Yay, Hollyhocks!

Visited my mom the other day, her garden is marvelous and she gifted me with a TON of hollyhock stalks.

Red, pink, white, singles, doubles...after popping the seed pods off the stalks, I was left with this:

About half a shopping bagful! She says at the end of the season I can have more since she just cuts them down and tosses them. I plan of spreading them along the chain link fence in the front yard along with some ornamental sunflowers.

Also, this year's Chickam chicks have come into lay!

Eggs on top are a couple of Brahma/Giant Cochin eggs for comparison, the three on the bottom are from the chicks. The two small ones are about the size of pigeon eggs and are likely from the d'Uccles, don't know who laid the other one.

Lastly, more origami! A few Little Green Men, my very own creation.

For these guys I really like the oval eye put on sideways the best...more monster-y.

Also some diamonds, this fold incorporates two pieces of paper and for some reason I am among the many who had trouble finessing them together. It took some practice and discovery of a specific technique, but finally they worked, yay!

One of the local churches had it's huge annual rummage sale recently and I scored some vintage 60's-70's-80's wrapping paper which I'm now folding with. Most of it is OK but one is a very pretty pink and gold 60's paper which is a bit delicate and will only work for simple folds that don't take a bunch of handling. That rummage sale was amazing and I'm looking forward to it again next year!

A Most Wonderful Bug!

The babies got their first live grasshopper today. I found it while watering and after smacking it with a shovel two or three times (damned things are TOUGH) to stun it, I tossed it in with them. They all came running over...

...and stood on it. So I shooed them away a bit and flicked it around with a stick. They pecked excitedly...

...at the stick.

By now I'm scolding them and the big chickens in the run next to them are yowling loudly and going INSANE because they know EXACTLY what to do with a damned grasshopper. The grasshopper, no fool he, is being perfectly still.

Finally the hopper made the ultimate mistake and opened his wings, trying to fly...

Georgia thought he was yummy.

But he's still young, so he didn't call the girls. He ran off under the roosts and gobbled it down. Though grasshoppers being very spikey, I could tell it kinda stuck going down...

Painting Progresses...

Because of how we need to move around furniture and plan ahead on unpacking boxes, painting is progressing rather strangely. The last two days I've concentrated on half of the dining room.

Before, universal boring white.

Although NO shortage of painted-over staples, tape and nailheads thinly covered with spackle...just enough to make you think it's just a spackle glop and run the power sander over it, haha. When this happens the sandpaper tears and makes a truly horrific, loud, rattling noise that is guaranteed to make your heart stop. Even more fun if you are up on a ladder sanding over your head. Added to this kind of fun is having to scrape big glops of painted-over acoustical ceiling bits from the walls & molding. Plus the truly craptacular spackle job from two previous paint jobs--especially where some bonehead used rubberized caulk for spackle and thought it'd work--and you've got yourself a fine recipe for foaming at the mouth and moaning obscenities at the previous tenants.

So yeah, the first day is mostly scrape, repair and scrub. Then came painting, the same Americaunas-egg green for the walls as I used in the kitchen, and a light brown to match the kitchen countertops for the trim.

So far in this room I just did this corner and the wall around the sliding glass door, so that I can move a large cabinet into this corner and hang the sliding door blinds & curtains. The door to the garage will be done later.

Once this is done, I can unpack the boxes in the living room, which will clear THAT room for finishing IT'S paint job.

Meanwhile, it's 100 degrees and time to stop for the day. Oh, and we believe we have a skunk living under the house.

But that's a whole 'nuther adventure involving mothballs placed in Mason jars with holes popped in the lids, then stealthily and *carefully* rolled under the house like Molotov cocktails--all while poised to RUN.