chicken progress
The little girls are growing. We’ve introduced them to the big girls, who seem mildly interested, all except George who will peck them severely on their tiny little heads if they stand too close to the edge of their fence. This is Rose here; both of the littles are of the same breed so will eventually look much like her.
Two or three weeks later they are so much bigger, we’ve upgraded the halfway house.
We let them out to explore. They stuck together, Things One and Two against the world, but once they gained the underside of the deck, they wanted to stay there.
I suspect the big girls are laying eggs under there too. The ingrates. They are not any happier with the hot weather than I am, and in the afternoon, once I let them out of the hot dusty chicken yard for the relative cool of the shaded lawn and deck, they seem disinclined to make the long trek back to their nestbox.
fugly things
Fugly beads. I made some: 
It’s not easy getting over my natural fear of fwooshing gas and flying molten bits of glass. And it’s already 99 degrees on my back patio before I even fire up the torch. Nevertheless, I will someday make a beautiful bead. I will train myself not to slap at mosquitos with a glowing glass gather in progress. I will know my sweet spot. I WILL CONTROL STRINGER. BWAHAHA!
Maybe.
I am also sewing fugly t-shirts from Goodwill finds. Cooking fugly meals that never quite work out the way they should. Experimenting in fugly ways with Envirotex. A couple at my church who had been collecting donations for a garage sale so very kindly held back a carton of cigar boxes for me. They have seen (and bought) the only decoupaged boxes I’ve produced for public consumption, so I’m flattered. I told them I’d donate these new ones to the church’s fall festival, which means I should probably start now. And since the only finish I care for these days is a two-part resin, I’ve been trying out different techniques. I think I’ve worked out a way to go, but I’ll post it in a few days with some pictures.
Unfortunately, T read the product sheet, and he has now announced we can’t have the stuff in the house. Dang it! Never let anybody read any of those things. One of these ingredients is banned in Europe, he says. Artists die young, I tell him. We’ll be breathing it in the house air for days, he says.
What I need, of course, is a properly ventilated glass-and-solvent studio. I can’t run a torch inside either. And it’s too dirty in the garage or on the patio, not to mention too hot and humid, for resin. What I need is to move somewhere cooler and have a little backyard studio. What I need is about $300K just lying around, extra.
Meanwhile, I am trying to finish up projects here and there so as to concentrate the next couple of days on refining the home environment, as the folks are coming for a visit. Maybe we can fool them into thinking we always live like this—so well dusted, so uncluttered, so little chicken shit all about the patio…
whoosh
That faint whooshing noise you heard this morning was the sound of my loan from China “economic stimulus payment” alighting in my bank account and being ripped from its perch before it even had a chance to breathe. It’s gone.
I spent almost half on tires. Tires, such a satisfying purchase. Four beautiful deeply-treaded strongly-scented slaves to my bidding. I can’t wrap my arms around four tires, though I might want to, because they’re so big. They’re heavy. They’re strong. They bear my weight.
The rest goes to a new pair of lenses for my eyeglasses. Not even new frames. How outrageous is that? For the price of an entire set of tires, plus a bit more, I can get two tiny things that scratch if I breathe wrong. They weigh practically nothing—in fact, the less they weigh, the more expensive they are. I went in for a routine eye examination the other day that turned into a two-and-a-half-hour carnival o’thrills. On the plus side, my favorite ophthalmologists have a really nifty new optic tomography station to play on. On the minus side, everything else. My new lens prescription includes a prism along with the vastly increased bifocal correction, which is adding to the cost although we don’t really know if it will take care of some new vision problems in my so-called aging eyes. (This is a little hard to take from the barely-30-something doc who has been deeming my eyes “aged” since I was 40 and she looked about 12.)
For the glaucoma, I’ll just go ahead and blame my parents right now. Thanks, guys!
But that’s not fair. And I should be careful; I’m a customer. I’m buying Dad’s old truck, can you believe it? I’m hardly a pickup-truck-kinda gal. Nevertheless, I must have it. Maybe someday I can buy new tires for it, too. That’d be a thrill, y’all.
peeps
Peeps hugely bigger than they were on Saturday:
At the moment I’m calling them Thing One and Thing Two. The boys have informed me that these are not proper names. I’ve informed them that they’d better hurry up with names, then, or One and Two will be stuck.
All they want to do is fly upward. This may be a problem, but I expect they will settle down eventually. I see a new chicken tractor in the future. Our present one could probably handle six, but for now I have E in captivity here. The lure of power tools is very great.
death by a thousand cuts
Another incredibly beautiful weekend in Hill Country, Texas. This is beyond all expectation; I thought we were through with gorgeousness about three weeks ago, and we’ve had some pretty icky hot humid days since then, but today a cold front moved through and we had north breeze and it’s perfect.
So, seizing the day, we went out and cut tree limbs. This place has been looking mighty neglected lately. I couldn’t go out to get the mail without ducking around branches. We attacked four of the worst spots. The actual cutting isn’t the hard part. Chain saw, power cord, ladders, cables…it’s so exciting, what’s not to like? And nobody fell or got electrocuted or lopped off a major body part. It’s the second part of the job that’s so horrendous–bundling all the trimmings with twine so the city will come haul them off. This is a horrible job. My arms and legs are covered in bleeding scratches, I pulled some neglected muscle in my back, and my hands are lacerated by jute. But for today we quit at noon, about 70% finished, and the rest can be done in small batches.
And what is so good as hard work accomplished and a Saturday afternoon left to enjoy? I sat outside in the shade with the girls pecking about the yard and Mojo helping out, just investigating Mojo-type things, and felt that all was right in the world and maybe we could indulge a desire T had expressed for more chickens–more eggs, really, but because we are insane, we took a little drive and now have two new pullets to add to the flock. Eventually.
They’re noisy and about three days past the ultimately cute stage, but pretty damn cute all the same. These are Rhode Island Reds, because our Rose has been the most faithful layer. Can’t expect eggs from these two until at least September so it’s not really helping our egg shortage, but…hey. Sometimes you’re just looking for an excuse.
