join (you can use the link over there to the right-->) and add me to your friends. You can even enter your Happy Place into a contest for a $200 Ikea gift card. See you there!

what i did tuesday night

I'm a homebody. I like to plan my weekends so I leave the house as little as possible. But I do love music, and even homebodies have to have some fun out on the town once in a while. So I stayed out late on a school night this week:

I was paying for it the next day, but it was oh so worth it. My friend Naz invited me along. I'm really more of an indie/alternative rock kind of person, with a little blues and bluegrass thrown in. I thought he might be a little too 'pop' for me, but he just rocked the house. And see how we're on row 8? There was no row 8, we were on the floor, general admission, so you better believe we were right there against the railing. The yellow bit is my wristband. There was even a cover of The Pixie's 'Where is my Mind', which was totally awesome. Okay, enough geeking out for me for one post.

Etsy is back up and running, and all my new goodies are added to my shop, with more to come, hopefully in the next few weeks. So go do a little Christmas shopping. Even if you don't buy from me, handmade gifts are always good.

I also found out that Cary's song will be in the November 30th episode of Men in Trees. You'll probably be watching Grey's Anatomy, so just leave the TV on the same channel when it's over and watch it!

enjoyable busy-ness

I was watching Nigella last night. She is just the queen of adjectives, isn't she? Anyway, while she was busily creating a quadruple chocolate cake (quadruple! not double or triple, she goes all out and does quadruple, which is really how much chocolate any good chocolate cake should have, now that I think about it), she said something about how she loved this sort of enjoyable busy-ness. I love that phrase. That's how I spent my weekend, involved in all sorts of enjoyable busy-ness.

First of all, I wanted to try my hand at needle felting, so I made this little snowman:

I forgot to measure, but I think he's about 5 inches high from the tip of his hat to the base of the flower pot he's sitting in. He'll be going into my etsy shop when it's back up. They've been down all weekend, doing an upgrade.

Then I finished up the sock monkey that I've been working on for around 4 years. Well, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but I have been doing a little bit here and a little bit there for a very long time. I finally got some decent pictures this time:


She will also be in the shop. Do you love her shoes? Because I really love her shoes. I don't know that anyone will buy her, I put a lot of work into her, so she's a bit expensive, but well worth it, if I do say so myself.

Also for the shop, I made some little bags:

They're sort of Japanese craft book-esque, aren't they? They're about 10"x12", so just perfect for a sock knitting project or a couple libray books, or maybe to carry your lunch to work.

I even made one thing not for the shop, that yellow pillow behind the sock monkey! Since I'm working on this apartment therapy project in my clubhouse I'm finding all sorts of cute stuff that I forgot I had, including a feather pillow form and two yellow linen placemats. I just stitched them together with turquoise-y floss et voila! A pillow!

Since there is no chicken content today, I will just point you over to the right hand sidebar where you will find links to some of my favorite fellow crazy chicken ladies chicken keepers.

Ooh, and I almost forgot! One of my brother's songs will be in an episode of Men in Trees, I believe around Thanksgiving. I've never watched that show before, but everyone set your Tivo's, and I'll be doing the same!

And, in case you missed any of the links above, my shop is here. :o)

P.S. I have 499 comments on my blog, who wants to be number 500?

fall socks and some therapy for my apartment, er, guest house

I made a sock for Fall:

The other one is underway. Mr. Lucy was laughing at me for taking a picture of one sock, but I was excited and had to share. It's my second pair using the Embossed Leaves pattern, which I just like so much. The yarn is Lorna's Laces and the colorway is called Aslan. I may have bought this yarn just because of the name. I'm not much of a beige/brown person, but this colorway is actually quite pretty. I wonder if I can rake my rug?

Last weekend I decided to join up with the Apartment Therapy Fall Cure, and cure my guest house of all its ills. I made a lot of progress. I got rid of four big 3-drawer plastic bins. They were ugly and they took up a lot of space and they weren't working. As I was clearing out the drawers I kept coming accross fabric that I had totally forgotten about. Now it's all arranged on shelves and I can easily see what I've got. I'm such a sucker for organizing gadgets, but just because something is made to get you organized, it doesn't mean it actually will. I've thinned out my fabric quite a lot, but there is still so much! I'd better start using it. Here is a progress picture:

The main thing I want to get done, after I get all the junk cleaned out, is to paint everything white, and then I'm going to hang some curtains in front of the bookcases to finish everything off nicely. I'm sure I'll be showing more progress photos as I get things done. The TV may also get a new table and I have some other ideas percolating as well.

I'll leave you with some current chicken portraits:

That's Fuzzy in the first picture, and then one of the Silver-Laced Wyandottes and one of the Rhode Island Reds. They are looking like little chickens now, I've started calling them chucks at Yvonne's suggestion in the comments a couple entries back. I think that's a perfect name for them and it makes me smile. They are starting to make little clucking noises, although they still peep a lot. They like going outside and scratching around and they love the lettuce and cabbage leaves that I bring them for treats. So, the chucks seem to be thriving :o)