Third Day

Here is what it looks like so far. Love it!

All for now. Tata.

The Coop

I am so excited! Mark and my brother Randy started on the coop Monday after shopping for materials on Sunday. That was the first of so far five trips to the lumber and hardware store. They are both such troopers. Monday started out pretty nice with some sun coming out in the morning when they started. Here is where the coop and run are going. It's under a grape arbor so it has a frame to start with for the run.

Here are Randy and Mark.

Here is Randy sitting on the floor of the coop. It's about hip high for easier cleaning.

Here is Mark with the front wall. Very exciting!

Ok. Here is the coop at the end of Tuesday. All four walls are up and the frame work for the nesting boxes. is on. The end will have a door that comes down so I can collect the eggs without going into the run. Hooray for husbands and brothers!

More to come! Tata for now.

Louise, Thelma, Mega Moon and Birthday Wishes

Happy Spring! I'm so glad it's here even if in name only. Actually it was a great day on Saturday and yesterday was ok. I went looking for a refrigerator box on Saturday to put the chicks in and found out that there is only one manufacturer that boxes their fridges up any more. All the other ones shrink wrap them. Who knew? The chicks are quickly becoming teenagers. But they are still fun to watch. Still in need of a coop. My brother is going to help us with that.

This is Louise. I'm hoping she doesn't turn out to be Lewis. She is bigger than the other chicks except for Wilma who would then be Wilmer. If they turn out to be roosters my friend Janet says they can come and live at her house. Thank you Janet.
I really hope that won't be the case because I have become quite attached to them all.

These next two pictures are of Thelma. She likes the camera and she was standing on my hand in this picture. I try to put my hand in the tote a couple times a day with food in my hand so they will get used to it. The smaller ones do better with getting on my hand.

Did anyone else get to see the mega moon when it was out? Our skies were overcast but we saw it in the evening and again the next morning.

A couple of weeks ago I turned fifty-five. We went out to dinner with some friends on Saturday night and my friend Shannon who I have known for thirty years gave me this card. Only someone who knows you very well could get away with this. It just cracked me up. It's great to have a sense of humour.

I hope you will all forgive me for sharing but I just had too. I hope everyone is enjoying spring and getting able to do all the Spring things your heart desires. Have a great week and tata for now.

Plant Exchange, Greenhouse and Peony Bed

I had a much longer post planned for today but I could only get these pictures to download.

I'm starting to plan what I'm going to have for my plant exchange Saturday May 7th. Last year I posted about the First Annual Plant Exchange and we had a great time. Many plants were exchanged and we had coffee, tea and home made scones and cookies. So this year I am dividing up some drumstick primroses and here is a close-up of one. I am also going to divide up some of my coral bells. I also have a plant from a friend last year that has reseeded and I am going to try to pot some of those up. I don't remember names very well. This is a close-up of the primrose and it's really pretty when its fully bloomed out. It will stand 8 to 10 inches tall. I really like them.




The last couple of days when the rain has been pelting down I have been out working in the greenhouse. I have these two chairs out there so if a friend comes over we can sit out there and have a cup of coffee or tea. It's so cozy to be in there with a friend. Please know you are always welcome.




Mark bought me this dragonfly thermometer last fall because I love dragonflies. He's so good to me! When I took this picture this afternoon it was 72 degrees in there and it was raining and chilly on the outside. Love it!




Last summer I bought a collection of 10 peonys from Costco and I planted all of them into this bed by my garden room. This is also were I planted a peony from the gal that I was stealing irises from. The story is further back in the blog.




I like the way the foliage looks as its coming out of the ground.





I hope to have some more pictures of the chicks on here tomorrow or the next day. Oops, I better not say when I'm going to do that. Then it will never happen. Anyway that's all for now. Tata.

I read this quote recently and decided to end today with it:

"Choices can change our lives profoundly. The choice to mend a broken relationship, to say "yes" to a difficult assignment, to lay aside some important work to play with a child, to visit some forgotten person-these small choices may affect our lives eternally."
Gloria Gaither

May I present......

Well, here they are. They are now about 12 days old and are so much bigger than this now. They are so much fun and I just love to go into the sun room and watch them. I will put some cracked corn in my hand and put it into the tote where they live for now and they will come and sit on my hand and eat and scratch. I love it! I am in love.

I have names now also. But only two have their permanent names. The two Americaunas are Thelma and Louise. They seem to be the most aggressive and the names just fit. There are two black Sexlinks, three black Australorps, two Rhode Island Reds and two Buff Orpingtons. I ended up with the three Australorps because there were only three of them left in the tank and I didn't want to leave one by itself. So those three will be the Dixie Chicks Shadow, Blossom and Primrose. (Shadow was the name Jacob my grandson wanted for one). The others will be Lucy and Ethel, Laverne and Shirley and Betty and Wilma. All fun names. I will keep you informed as to who gets what names.




Here is a picture of my grandson Landen holding a chick. He is in love also.




This is my granddaughter Hailey with a chick. She wants them to stay little forever.




Now that my computer is back in commission I hope to tell you all about the chicks. Mark and I were out coop shopping today. Still don't have a coop but will soon. So I close for now with promises of more later. Tata for now!

They're Here!!!

The babies arrived Thursday after I picked them up from Del's Farm Supply. I still am having difficulties with my computer so am not able to have any pictures up. But are they ever cute. And already growing! I can see them grow everyday. I can't wait to get pictures on here for you to see. And, yes, they have names at least most of them do. Oh, yeah there are eleven of them and I hope they are all hens. The gal at Del's they should all be pullets (hens) but once in a while a cockerel gets in there. We shall see. For now they are living in a large black tote that my friend Carla lent me and have a grow light on them to keep them warm. The dogs are absolutely mesmerized by them and go onto the sun porch as often as they can to look at them.

I worked outside for about two and a half hours today putting more prunings around the half moon garden. So I am more than half way done with the little fence. Its looking so cute.

Well, that's all for now. As soon as I get my computer back I will have some pictures of the chicks on here. Tata for now.

Technical Difficulties

Well, my computer is under the weather again. It was working beautifully and then it started acting up again and now it seems to be very ill. I can't have it looked at for a couple of days so I am writing this on my husbands computer which is very old and located in a different part of the house which is not where I go very often.

Just to let you know that I will be getting my chicks next week and am so excited! Hopefully my computer will be working and I will be able to put pictures on here and show everyone. I also went the the Northwest Flower and Garden Show last Friday and had a blast! Saturday morning was spent at a Feed My Starving Children food packing event at the Puyallup Fair grounds and that was great also.

So, just a little view of my world and what has been going on. Oh, and we've been having very cold weather. I will be back soon with pictures of all that's been going on. Tata for now.

Sunrise, Rainbows, Signs of Spring and Changes

There have been many things going on in my world lately and I won't go in to all of them but it's been a busy few weeks. These next four pictures were taken during this past period and I have wanted to get on here and post but haven't.

I had a very big surprise about two weeks ago when I was the winner of Sharon Lovejoy's latest giveaway and received two great books in the mail and some cards. What a treat. Thanks again, Sharon. You can find her on her blog which is listed on my sidebar. It's a great blog and she writes as fascinating on her blog as she does in her books.

This is a picture of the sunrise off our front porch and that is Mount Rainier.




We had a terrific rain storm one afternoon and were left with a beautiful double rainbow. A reminder of God's great promise to us.




A friend of mine had her husband bring me over some plum branches for a little fence around my half moon garden and I brought some in to see if I could get them to bloom and they did. What a treat!




Some of the first daffodils poking their heads out of the ground. Yah daffs! They are even taller than that now.




Our daughter and grandson who have been living with us have moved into an apartment close by and that has been a very big change. The house is very different. So much quieter. We still see each other all time and talk every day.

Our son Chris is moving in with us for awhile as he goes through some changes in his life. It will be nice to have him around.

Our schedules have gotten much busier at church and Mark is starting to work overtime again. We are planning on starting the chicken coop soon so the babies will hopefully be coming in March. I have ordered some chick starter for them.

I always say that I will be better about posting and then things come up and I am not able to so I will just say ta ta for now and hope to write again soon.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

Love to all my blogging friends. I am still here, just a few blips along the road.
I hope to get on here soon. Tata for now.

Silver Reef, Utah

This post was not supposed to post without some explanation of the pictures. So sorry about that. I don't know if I can do this or not but we'll see.


This was sunrise on Tuesday morning after I arrived at my sister's place where she was house sitting and animal sitting. The view was amazing.






This was the view out their kitchen window.




More sunrise.




Brenda is a rock hound and fossil collector. There are little stars in the rock which are cross sections of a sea fern or some kind of sea plant. Really cool. I hope you can see them.




More fossils.




This is the front of the house where we stayed.




This is River their dog. She was stand-offish at first but by the time I left on Thursday morning we were old friends.




Can you find the face in the cliff?




I made some new friends Larry and Anita. This quilt hangs in their living room. It's
like a stained glass window.




This photo of Taco is out of order. He belongs to the Peter and Ronda where we were staying. He was so fascinating. He loved to scream and have you scream back and imitate him. He was a lot of fun.




This was the view from Larry and Anita's dining room window. How would you ever want to leave?




Stained glass window in their guest bathroom.




This was their overhead hanging light in the entryway. It was four or five feet across. Stunning.




This is my sister Brenda pointing out their name on the direction board at the beginning of their neighborhood.




This was Ricky and Lucy. Aren't they sweet?




Another picture of Brenda on a hike around the reef in front of an old rock cabin.




Sunset on the last night I was there.




These are just a few of the pictures I was able to get on here. I may post more later. I had such a great time with my sister and meeting new friends. I hope I will get to go there again sometime. Anita if you read this consider yourself hugged.

Tata for now!