Sassy & Sweet Notes

Happy June!

I can't believe it's JUNE! Where did the past five months go?  Time goes so quickly... And speaking of time, I think it's about time for a sneak peek at a June Whipper Snapper cling set, don't you?

Beware of Bears.... they're out there!

I'm so excited for the June release!! My Whipper Snapper releases always happen mid-month... so stay tuned! One of the sets for June was inspired by annual camping trips I used to make to the national parks with my dear friend, Julie. We would have the best time, camping and hiking and getting into the parks.  This card was inspired by our trip to the Tetons and Yellowstone. We hiked into the back country, were in awe of the mountain views, and just really had a grand time. When we returned home from our trip, we learned about bear attacks on hikers in the area we'd been in. Yikes... we were lucky I suppose. So, when you're out and about in the wilderness, beware of bears. I'm serious. *grin*

I painted the scene with a water brush and re-inkers. I warmed up the edges of the paper, giving it a "toasted" look with various colors of brown Distress Ink by Ranger. I chose some fun new paper by K&Company called Actopus to Zelephant. Great new paper for summertime wilderness adventures!

Can't wait to share more of this month's fun release!

Subtle Differences

Here are the two chicks that were "surprise" hatches earlier this week. They are both part Red Frizzle Bantam (Little Buddy) and part Buff Silkie (don't know which of the three hens though). They do look a LOT alike, but there are slight differences.

The chick on the left was the first one to hatch. She (I'm optimistic!) has feathered legs and only four toes (normal) like her father, Little Buddy, but she has more of a head crown (poofy head feathers) like her mother, who is a Silkie.

The chick on the right was the second one to hatch. She (I'm optimistic!) also has feathered legs like her father, Little Buddy, but she also has the extra toe that is a characteristic of the Silkie breed (she got that from her mother). This chick doesn't have as much of a head crown though. Neither of them have the black skin that is a characteristic of the Silkie breed.

I think mixed breed chicks are so interesting ... especially when you KNOW what the two breeds are that created the mix!

We had an egg in the incubator pip (start to hatch) yesterday, but it didn't make it. I'm really disappointed, too... I really wanted that specific breed cross (Pippy a buff polish + Little Buddy a red frizzle bantam). Another chick pipped this morning, and is still working on hatching. It will be exciting to see what kind of cross it is! I'm waiting for four other chicks to pip today, too. Cross your fingers they do well!

Update: Another egg has pipped!! Come on BABIES!

A Designer's Challenge with Becky Rusher!

It's about TIME I was able to get this posted! We had a big storm come through last night, and just as I was sitting down to post this, our internet connection got zapped. I waited... nothing. I waited a bit longer... nothing. So, I went to bed with plans of posting first thing in the morning.

This morning, I staggered into my office (pre-coffee, even!) to write the post. No internet. An hour later. No internet. 9:30, 10:30, 11:30... no internet. Finally, it came time to drive Alan to the airport (he's visiting family for a couple days in Arizona). This evening when I got home, YEAH! Internet!!

So, here is my post, terribly LATE, but at least it's live!

A few weeks ago, I asked the wonderfully talented and SUPER nice stampin' friend Becky Rusher if she would be interested in a little designer's challenge. She said YES! I thought it would be fun to do a color challenge with Becky. She's a designer for Amuse, and how LUCKY they are to have her on their team! She always makes crazy-creative cards, and you've got to see her craftsmanship! You know how I love good craftsmanship!

The colors we used for the challenge are peach, a robin's egg blue, and a neutral. I chose cream as my neutral. I used images from my recently released Beach Bum set to create this card. Easy Peasy!

Now, GO! Check out Becky's challenge card... as a matter of fact, check out ALL of her creative cards while you're visiting her blog!

Thanks for the fun, Becky!! Sorry for the tardy post! *grin*

A Surprise Chick!

Last week I mentioned that I was testing out the incubator with some of the eggs from the farm girls (due to some crummy hatch results with some shipped eggs) to make sure things were working smoothly.

There are 22 eggs in the incubator.

6 have a hatch date of May 30.

12 have a hatch date of June 3.

The remaining 4 I'm unsure of their development. Either they have really dark shells that make it difficult to candle, or I'm questioning their development progress, thinking they may not be growing any longer.

It takes 21 days of incubation for a chick to come to full growth, and hatch. Granted, this can fluctuate by a couple of days depending on heat, but the incubator has been at a steady 100 (give or take a percentage of a degree) since I set the eggs.

It was crazy! Last night I thought I heard some peeping coming from the incubator. I thought, NAH!! Can't be! They're no where NEAR their hatch date! And all the eggs were still intact -- not a crack to be seen!

Well, I wasn't crazy after all! This morning, a cute little reddish-blonde colored chick hatched! And, it hatched from one of the eggs I set late, with a hatch date of June 3! I can only imagine that I picked up an egg that one of the hens had been sitting on, giving it a head start on growing, but really ... it was the STRANGEST thing going in to turn the eggs and finding a chick! And, what's even crazier...there's another egg that looks like it's about to hatch as well! I'm really not sure how all of this happened. I just know it did. Today was day 13 for the chick and it's egg to be in the incubator ... soooo crazy!

I candled the rest of the eggs, and they all look like they're right on target for their projected hatch day. Saturday should bring 6 chicks, and next Wednesday, a dozen more -- if things go well, that is! And as for the four eggs I'm not sure about ... well, we'll see how things turn out for them too!

Sunflowers

Alan and I stumbled upon a gem of a field last week, wouldn't you agree? I'll be headed back in a couple of days to see if the field is blooming even more! What a treat...

 

Here a chick, There a chick...

Early April I ordered some specialty breed chicken eggs, shipped as fertile eggs meant for hatching. I ordered eggs from two different breeders, and ordered three different breeds of birds. I prepared the incubator and got things ready for when the eggs arrived. One of the shipments arrived timely, and in great condition. The other shipment took a couple of days longer than planned, and the box looked like it was pretty roughly handled during shipping. I let the eggs sit for a day to "rest" after being shipped, and then set them in the incubator. 21 days passed. Out of the 21 eggs I incubated, only two hatched. I let the eggs stay in the incubator three extra days in case we had any stragglers, but no other chicks hatched.

I got one Salmon Faverolle (the yellow one in the food dish, and I suspect it's a cockerel) and one Golden Cuckoo Marans (the one on the right -- hopefully a pullet, but I'm not so sure). The little striped chick in the front center is from one of the eggs we hatched from Crazy Brown Hen's nest after she left the nest with her three little chicks.

This is the Golden Cuckoo Marans chick. What a face!

I'm happy with the two chicks, even though I really would have preferred two pullets, but let me tell you...these turned out to be a couple of expensive chicks. None of the eggs from the roughly handled box hatched, and several didn't even start to develop.

So, since I had such a low hatch rate with the specialty breed eggs, I decided that I needed to test out the incubator before attempting to hatch any more specialty breed chicks. To do this, I set a few eggs from the farm girls in the incubator.

The eggs have been in the incubator for two weeks, and they have 1 more week before they hatch. Tonight we candled (with a strong flashlight, not really a candle) some of the eggs to see how things were progressing... what do you know! We've got BABIES!

Candling eggs is something best done in a warm, dark room, and it needs to be done quickly so the eggs aren't out of the warm incubator too long. There was lots of movement, and we could even clearly make out legs and feet in several of the eggs. What fun! And just for you, I took photos!

We did all of this very quickly. We used a small bright flashlight, a shotgun shell shot glass (it's top is narrow!), and a macro lens on my camera which was mounted on my tripod. In normal light, these eggs look like any other egg. It's only by shining the bright light into the shell that you can see what's happening inside!

The flashlight is at the top of the egg. The large white area at the top of each egg is the air cell that stores oxygen for the chick. You can see the blood vessels around the membrane. The large swooping vein really moved around as the chick moved inside the shell.

You can see a leg and foot in this photo. This was a very active chick!

Another very active baby in this egg. The lighter colored spots you see are actually part of the egg's shell. They seem to be where the shell is just a bit thinner than other areas.

This was the first egg we candled. This chick put it's two feet on the side of the membrane several times. I was able to get this photo taken just as it started to pull it's feet back towards the middle of the egg.

Candling eggs is great fun! I only wish we could do it longer! You've got to be very careful not to jostle the egg, and too much time out of the incubator could be deadly to the baby. But what an amazing thing to be able to see the chicks move inside the shell!

Three Goat's Antics

We've recently been letting the goats into the larger barnyard area, and they think it's just so COOL that they can get closer to the house, closer to the driveway (they let us know if anyone pulls into the driveway), and they've got a HUGE round bale of hay to munch on! What more could a goat ask for (well, other than a left open gate, freshly groomed flowerbeds, and all the grain they can dream of...)

All of the wonderful things the goats have available to them, and BAD Boxcar Betty still insists on eating the grass on the OTHER side of the fence. And wouldn't you know it, she got stuck. It wasn't a dire straights 911 kind of stuck. More of a pathetic "oh man...I'm going to be in so much trouble if Farmer Lady sees me" kind of stuck.

As Betty's luck would have it, I did see her. And even better, I had my camera handy!

"...maybe I should go back through this square..."

Callio-Pea can't quite make it to the top of the hay on her own, so Alan helped her to the top.

She thought that was pretty alright! "I am the tallest goat NOW!"

Betty has yet to make it to the top of the hay. Not for lack of desire, though. Instead, she just eats. I'm pretty sure she wants to eat through the entire center of the bale. Betty loves hay.

Maggie is able to get to the top of the bale on her own. She is the smallest, and by far the most agile of the three. She found the top of the bale to be the best place to lounge. That pine cone next to her foot was her afternoon snack.

Maggie takes the top of the hay bale very seriously. She stands guard, making sure Callio-Pea and Betty don't make it to the top.

Meanwhile, Betty scratches an itch and contemplates her next deviant act.

A Dirty Dozen Challenge

Each month, Splitcoaststampers' Dirty Dozen past and present participate in a little challenge. This month, the challenge was all about H2O! We had to incorporate water into our theme, do a little watercoloring as a technique, and had a limit of two embellishments.

I chose to use the octopus image from my recently released set from Whipper Snapper called Swimmin' By. I stamped the image in Black StazOn ink and painted the image with a water brush and re-inkers. I added some stitching around the edges, punched out some balloons with my Martha Stewart balloon punch, and added to the 3D look by using thread for the balloon strings.

You really should see the other cards that the gals who participated made... a-MAZING! You can view them here.

Not sure what Splitcoaststampers is, and want to know what the Dirty Dozen is? Read all about Splitcoast here, and meet past and present Dirty Dozen members here!

How Many?

I actually have a card to share with you today, but first I must write this post. It's just too fun!

A little background: Crazy Dark Brown Hen went missing about a month or more ago. We were sad. Then one day, Alan saw her milling around with the other chickens. All was good. Then she went missing again...

We figured she'd made herself a little nest somewhere hidden from view and was sitting on who KNOWS how many eggs! Did you know it only takes 21 days for an egg to develop into a full-sized, ready to hatch chick?

One day, Alan saw her go into the TALL weeded area near our drain field, so at least we knew where she was. We just couldn't find her nest. It rained and rained and RAINED for several days and nights. I was sure that she would get rained out of her little hidden nest, or if she managed to stay on her nest, that the eggs would take in too much water and wouldn't hatch.

Then one day, Alan saw her out on the sidewalk all fluffed out like she was guarding baby chicks under her wings! Sure enough! She not only managed to survive her time sitting, but she also managed to hatch some babies even though we received several inches of rain during that time!

To keep her and her babies safe, we've been keeping them in a brooder until they were a bit bigger and could better tolerate being around the larger chickens. I started letting them out during the day so they can run around and be busy little chickens, but still keeping them in the brooder at night for safety.

Yesterday evening while I was out and about taking photos on the farm, I found Crazy Dark Brown Hen next to the garage getting her and her babies ready for bed. How they managed to get on top of a double stack of hay bales is beyond me. They're just so little, they must have really given it their all.

These photos aren't the greatest ... the sun was almost set, I was in the shadow of the garage, I had the camera set to allow as much light as possible for the shot, but that meant I had to have a really shallow depth of focus. So as much as it pains me, the photos are not as good as they could be. But they capture a moment in time here on the farm that was just too cute NOT to photograph. So please excuse the soft focus of the photos. It was the best I could do with the light and camera gear I had with me.

Can you guess how many chicks she has in this photo?

Crazy Dark Brown Hen, with HOW MANY babies?

Are you sure there's just one?

Do you think there are only two babies?

If you guessed THREE, you're RIGHT! Three little cuties! I'm pretty sure the one on the right and the black one are boys... *troublemakers* But jeez, they're cute!

The day that we saw her with her chicks for the first time, we also found her nest. She had been sitting on 14 eggs. She hatched three. Just in case there were others about ready to hatch, we gathered the eggs and put them under another hen who'd just started sitting in the chicken yard but didn't have any eggs to sit on. We don't like to let the hens in the chicken yard sit because the other hens are a danger to the babies if and when they hatch. But she was a good, immediately "warm" spot for the eggs.

A couple of days passed and I decided that since there weren't any other hatches, that I would toss out the eggs. I didn't want them to be a mess for the sitting hen. I lifted the sitting hen off the eggs and saw that three of them were in the process of hatching! Not wanting the babies to hatch with all the other hens around (it would be disasterous), I gathered up the eggs and took them in the house and put them in the incubator. Three chicks hatched that day, and three more hatched in the two days to follow. They're being raised by me in a brooder with a couple other specialty breed chicks I hatched in the incubator the week prior. *grin*

Cows Eat Grass

I went out in the pasture this evening to see what was happening. It wasn't too hot, and the evening light was just great! I had hoped to get wildflower photos, but I kept getting too much help from the donkeys. It's not easy taking photos of small things when you've got a donkey (or two) rubbing on your hiney!

So instead, I took photos of cows eating grass. That's as exciting as it got! Here are some photos documenting the fun.

Houdini eats grass.

Pixie Dust eats grass.

Queenie eats grass (for two).

Dixie Chick eats grass. She's Houdini's mom.

Dixie eats grass (for two - she's a WIDE load). She's Dixie Chick's mom, and Houdini's Grandma!

And if you're wondering, donkeys eat grass too! This is Fitz.

And this is Fitz coming over to say hello...

I must have looked lonely...

Nick came to see me too... Nick is a mess. She's always rolling around in the burrs.

And Houdini came to see me too...

Houdini likes to get REALLY close...

And beg for head rubs... that's my hand and his eye.

He loves head rubs... this is an action shot!

His cheek...

His nose...

His... well, I'm not sure. Another action shot!

The other side of his nose.

His forehead and eyelashes. Too bad I didn't get a shot of him licking my arm! He's a pest...

Then Houdini went off to play with Truman. They are buddies. I think Houdini is licking Truman's face (or telling him secrets).

Off to find more trouble...

Oh hey! Farmer Lady!

And then he came back to see me again.

Closer...

Closer...

...closer...

...almost there...

"Excuse me, Farmer Lady, do you have any cookies?"

He's pretty cute, that's for sure!

Introducing Swimmin' By & Beach Bum

It's that time again!

Time again for this month's cling set release with Whipper Snapper! And it's a FUN month, for sure! There are two sets being released this month, and I get to introduce you to five new Featured Designers!

I made this Wish You Were Here card using images from Beach Bum, one of the sets being released. I stamped the images on the main panel in black StazOn ink and painted them with a water brush and re-inkers. I stitched around the edge and added some brown ink with a sponge to give a slight aged look to the paper. I also added some twill, twine, and a button!

I created the background on the card using other images from the set, stamped in cranberry Adirondack ink by Ranger. Again, I sponged a bit of brown ink around the edge of the card just for fun.

The other set being released this month is Swimmin' By, a fun underwater themed set. Glub glub! Click on the images for a larger view...

What's even more exciting is that I get to introduce five new Whipper Snapper Featured Designers! Be sure to check out the galleries and blogs of the May/June Featured Designers as they showcase these sets! You're sure to be impressed!

The Who's Who of May/June Featured Designers:
Julie Campbell
SCS Gallery: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/go/juliemcampbell007
Blog: http://stampedinhisimage.blogspot.com

Joanne Basile
SCS Gallery: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/go/basilefamily
Blog: http://stampedbyhand.blogspot.com

Sandra MacLean
SCS Gallery: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/go/b-gin-r
Blog: http://paperfuntastics.blogspot.com

Shellie Daniel
SCS Gallery: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/go/shellied

Tab Robinson
SCS Gallery: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/go/tabbycrafts
Blog: http://tabbycraftdesigns.blogspot.com

and Me! Anna Wight
SCS Gallery: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/go/sweetmissdaisy
Blog: http://sweetmissdaisy.typepad.com

Just a reminder, you can see all of the projects current and past Featured Designers have uploaded to their SplitCoast galleries by viewing the Whipper Snapper Featured Designer Gallery. Have a look -- it's a great place to find all KINDS of great inspiration!

Have fun!

Chicken Portraits Part II (or is it Part III? ...IV?)

As promised, here are some more chicken portraits taken a couple of evenings ago while the chicks were out having fun in their new yard for the first time. They were all so TIRED by evening! All that flitting around chasing bugs and swinging off the tall grass really wore them out!

The always adorable Curly Que, coppin' a squat on the rim of the feed container...

One of the Golden Comet girls, coppin' a squat IN the feed container...

 
Tipsy Frizzywinkle, showing off her sylin' doo! Such charm!

Wiley is a little TINY rooster. He might stand as tall as the length of my hand. Maybe. I think he's a Dutch bantam, but I'm not sure. First I thought he was an Old English Game Bantam (OEGB), but I think he has the wrong color legs for an OEGB. I haven't taken much time to research him. I bought him out of a "mixed bantam" group, so that's why I'm not certain what he is. He'll be a looker though, that's for sure! His gold feathers are coming in really nicely!

This photo of Curly Que just makes me LAUGH! What a CUTE chicken butt!! *giggle*

Chicken Portraits...and a coop update!

...can you handle more chicken photos? ...I hope so...  *grin*

This is Chatty. She's considered to be an "Easter Egger" pullet. She is a cross between an Old English Game Bantam (her mama) and an Ameraucana (her papa). She was one of the chicks that hatched down in the barn in December.

Chatty just started laying cute little green-shelled eggs late last week. She's an adorable little gal, who LOVES to talk. She also loves to be held. And she was the best helper while we were working on the new chicken yard. She had to make sure every screw and every wire was in just the right spot. And she told us what she thought every step of the way.

Chatty used to live at the barn with her sisters and some of the older barn hens, but she got in the way of one of the older *bossier* hens and got a terrible 2" open wound on her neck. Thankfully I interact with the chickens daily and was able to get her isolated and treated right away. She has healed up nicely, but still has a large scar on the back of her neck that interrupts the growth pattern of her feathers.

This is Cheeks, one of Chatty's sisters who also hatched in December. She is also an "Easter Egger" pullet, but hasn't started laying eggs yet.

Cheeks also used to live at the barn, but like Chatty, she got in the way of one of the older *bossier* hens and ended up with a open wound on her head! She immediately joined Chatty in our ICU ward where they both got treated (and spoiled). She has healed up nicely, but has a scar that interrupts the feathers on her head.

See how she's holding her wings out from her body? That's one way a chicken keeps cool on hot days. Nothing better than a nice cool breeze under your wings when it's 90+ degrees out!

Because these two spent so much time away from the barn, and because they seemed to be the two that got picked on by the older hens, I've decided that they'll be integrated in with the babies at the new coop. I refer to them as the head injury duo.

We finally got phase 1 of the new chicken yard completed so yesterday the chicks had their first full day in their new yard, and didn't have to be supervised! It was a great time for photos -- I'll share some of the chick photos tomorrow!

Here's a photo of the coop as it is today. It doesn't look like we've made much progress, but we have! There are still lots of things left to do. Like frame up the small windows we added in the storage area of the building, cut in and finish the large window on the back wall of the coop, finish the chicken door (right now it's just a rough cut hole), continue working on the full chicken yard, paint the trim, and a whole slew of other odds and ends. See the red cord coming out of the window? That's operating the HUGE fan we have in the coop to keep the birds cool. I can't believe how HOT and HUMID it has been here. I don't think I could wish any harder for cool temps and rain!

The 10'x16' roof over their back yard took longer than planned, but I'm glad we did it. It provides great shade and will keep the ground behind the coop from getting too muddy and gross when we actually DO get rain. This kind of covered area really expands the living area of the birds, giving them just that much more space out of the weather. We'll be adding a 30'x30' run off the far side of the coop. The large 30'x30' yard will have two access doors. One from the existing 10'x16' back yard, and one from the front side of the coop. The original plans were to have a 30'x30' yard on both sides of the coop, along with the 10'x16' run at the back, so we'll see how that comes along.

The small wooden structure you can see in the yard is a brooder, which is typically used to house small chicks in the coop when they still need a heat lamp. The front of the brooder folds down, allowing the birds to go in and out as they wish. That is where the head injury duo have been living, enjoying the yard during the day yet having the security of a locked brooder at night. Now that the small chicks are able to access the yard, the head injury duo get to see the chicks but not physically interact with them just yet. They all need time to get used to each other before they're allowed to mingle together. After a week or so, they should all be used to each other and the head injury duo will be able to live with the others, having free access to the coop and yard. This is a nice, safe way to introduce birds to each other. And safe is always best...

Stay tuned for more!

Cluck cluck!

Happy Birthday, MOM!

Today is my Mom's birthday! Happy Birthday, Mom!
Hope you have a wonderful day full of good mail and goodies!

Much love,
Anna.

Alan says "Happy Birthday, Mrs. Wight!"

According to my Mom's brother John (thanks Uncle Jack!), the above photo was taken by my Mom's mom in 1954. It's of Mom's brother David with his paper route bag, and my Mom happy as can be sitting in the bag. Mom can give more details on the photo... chime in, Mom!

Meet Chainsaw!

Yes, Chainsaw is this little chick's name... odd, I know, but they can't all be NORMAL!

This little chick was the first one of our farm hatches this spring. It is part red frizzle cochin bantam (but it's feathers didn't frizzle) and part buff silkie, and it's feathers are so soft and smooth!

For the longest time we thought this might be a little rooster... then we thought maybe it's a hen... now, I'm not so sure about either one! It needs to get a little older, out of it's "adolescent" stage for me to be sure. So, for now, IT is just Chainsaw.

Chainsaw is one of my favorite chicks. It loves to cuddle. That might have something to do with me, though. When it was still in the house, before they moved out to the coop, Chainsaw was the one I would hold while Alan and I watched TV in the evening. Dancing with the Stars is a favorite around here... Chainsaw is rooting for Ty Murray. *grin*

Here are a couple photos of Chainsaw as a young chick, looking cute as EVER!

It's feathers have always been kind of "poofy" and stood out a bit from it's body.

It's wing feathers were (and still are) so much longer than it's body! Perfect for flitting around the chicken yard in search of bugs!

...Chainsaw might just have to come in and watch the Dancing with the Stars finale with us!...

One Old Goat

I'm hosting the High Hopes blog challenge this week, and the theme for the week is "One for the Boys". I chose the wonderful old "Norman Goat" image and made this sassy birthday card! I know just who I'm sending it to, too (even if it will be late)!

The image is stamped in black StazOn and painted with re-inkers. I added some sewing to the layers with my Sew-Mini, and a fun button/twill/twine accent.

I wanted a birthday cake for the background paper, and since I couldn't find one in my High Hopes stash, I used the cake from my Chicken's in the Kitchen set. Deee-lish!

Happy Monday!!

Happy Mother's Day!

Wishing a Happy Mother's Day to my Mom... and to all Moms!

Boxcar Betty ... AKA: BAD Betty!

Oh, little Boxcar Betty.

When you see Betty, your first thought is "oh what a cute little goat!" And she is. Her little frosted nose and ears... her smiling eyes... her wattles... what's not to love?

And then you get to know Betty. She's rotten most of the time. She has the worst habits. She charges the gate in anticipation for her meals. More often than not, she ends up spilling her share of grain on the ground because she is too busy being CRAZY to keep all four feet on the ground. She jumps on the goat house and off the goat house, and on the goat house and off. She spins in circles, overjoyed at the thought of SNACKS! She puts her muddy feet on me (ouch!), and pretty much makes a complete pest out of herself. Betty is a goat. Pure and simple. But she is pretty darn CUTE when she's not being such a mess.

Betty has other bad habits as well. She likes to ESCAPE through the gate (which makes bringing in food and water even more challenging).

The other farm animals agree, Betty is a BAD goat.

One of the neighbor's longhorns: "Oh, yea... little Betty. She's always tellin' us cows to pass the grass. Pass the grass? Sure, I'll pass the grass.... ahhhh.... I love passing grass."

Marble, Wishbone, and Admiral: "Betty's not THAT bad... she spends so much time getting in trouble, we get to eat her hay!"

Callio-Pea: *chomp chomp chomp* "I don't mind it so much when Betty's busy getting in trouble. I just eat hay!"

Callio-Pea: "I love hay... I love Betty's hay the most."

Maggie: "I can do tricks! Betty can't do tricks like I can! I can dance! Betty can't dance! And Callio-Pea can't dance! Only I can dance! But what's even more fun than dancing is tattling on Betty! And you know what!? Betty's being bad RIGHT NOW! Wanna see me dance? Cause I can dance!"

...Bad Betty gets an idea...

 

Betty: "I think I can..."

Betty: "This tree is so tall..."

Betty: "Ohhh, I'm so close..."

Betty: "Just a little closer...."

Betty: "Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! I knew I could do it!"

Betty: "I got it!"

Betty: "Wow, these leaves are really stuck!"

Betty: "I love leaves!"

Betty: "I might not be able to dance, but I can eat TREES!"

Wishbone: "Hey, uh, Betty... mind passing some of those leaves my way?"

Betty: "I sure hope Farmer Lady isn't looking... I'd be in so much trouble!"

As bad as Betty is (and she really is BAD), she's a stitch to have on the farm. She's always stiring up trouble, so things are NEVER dull down at the barn. Betty is a Pygmy goat. Though I'm doubtful that she's full-Pygmy.

If you thought Tipsy was cute...

I thought I'd introduce you to a couple more pullets...  Get a look at these cuties!

This is Curly Que, the little frizzled Golden Laced Polish pullet who hatched here on the farm April 1st. Her coloring is so much FUN! Polish chickens all have fancy feather plumes on their heads. Hers won't be as big and showy as a pure Polish hen's, but it'll still be sassy and fun! The next time I take photos of her, I need to make sure it's not in front of the coop! The wood siding of the coop is the same color as her feathers, and I think you miss out on some of their flair! I also need to make sure I have some assistance during her photo sessions. She refused to sit still long enough for me to get too many photos. She is a very busy, busy bird.

She's one WILD and CRAZY chick! (Pardon her little naked neck showing -- still working on growing in all those feathers!)

This little beauty is a Birchen Old English Bantam. She's TINY! That is a 2x2 perch she's sitting on, to give you an idea to scale. Isn't the lacing on her breast feathers pretty! What I love about these little Bantams is that they're such sweet little birds. The males can be little pistols, but the pullets are just as sweet as can be! She likes to sit on my shoulder when I'm in the coop. ...which is really great until she POOPS! *grin* I haven't decided on a name for her yet. It's gotta be something dainty... something beautiful...

And speaking of something dainty, this little thing hatched on Saturday! She's a Golden Cuckoo Marans and will grow up to have feathers that are a beautiful mix of gold, black and white. She will lay eggs that are a warm, dark brown.

And here she is about 12 hours after hatching... what a cutie, eh? A bit sleepy, but you would be too! She's standing with her stuffed chicken friend -- our tried and true surrogate momma/friend while we wait for other chicks to hatch. Thankfully, it wasn't long before she had a REAL chicken friend to share the brooder with. A little Salmon Faverolles hatched on Sunday -- pics of "her" later!

Welcome to the farm, girly girls!

One Sweet Dragon

Today is challenge day on the High Hopes blog, and you're invited to play along! This week, we're heat embossing! I decided to use this sweet little dragon image from High Hopes stamps. The image is water colored, and the spots on the dragon are embossed with clear embossing powder to make them shiny. I added lots of crazy sewing just for fun! *grin*

Our little pullet has a NAME!

My GOODNESS! There has been so MUCH participation in the naming of our little pullet! 267 (and counting) comments, many with SEVERAL name suggestions! And that doesn't include the numerous emails I received as well! You're all so fun for playing along! And you came up with fantastic names!!

Thank you, thank you for all the FUN suggestions! I can't tell you how many belly laughs we have had reading every SINGLE one of them, and taking them all into consideration. We even got plenty of good names for some of the other girls in the coop too! And for that, I'm EXTRA grateful!

I've decided on a name for our little gal. The name was suggested by Mary Ann Kelemen... I'm delighted to introduce Tipsy Frizzlewinkle!

There MANY other names that were so close... here are a few that *almost* got chosen...

Pwaula Pinecone (as said with a Boston accent) was a close second, suggested by Renee's kids. Renee made sure to mention the Boston accent for pronunciation, and went on to say that she and her kids live in Kansas...  Hahaa! What a crack up!!

Pinecone, for obvious reasons... Prickles, Phillis, June Bug, and one that topped the charts from my Dad was Edith Ann, like, one ringy dingy, two ringy dingy, Lilly Tomlin's strange operator from Laugh In. So MANY fun suggestions...it was a difficult decision!

I really can't tell you how much FUN this was for us! Thank you for playing along! And Tipsy thanks you too! Cheep cheep!

Mary Ann, drop me a note -- I've got a little something to send you for your winning suggestion!