The Weekend

The last days of summer for us all.

5 Years

Five years ago today, we went out for drinks with friends, stayed out late, and woke up to the local newscaster having a meltdown and telling us to get out of town immediately. And we did.

And then spent the next 4 months in Houston.

There is a lot that has been said and is being said on the anniversary of Katrina. Our former neighbor Ken Foster wrote a piece for Salon.com about his experience in Post-Katrina New Orleans. While I don't entirely agree with his conclusions, some of the description is similar to stuff we observed in the neighborhood.

I don't really think we're eloquent enough to add anything meaningful except to say this: we will always hope for the best for New Orleans. There is much that is worth saving and being proud of in that city.

We left three years after the flood. We miss it a lot.

Meet the Ladies: Goldie the Golden Lace Wyandotte

Forgive the lame names. We're going with the things that stick in the mind of a two year old. Goldie is a Golden Lace Wyandotte.  She is a big beautiful lady. Though they have the reputation for being dominate, Mother Hen has her in check and she's content to be the buddy. 

As she's grown, her rose comb has gotten much more pronounced.  She's also the most enthusiastic drinker and gives us a happy chuckles when we change the water. 

We're pretty sure she's laying eggs. We collected four eggs yesterday. We're finally collecting enough to share with the neighbors just as the national egg supply is compromised. Keeping backyard chickens is not a realistic solution for everyone to the current food safety problem, but for now we're happy to have safe eggs from happy fluffy ladies. 

A Plan: Handmade Holidays

The school year starts off for us this week. Since we both work in academic environments, we're really tied in our thinking to the school year for planning and setting goals.  We've got a few new plans in the works that we'll be updating over the week.

I usually make several things as gifts for the holidays, but I'm hoping to ramp it up this year. I am always over ambitious, in everything really, but especially in knitting. I've laid out my super secret crafting schedule for the holidays. I have four major knitting projects, two smaller knitting projects and a large sewing project.

After knitting for 10 years, I'm finally getting to be a fast and decent knitter. I have made my brother a series of the most awful hats over the years. I had a real problem with gauge and accidentally knitted him a wide variety of rastafarian hats in the scratchiest wool possible. I'm starting to believe that knitting is very similar to playing a musical instrument. You're just really bad for the first few years, but your relatives tolerate your ridiculous attempts because they like you. The violinist in me is happy to have moved beyond the Suzuki stage of knitting.

I've started the most daunting knitting project by casting on 194 stitches and I've knitted 3 inches already. Any guesses on what it is? And it's not a terribly sized hat.

I've also finished knitting the body of a Halloween Buddy Bag for Mr. J. I just need to finish knitting the pumpkin pocket and sew in a lining and it's finished.  

Joey has also requested a "Bevo Texas" hat and I'm working on a pair of UT socks. I'm aiming to knock those out before Thanksgiving so we can wear them during the UT v A&M game.

{This Moment}

{this moment} from Soulemama- A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see. 

Wishing you a wonderful weekend!

 

 

Chick Lit: Kids Books about Chickens

The Chicken Book Selection

We've been slowly collecting children's books about chickens and eggs. Mr. Joe really loves the chickens and he's into any book that features his favorite feathered friends. Half Price Books is pretty awesome and I actually found a couple of these books on the $2 cart.

The Problem with Chickens - a beautiful, simple story that Joe loves.

Hedgie's Surprise - Lots of people love Jan Brett books. The illustrations are very detailed and we can sit and pick out extra things in the borders for a long time.

 Busy Chickens - A simple photo story about chickens. Several chickens look like our ladies and Joey likes to pick out the "matchers".

Henry and Kelly recently gave Joey Chicken Said, "Cluck!"He digs it.

We also read First the Egg, The Little Red Hen, Cock-a-doodle-whoo, and Chick.

Lots of teaching philosophies advocate regular rotation of books so that kids don't get bored and can make connections across a theme. While I don't pretend to be an expert in early childhood development, this idea makes a lot of sense to me. Right now, we have the chicken books, a selection of books about the ocean, and books about trains. More than one simple theme, but it works for us.

Backyard Nature

Every night we hear the chorus of cicada.  That's how we know it is a Texas Summer.

 

The racing lizards tell us that it is the near desert climate of San Antonio.

Meet the Ladies: Mother Hen the Barred Rock Hen

Mother Hen. She's one bad mother...shut your mouth! She a tough bird.

Mother Hen is a Barred Rock Hen. She should lay brown eggs. She is awesome. She's big and bold and has really tough looking feet.

Of all the chickens, she looks the most like a dinosaur to me. She's not as friendly as some of the other chickens but sticks close in the coop to keep an eye on us. She is the most fascinated by the camera and comes right up close to the lens. When we let the chickens free range (as we rarely do now that they have the Ritz Cooperton), she's the leader of the pack.
 
In other chicken news, another chicken is laying eggs! We collected a brown egg from the coop on Monday. It was a big egg. We're jazzed.

A New Haircut

After

Before

Jenny and I have always given Mr J his haircuts.  I am not sure if it is due to Jenny's home-made attitude or my frugality.  Here are the before and after shots from this mornings haircut.

Tip to Parents:  Withhold cartoons from your children and they will do anything for a little Sesame Street time.

The Robot Room

Robots from Mimmy

The Ham in his first night in the big boy bed

Done! Well, almost. I want to recover the glider and make a few more throw pillow covers. But close to done and it only took me a year...

I learned a lot about sewing by making things with increasing complexity. I can whip out a log cabin square in no time and I now understand most of the settings on my sewing machine.

Most importantly, the boy loves his room. We practiced going to bed several times throughout the evening. We posed for pictures. But he still wasn't so sure about the big boy bed after he figured out that he was really going to sleep in it. He brought both his doggie and his cat for company. We found him this morning curled up at the end of the bed like a cat.

{This Moment}

{this moment} from Soulemama- A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see. 

Wishing you a wonderful weekend!

We Made: Train Table

This is an old project, but Mr J has recently become interested in it again.

For Christmas, I made Mr J a train table that fits nicely into a nook in the living room.  The train table is made of left scraps of wood, some trim, and an old Ikea Trofast storage compartment.  The Trofast cubbies provide Mr J with extra train storage and is set at a perfect height for two year old play.  The opposite side of the table is supported by two legs that allow benches and chairs to slide beneath it and the top is completely removable so the entire table can be easily moved or stored.

I actually come up with the idea while searching a completely time-consuming website called Ikea-Hacker while searching for chicken coop ideas. If you live in a town with an Ikea, then you may want to skip the site because it will fill you with grand ideas of remodels and make you feel inferior for your lack of handiness up to this point.

Meet the Ladies: Boots the Partridge Cochin

A fancy lady indeed. Boots is a feather footed partridge cochin. She has distinctive feather "boots" that extend over her feet. She has beautiful pinstriped feathers with brown and black stripes.

Boots loves to roost. She loves to sit on top of the old coop inside the larger swanky coop. She also loves to eat leaves high up on trees. She stretches her neck way up and stands up tall.

She's a pretty fancy lady, but she's quite shy. She's less likely to come up and say hello to us than the other chickens. Her feathered feet aren't fully grown in yet, but she's a unique chicken and we're happy to have her.

We Made: A Sweater and a Quilt

On my list of tasks before my next birthday, I'd included knitting Mr. J a sweater and finishing a large quilt. Check and check.

When I got the estimate for the quilting lady to finish the quilting on the Robot quilt, it was over $250. Not really in the budget. So I just did it myself. It was not easy but obviously it was not impossible. The quilt is rather large and the space under the arm of my sewing machine is rather puny. I felt like I was trapped in a prolonged wrestling match with a blanket. But I prevailed with only a few missteps. I haven't gotten any good pictures of the quilt since there is a small boy always laying on it. And it now means that I sewed the whole darn thing myself.

Speaking of darning, I started Mr. J's sweater on the Canada trip. The body went really fast, but I made a bunch of modifications to the yoke to fit my child's big shoulders and giant head. The arms a little snug since my kid is built like a lineman, but I think they'll end up stretching out and being perfect.

Both of these projects were super fun and I'm very happy with how they turned out. I develop music crushes where I listen to an album with great intensity for a short amount of time (sometimes even one song on repeat for hours). As a result, certain albums become associated in my head with a very specific series of events.  So, Blind Pilot 3 Rounds and a Sound will forever equal the finishing of this quilt and the sweater. I'm still in the Blind Pilot obsession so we'll see what else it gets hooked onto.