Shopping Week Pt.1

Not a good thing for my wallet but I've visited a couple interesting shops and found some neat stuff! I'll split it up into a few posts considering that I'm supposed to be getting ready for the Summer Solstice Festival tomorrow!
Last weekend I spent a day with the gals in Raleigh. We went to Father and Son Antiques, my new favorite store. This place has all kinds of stuff from furniture to clothes to dishes and toys. I found a vintage cafeteria tray and a loteria game. I must have been in a southwest kind of mood after hearing about my friends' trip to Sante Fe. They were so sweet to bring me the beautiful pot holder (Chickens and coffee in one item? Awesome!), some hologram Jesus stickers, and chocolate in the shape of a pepper! (Chocolate not shown in the picture because, of course, we ate it!)
Hope everyone enjoys the longest day of sunshine tomorrow! If you're in the area, be sure to come out to the Summer Solstice Festival!!!

Ode to Spring

There's something about this time of year that makes me want to live more simply.

That makes me want to wear holey jeans and rubber garden shoes as a daily uniform.

That makes me want to hang the clothes on the line intead of throwing them in the dryer.


That makes me want to plant more vegetables (peas, onions and garlic).

That makes me want to play in the dirt (Beulah taking a dust bath),


look at the flowers (didn't intend on getting azaleas at the Farmer's Market this morning but have you ever seen such a deep red on one?),



and feed the birds (the house finch Ella's babies in the vine on our front porch - I'm really going to miss them when they all fly away).

That makes me want to spend more time in the kitchen making homemade cookies, pizza, and coleslaw (thanks to our friends who surprised us with a present of cabbage!).

How has spring fever got you?

Welcome Spring!

I think it kind of snuck up on me this year. I always know that January and February are going to be rough months for me so this year I told myself to stay busy and don't think about it. And then I look up and wow! We've been very busy getting ready for a new season. The warm season veggies have been planted under the grow light in the dining room. We pulled up the last of the fall carrots in order to plant our peas, onions and garlic. We also have broccoli, potatoes, and brussel sprouts planted. We hit the farmer's market this morning and I bought a few artichoke plants to try (again). In fact, that was the only green I bought. In a room full of vegetables I pick out baklava, baked goods (I think I'm in love with a French woman) and dog treats for my doggie-nephew. I'm pleased. I've yet to hit that spring garden panic that usually comes every year when I have fifty pages of a to-do list. I'm actually feeling pretty zen even though it's gardening season, my first craft show is next Friday, and I'm getting the spring cleaning itch for the inside of the house. Let's hope it lasts!
In chicken news, the girls got a new run built for them a few weeks ago so now they have their own yard. We kind of hated to do it but they were destroying the garden and leaving the whole yard a mess, not mention a couple of escape attempts (well, one succeeded, right?). We spend a lot of time sitting outdoors when it's warm and figure they can have field trips outside of the run on those days. The silkie has decided that she wants to sit. We weren't planning on any chicks until we went to the feed and seed today and saw the babies. Now we're thinking about it. It just might be easier than trying to trick her off her nest!

Sweetie's Grand Adventure

So here's the more detailed story if any of you care to know it. I thought that after Sweetie's appearance in the newspaper and her being mentioned on a couple of radio shows this morning, that I should elaborate a bit.
Friday afternoon we were in the house when we heard Spooky squawking. That's what she does, so much in fact that we didn't look outside to see if something was going on. That's how she got her name, you know, because she gets upset if a leaf falls too close to her. So that was mistake number two (the first being that we had not clipped their wings since the chicks hatched- this is a learning process remember). The next mistake was not going out until after dark to close up the chicken coop. Adam locked them up and didn't think to count how many were in there (why would he?). So Saturday morning Adam went out to open the coop (We let them out everyday to wander around the yard. Keeping their wings clipped keeps them from hopping the fence but that idea rarely occurs to them anyway, being perfectly happy being close to their food, water, and shelter. At night, they put themselves to bed back in the coop with no help from us.). Only three chickens came out. When you consider the place of the chicken on the food chain you might understand how we assumed the worst from the start. We were upset, but for the most part, we took it like farmers. We said it was a shame since she was the pretty one, the sweet one, and then we went on with our day (I have spent the last couple days trying to explain to my city-centric friends, who assume our relationship with our chickens is like our relationship to our cats, why we're not devastated and trying to explain to my more rural friends why a missing chicken would make a good human interest story).
Sunday morning I got a message on Facebook that Sweetie was seen the morning before by our neighbors a block away. We quickly got dressed and drove around the neighborhood hoping to spot her. We came home and I posted a message on our neighborhood list serve. A couple hours later our neighbors called and said they could hear her squawking but couldn't see her. Again, we drove around and walked around with no luck. Another neighbor called later that day to tell me that another neighbor reported a couple of hens in her backyard on Saturday, one matching the description of Sweetie. So apparently she had made friends. Maybe there's a roving gang of chickens and Sweetie has just fallen in with the wrong crowd.
Yesterday, Dioni Wise from the Greensboro New and Record called Adam after seeing our message on the list serve. That is how Sweetie got into the paper. And apparently into at least two radio show's morning conversations.
So here we are rolling our eyes, muttering "chickens" under our breath, which has sort of become a joke around here. We're hoping she's alive and well and that somebody will see her and call us! And for my part, I'm hoping that this is Sweetie's 15 minutes of fame and not mine. I'd hate my legacy to be that I lost a chicken!