Wordless Wednesday: A little Hummer and Clouds over Butte Mt. at Sunset

Chick talk

A lot of you know, from Facebook, that we have four new baby chicks. We lost one of the silver Wyandottes the first week but the others are doing really well.
They were so tiny and cute when we brought them home. Now they are "teenagers" and they are still cute, but a little ragged. All legs and pin feathers.

We let them out of there little cage, yesterday, to roam around the chicken house and see a bit of the bigger world around them. They were all looking outside at the big hens and being very curious about what was going on.

"Do you suppose that we will be out there, someday?"

 

"It looks awfully scary and unprotected." said one of them.

 "Do you think that we will be as big as them?"

"I don't know. Hey, what was that noise?"

The Plymouth Rock, outside, came up and poked at the chicken wire door, then walked away.

Miss Poloma (on the right) told them all not to be afraid. "We have to listen to Squeeky. She says that two of us will be as big as the hens out there and two of us will be like Squeeky. I think that I'm one of the big hens. I'm taller than all of you all ready."

"So, what I'm I going to be?" asked the beautiful little hen with the Cleopatra eyes, "I need to know, so I can practice my behavior. I want to be big and beautiful."

"Look at me. I've got the best feathers all ready. I've got the prettiest eyes."  said Cleo.

"Yeah.. will I bet you can't do this."

 Poloma reached back and pecked her side with her beak... "My neck is long enough to clean my feathers with my beak."
Then she looked Cleo right in the eye.  "It can only be one of us that is regular size because I heard Farmlady say that the Silver Wyandotte is one of the big hens. That means two of us are going to be big and two of us are going to be little. Guess we just have to wait and see."
Cleo walked away saying, "I heard her say that she doesn't want a rooster. I sure hope I'm not a rooster... because then she will have to change my name."

The discussion was over and their attention went back to a wood bee that had flown in through the chicken wire and was buzzing around above their heads.
That night when we put them back into their little cage and we picked up the eggs for the day, we found a  little egg in a nesting box. A Squeeky egg. These chicks have inspired her. She is ten years old and she has laid her third egg in two weeks. What a girl my little bantam is. She thinks that these chicks are hers and I think if we had brought home fertile eggs she would have sat on them until they hatched.

I love you little bird. You can be their "mommy" and maybe they will protect you from those old grouchy hens. You are my little survivor and you can be anything you want. Bantams rule!

"All right, (Ms. Farmlady), I'm ready for my close-up." ...

 Gazania species are grown for the brilliant colour of their flowerheads...

 which appear in the late spring and are often in bloom throughout the summer into autumn.

 They prefer a sunny position

.and are tolerant of dryness and poor soils.
The little pale yellow specks are pollen... flying everywhere. You don't even see this until you us a close up lens. It's in the air. It's what makes you cough and sneeze.
I love these colorful flowers. They are so hardy and this is the third year that they have returned, bigger and better than ever.
I used a Nikon 5100 camera with a 105mm macro lens for all of these images.

Wordless Wednesday (a day late) : Wildflower Walking

The Happiness of Rain

All night I listened.
The rain was outside the open window,
making small consistent sounds that, in this time of drought,
make me feel like one too long away from its soul mate.
In the morning the sky still weighed heavily with dark clouds...

...still filled with moisture... but moving away, across the landscape, to the East.

The Abe Lincoln rose seems to say, "Oh, I've been waiting for you, Rain."

The bush rose, hardier than its neighbor, concurs.

The newly planted Columbine is most happy without the sun and is pleased with the moist, cool morning.

The Basil, a sun lover, is even looking better for the night of rain.

The Kangaroo Paw was not as happy... but it's an Australian native and isn't really happy until Summer arrives.

My garden ladies survived the night. One always looks like I feel with rain on my face...

The other is younger and is never really please with the moisture and what it does to her hair.

She will learn...

Incredible Shrinking... Thread?

We had our monthly SCAT meeting at a member's old homestead yesterday.

It was a beautiful, sunny day in the country.


An old cat was lounging on the porch.

and voiced its annoyance at my invasion of its privacy.

The wonderful big dog wasn't sure about all of us walking around in his house.

But he took it in his stride. There was a little dog too, a dachshund, that was quite friendly and wanted to be a part of everything. I can't believe I didn't get a picture of her. She was a little social butterfly until she went and took a nap.
Our "learn something new" project was demonstrated by MJ. She showed us some "magic" thread.

This is amazing. You use it in the bobbin... or, if you like, both the spool and bobbin of your sewing machine. We tried both and it worked better with the thread in both the top and bottom of the fabric.

These are the directions.

We didn't use an iron. We used a heat gun and had to be very careful not to scorch the fabric. But, this thread is amazing. You can watch it shrink and pucker the fabric.
We tried other fabrics besides silk. It seems to work on just about any lightweight fabric.

We didn't try this on the tulle.. I know from experience that heat and tulle don't mix well and can burn easily.

It worked here...

I think you could take the labor out of smocking with this thread. It also adds texture to any fabric.

And you can definitely make a ruffled edge on anything with it.

A new skill that gave us all a new way of using fabric for our various art projects. Thanks MJ.

Big dog wasn't impressed.

"Mom. Are these folks leaving soon?"

"She's taking pictures of me again and I'm getting a little tired of it."
He was sweet about my camera and didn't get up and leave... but I knew it was time to stop aiming the camera at him when he gave me this sideways look.

We had a great time. It was good to get together with my friends and we left with a new skill.

You can buy the Incredible Shrinking Thread on Amazon but they're out of it right now. Equilter.com has it for $10.50 a spool... but if you join http://www.shoppersrule.com/pc/SP-INCSRTHRD/CSSWS/index.html you can buy it for $5.99 a spool. That's a good deal. I think I'm going to join.

Wordless Wednesday: "Look what I found."

To the River Again...

On Sunday, we took the dogs and drove up Electra Rd. to the P,G & E power plant. The day was warm and beautiful.

The turbines inside the build were humming and the water was rushing out into the river. 

We stayed out of the grasses and watched for snakes.

On the way back, Carl, our Corgi,  found the old staircase from a time when people lived here.

And a time when someone planted this huge Magnolia tree and piled rocks into a stone wall to separate the small community from the commotion and activity of the power plant.

The Electra Camp even included an indoor swimming pool. Imagine.  Must have been a nice place to live... along the river... in Spring.

Wildflowers abound... This plant and flower, called Euphorbia was everywhere.

 It would appear that this is a very invasive wildflower. It's beautiful but, like Genisteae or wild Broom, it spreads like wildfire.

We stopped at our favorite place along the river.

Where the bedrock called out to us ...

and Carl got his paws wet without getting in over his head.

And where Cutter could continue to be in his panic mode. He is getting better about being near this noisy river but he still seems afraid of any place that doesn't have walls and the familiar feeling of home.

Carl tried to set an example of how to investigate and still have a doggone good time.

I really think that Carl would go swimming if he was down here more often. He loves the water.

Of course my shadow and I were taking pictures the whole time.

And complaining about the debris that people leave in the river. We collected plastic water bottles, soft drink cans, assorted paper containers from fast food places, a Walmart price tag from a childs bathing suit and this tennis shoe. (Odd?) We left the shoe, hoping that someone would have the other one and might come looking for it.
And then there is this...

Three creatures in the middle of the river... small wooly mammoths... waiting patiently, to come alive when man leaves. Waiting on a rock island for a moment when they can reclaim the river from all the fighting and arguing that never seems to end. I'm sure that they simply wish that man would become extinct and leave the environment to them. This may happen sooner than later.

The wildflowers...

and the butterflies wait patiently....

Telling us, in their own quiet way, that we need to leave before we decide to save one more thing... before we try to save nature from itself.

And so we took our last look at the river.

And moved on.

“If we surrendered
to earth's intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.” ~Rainer maria Rilke~