Rain, Turkey Poop and Fairy Dust

It's raining again.

It rained yesterday and we even had a couple of tornadoes in the valley. TORNADOES! Can you imagine? We never use to have tornadoes in this part of California and now... we have at least one a year. Very strange.  It's suppose to rain, off and on, all week. This is wonderful!

The hollyhock is growing like a weed and has huge leaves.. huge.
Even the roses are blooming like it's summertime. They love all this mild weather, with rain one day and sunshine the next.

And then there are the Turkey. They have arrived for the mating season. They hang around and do dances for the hens and leave feathers and poop everywhere. They are fun to watch... but messy.

This tom turkey is so frustrated he can hardly walk. He's courting one of our resident hens. I will tell you more about him later.

And... Squeeky has laid her third egg in two weeks after a hiatus of almost a year. I have no idea what's going on with her. I thought she had just gotten so old that she was done with giving us eggs but no... she laid one last week and two this morning. Go Squeeky!

Look at the difference. Squeeky's are so cute. Bantam cute. I hope this isn't her "last hurrah", 'cause I want her to live forever.

My friend, MJ, That drove with me to Nevada, came over Wednesday and got me started on a doll. She is helping me make a Elinor Peace Bailey fairy named Amethyst. I don't sew much but I'm having a lot of fun with this.

So far, I only have the legs sewn together and stuffed. I worked on the bodice and the bloomers yesterday. Tomorrow MJ is coming back over to help me finish the pieces and sew them together. I bribe her with lunch. She's so good at this... and patient with me.
I'm hoping to be good enough, when I finish, to take one of Ms. Bailey's classes at Fabric Chicks in Nevada and make another doll.
I went a little nuts at Walmart today buying some fun, glittery fabric and trims for her clothes.

It's all about sparkly outfits...

 and the beautiful trim.

Here is MJ's Amethyst doll before she got her beautiful clothes on. The face has to be drawn and colored in. That should be a learning curve for me. 

The gypsy doll behind Amethyst is Zelda. She is the doll that MJ made in a class at Fabric Chicks. Now she is working on the Fairy.
 There are lots of doll patterns to choose from. Take a look at all of these. I like Kay-La-Belle from Kalispell the best. (My good friend "D" works in Kalispell, MT.)
But, I may finish Amethyst and decide that this is way harder than I thought and not want to make another one. We will see. Right now, it's a lot of fun.
 I'm actually using my sewing machine and the Prospector is amazed. I don't use it much but here I am... buying thread for it, reading the instruction book and relearning what I've forgotten. It's working like a brand new machine and it's a 35 year old Kenmore zig-zag machine with drop in embroidery cams and it's still in great working order. I had it cleaned and oiled about 10 years ago and that's it. This definitely says something about Sears products.
I love Elinor Peace Bailey's crazy red hair and her wonderful 'tude. She is the founder of...
~The Assn. of People Who Play With Dolls~
Don't you just love that?