We renewed the salad bars in the chicken’s run by moving the frames, adding new seed (wheat, mung beans, and alfalfa), and topping off with potting soil. The hens “help” by cleaning up the seed that doesn’t make it down through the welded wire. They think it is great fun.
They also really enjoy scratching through the old, now exposed, salad bar areas.
I needed to shift the pots and water dishes in the future moss garden (big dreams), so I could trim down the scraggly grass. As I stacked I like the look, so deliberately arranged so I had a cascading fountain of sorts (very crude, but it is the beginning of an idea).
I left one dish on the ground because the cats like to drink from it. It turns out Mr Tom prefers a raised water dish.
So now the question is, was it really my idea…?
Within a day of each other, I was able to capture photos of a giant moth and a giant butterfly. I’ve digitally captured this kind of moth before, but never this butterfly. These are both as wide as my outstretched hand (about 7-8”). Neat.
I was out doing morning chicken chores, and I found two eggs. What? I admit that I have not been vigilant in checking the nest boxes since the hens stopped laying two months ago because last year their last egg was mid-September. Last year they did not start laying again until February. They do appear to have finished their fall molt, but I haven’t seen any of them do the squat (that says they are ready for a rooster).
I did do a float test, and both eggs sunk to the bottom of the container of water and laid flat, which means they are fresh eggs. So they didn’t stay undiscovered for long.
As I spin through as many different fibers as I can get my hands on, I am creating a scrapbook page for each to build a reference book. This is how I build my pages.
Materials:
I use a Cricut electric cutter to score and cut my cardstock, but similar preparations can be done by hand with a craft knife. I make a 1/4” drawer, three “spools” from coordinating cardstock, a drawer sleeve from heat-sealed laminate, and cut one sheet of cardstock with slots to hold each element. Paper brads will hold the swatches onto the page. The Cricut project is available here: https://design.cricut.com/landing/project-detail/630799ca21506d2c4716a4c2
Descriptions of the yarn can go on the index card, unspun fiber can go in the drawer, spun yarn of different plies go on the spools, and knit, crochet, nålbinding, or weaving swatches can be attached with paper brads to the open areas.
Critters and Craft 