Latest Origami!

Lately I've been folding some flowers, snails, fish, butterflies, pigeons, bunnies and these, spirals.

I made large spirals from 3 inch paper and smaller ones from 2 inch paper.  Some of them have accents of colored wire wrapped around them along with different types of glass, metal or wood beads and embroidery cord for hanging.  This group is made from vintage wrapping paper, manga and a Susan Branch cookbook.

These three are made from an atlas, a comic book and a vintage science book that had all kinds of cool illustrations.

A collection of blue spirals made from wrapping paper.

Others made from books, atlas pages and the cookbook again.

Comic books, a dictionary, a kinda creepy kid's book with anthromorphic animals and the cool science book again.

And finally some Springtime-y ones made from more wrapping paper.

I'm hoping to scour some yard sales & thrift stores for more cool paper, it's a shame that usually some of my favorite paper turns out to be scraps from 30 years ago and needless to say is not to be found any more!

Eeeewww...

The latest in the weird eggs department...a lot of people call these 'Wind Eggs', other people cut right to the chase and call them 'Fart Eggs'.  I refer to them as 'Hiccups'.

When I first found it in the coop I wondered who in Hell had given the chickens a peanut.

As usual with these, when broken open it was comprised of thick albumen and not much else.

Looks kinda painful, though.  I've found tiny eggs before but never one quite this shape.

Oh Good, Another Project

Because we don't have enough to do, today we started attacking the front yard, which is a Dandelion Wonderland but also a huge eyesore.

Partly thanks to half-dead Treething, which we've been trying to vain to get to do something.  Grow.  Die.  Anything.  Instead it's been hovering in some zombie tree netherworld somewhere in between ever since we moved in.

Time's up, it's right outside the front windows so we see it every single time we look out and I'm sick of it--it had it's chance and has to go.  As near as I can figure it is--or was--some kind of acacia.  It would spit out a few half-hearted leaves and never flowered or did anything else remotely attractive.  It will be replaced by one of my little Arbor Day Foundation tree sticks, a River Birch.  Which--eventually--should be a very pretty multi-trunked tree.

The current square planter, made of ohsoattractive rotting wood, I hope to eventually replace with a knee-high rock planter capped with some flat-topped cement wall cap material, the wide kind you can sit on.  Put some of the ten million rocks on the property to good use.  I have some miniature daffodils that my mom gave me that will go around the river birch once it's in.

The lawn--or lack of it--is yet another project for another day.  We're thinking a good rototilling and reseeding will take care if it and the back 'lawn' (ahaha) as well.

Meanwhile, In Nevada...

My husband's video gaming was attended to by Pumpkin today.

'No, not the SPAS-12!  Go for the rocket launcher!'

Proper chicken supervision was maintained at all times.  Pumpkin does love her some TV.

Hatch B Is Here!

We got 4 chicks out of Hatch B, all of the other eggs upon breakout were infertile, so it was a 100% hatch of fertile eggs!

First is Jellybean:

Patches:

Jerk:

and finally, Pie:

We also brought Bug, who is broody, into the house so she could briefly see the chicks.  Bug grumped and growled and flared at Pumpkin who was the only one brave enough to approach her and immediately assumed the proper broody hen shape--spherical.

After a day or so to get strong enough, the new chicks were incorporated in with the older chicks and all are now getting along great.

Hatch C should be this Sunday the 13th...but as with the others, may well be early!  We may recruit Bug to be a mama for Hatch C & D, we'll see how it works out.  If we do, we'll have to partition off part of the brooder box since Bug would peck away the older chicks and we don't want anyone hurt.

Hatch B Has Begun!

One of the Hatch B eggs, supposed to hatch on Saturday, has pipped!  Egg #15 (just behind #12) is a bit early.  It hasn't started to unzip yet, but when it starts we'll move the camera from the brooder box to the eggs in the incubator.

If this batch follows tradition the hatch will be early, likely starting tonight or early tomorrow.

April Fools!

The chicks (reluctantly) got into the spirit of the day and channeled their inner ballerina.

Really?  This is what you people do for entertainment?  HUMANS SUCK.
BadMr.Frosty was *not* amused.

Naughty chick upskirt pics!

NotASandwich never did turn around and face the camera.

We also raised the camera a bit to eliminate the incessant pecking it was suffering.  The chicks pouted.

I think the real problem was that it was in their TV watching spot.

Meanwhile, Hatch D was started in the incubator today, due to hatch April 22nd!

That's Hatch D on the top shelf, Hatch B & C on the lower shelf.
Hatch D consists of 3 itty bitty bantam Cochin eggs, kindly given to us by Douglas High School, 4 Bear eggs and 4 Americaunas eggs.  Hatch B is due to hatch this Saturday!