Crows from the Coop

But "She's" just a baby.....We could be wrong, but Dovie was stretching her wings at the exact time we heard the crowing. She is so young so I was really surprised. The jury is still out because I've only heard this once. I'm holding out hope because I love this little bird and I'm not allowed to keep a rooster...I'm kind of not supposed to have any chickens but I told the town I'd fight them and never stop. I guess having chickens is a "hobby farm" and you have to have 5 acres. We have 2 1/2 and live in the middle of no where...really??? It's been a few years, so they aren't saying anything but I won't push it and get a rooster. That's just inviting trouble.

I'm holding out hope that the crowing was a fluke. Keep your fingers crossed for me. She's my only Buff Brahma and just look how beautiful she/he is. 


update...my son "thinks" she did it again today. I still don't want to believe it...since I didn't hear her..I'm not going to count it. She has gotten a tiny bit bitty with me though... (tears)

Our Lovelys

 Dove is a Buff Brahma and the sweetest little thing! We had 2 Lt. Brahmas for a while but they were crazy. Our favorite was a Lt. Brahma named Bunny and she was wonderful except she turned so mean on both sets of the babies and we thought she might actually kill someone. I really wanted to be able to put them all together and saw that if she was gone they get along without me having to keep the babies in the tractor or the rabbit hutch I use for "isolation". We gave her to our friend who had given us the babies. They love her so everyone is happy. She is a great pet and a great layer. I guess being in a new family brought the bossiness down a bit. The 2 little Lt. Brahmas were impossible to catch. We keep chickens as pets and they aren't good pets if you can't catch them! They were so flighty that the others would beat them up to try to calm them down. We see this with Reba who gets a bit crazy to get that coop window seat.

 Yorkie is a Barred Rock...named Yorkie because we thought she was the Dominique and that's an old American breed and we live in New York..my son choose the name..I went along with it. She is so soft, but not as soft as our Dominique Betty. OMG..Betty is the softest most cuddly girl. Beautiful..just beautiful! I never want to be without one. She is brave and friendly. Love:)

 This is one of our Faveorilles Lemonade inside the coop. I'm happy using the deep litter method. I use the DE and it never smells at all and they are happy all winter in upstate NY....it gets coooold up here.

 This is my baby. Lily is the one chicken I will have to take with us when we move next year. She is a Golden Laced Wyandotte and she is the only chick I've ever had that come running to me at this young age. We picked her because she jumped up on my husbands chair. She snuggles and I bring her inside to just sit with me. She is my favorite hen ever!

This is my daughters baby Lemonade. She has actually become a bit flighty now. She had sooo much love in the beginning but now she has lost a lot of that calmness. I think it might be that she is low in the pecking order and she does get chased a bit by the other hens. So sad, it seems like the best pets have a harder time dealing with the others.

NYC is AMAZING!

 I can see why people who live in NYC are said to live 3 years longer on average...the walking!

 I saw what I went to see.......look at dem boots ladies:)

This place was a few blocks from Central Park (the best place EVER) and we have never had such awesome pizza! Real olives...I've never had REAL olives on my pizza before. It was out of a coal oven and crispy..yumm.. You would think we live in a cave we were so excited. We even loved watching all the pigeons. They are such beautiful birds but they made me miss my chickens.

This trip was for my oldest son's 13th birthday. I can't believe I've been a Mom so long. I booked us bus tickets on MegaBus but I messed up so badly:( The web site was really confusing...really..our tickets ended up being for 9:25 PM not AM...So, we drove down to Suffern and took NJ Transit. It made things more confusing because we've never been on trains. We got used to the subway (though the fumes down there made me feel sick), and took the train back up without any problem once we knew what we were doing.

I have to say one very important thing about NYC... those people are SOOOOO nice! We kept having to ask for help, and a few times we weren't even asking..people just asked us if we needed help. They called us "family"..."after you Family" we heard getting off the train. Everything was served with a smile and a nice chat. I was so impressed. There was nothing scary at all about being there. Well, I didn't like the area down on Canal street at all. We took the subway down to see the site of the WTC and I wish we had stayed up by Times Square and Central Park. (don't buy ice cream down there..$24 and plastic tasting shells) You couldn't walk with all the handbags on blankets on the ground. They shouldn't be allowed to block so much of the walk. Speaking of that...I was very surprised by the complete lack of diversity of stuff for sale. I wanted to see some cool crafty stuff, but it was all the same..same scarves, same pictures, same sunglasses...the same at every table. And OMG wear a sign that says you don't want to ride a bike if you are near the entrances of Central Park. They were very nice about it, but we were asked like 100 times. My husband was getting a bit tired of that.

We enjoyed this trip so much that it won't be long before we go again...I'll just make sure I get the right MegaBus tickets! It's a bit of a trip for us...it takes us 1 1/2 hours to Albany and the bus trip is 3 hours. That will give me some knitting time though. I can't wait to go again.

Too busy with Chicks for Crafts

I hate to admit that I'm waiting for a rainy day so we can get back to crafting. It seems I ripped my rotatee cup or something like that...I meet with an orthopedic surgeon soon. That leaves me out of gardening for a bit. I must have done it throwing rocks. My girls are too captivated with the baby chicks to want to come inside. We only got 4 from a friend this year, but two of them are Faverolle chicks. I have never in my life seen such easy going holdable chicks!
Luna will put her "Lemonade" on her lap and she will just sit there nicely and go to sleep. I would half think a panic coma, but the little bird lets her catch her and gets carried around for hours. I have to tell them both to put the chicks down enough to let them eat. These are some very very well chicks!
The other two are a Dominique and a Barred Rock. Both are very sweet, but a bit flighty and nothing like the two Faverolle chicks. I think we are hooked.
Look how cute these chicks are!

Chocolate Dipped Pretzel Sticks-A Tasty Project

 There's not a lot I need to say about Chocolate Dipped Pretzel Sticks...except...yummmm.
We had cousins and friends come over for a craft party around Christmas time to make gifts for their Moms and just to play. All the girls really loved this...so did my sons. (My oldest son loved the clean up...ie..eating the left overs)

I melt my chocolate in my double boiler and pour it into separate cups for each dipper. I know you can melt it in the microwave, but I'm older and set in my ways. Besides, it might be in my head, but I really think it stays melted longer when you do it over a burner. That's my thought.

Of course you can get as fancy as you like. The younger girls really enjoyed just the process. The older girls really liked trying to make them look pretty. When the chocolate was still warm we rolled them in different kinds of sprinkles. We placed them on cookie sheets with wax paper on them. After they were all dry some of the older girls came in with melted white chocolate. I bought a bag of the Wilton that I used to LOVE to work with when I had time. They drizzled a bit of the white chocolate to make lines on them. We put them all in tall gift bags for them to take home at the end of the party.

I'll add more about hosting a kids craft party later. It's a great way to really get them creating:)
Aren't these girls adorable!

New Chicken Blog

 I've decided that I needed to separate my thoughts and I started a new blog only about my chickens...because if you know me, you know I love my chickens. I've only begun, but I have a couple of posts so far. One is my introduction and today was about coop safety. I think I'll be moving back over to this site, but I'm still learning what I'm doing...in case you can't tell:)

Here is The Yellow Hen House blog site:                  http://yellowhenhouse.wordpress.com


update.....ok, so if you've been there you know that I haven't been.... I mean well..really I do.

That picture is of my dear Bunny. She was so mean to the baby chicks I thought she might actually kill one. I gave her to a friend and they are all very happy together...I miss my Bunny:(

Just paper....just fun

Sometimes all you need is paper and paint...pink paper is even better when you have lots of little girls:)

I try not to get too fancy and just put basic supplies on the table and leave the rest to them. My girls love arts and craft so much that even when the cousins or friends come over it's the first thing they want to share.

I keep a container full of cut construction paper. The favorite is when I cut flower shapes. My 4 year old will play for half an hour just positioning the flower petals without any glue. My 2 year old is more interested in the glue stick still...but she likes putting the glue on the paper. That's a step in the right direction:)
The important thing to me is that the girls have craft time every day. Some days I need to keep it simple. I was able to clean the kitchen and prepare dinner before they ever got tired of playing with cut out shapes. Wonderful!

Paper Weaving

This is one of my favorite teaching crafts. I prepare the card stock by folding it in half and cutting from the center to 1" from the edge. My 2 year old likes to "help" with this, but my 3 year old enjoys doing this on her own once I get her started.

We play a lot with patterns lately. All math reasoning that we do at this age is through crafts or games. I actually prefer this method for most of the elementary grades while we transition to project learning. I cut strips length wise of construction paper so they are longer and easier to handle. I use the different colors so she can work with color patterns as well as the over / under pattern. I cut my pieces to 1", but the 1/2" pieces will let you work further with your pattern.

We trimmed up the edges and it's nice as it is for hanging or a background for a cut out picture. Today she wanted to make a basket for her stuffed dog. She rolled the weaved paper and I stapled it. Then she wanted a bottom on it. It would be easier to do this first, but I cut a circle out of the card stock and cut and pleated it so it would make a circle. I folded it so I had a glue surface and pushed it in from the bottom. It worked and now "Sally" the dog has a little basket to ride around in. Life is good.

Don't forget that this is a great opportunity to work on patterns and coordination...but mostly fun:)

Very simple wind sock

This little wind sock is fun to make and to watch blow in the breeze. To make it really last we used a strip of plastic mesh for the top. I cut and rolled a strip of mesh and simply stitched it with yarn and a blue yarn needle.
My kids glued the shapes cut out of craft foam onto the tube and choose all the ribbon from my bucket of scraps. (nice to use those bits we all have stashed around) We put the ribbons onto the mesh with a touch of glue so the kids could really feel like they did it all. I came in after them and used another ribbon on the inside to really secure them. This has been blowing in the wind a while and has really held up. 
I love having pretty things hanging in the trees. I think we need to try wind chimes next.

Felt flower and pom pom headbands

I wanted to make this so my daughter could really feel like she made it. I do the prep work of course for her...just cutting out flower petals from the felt.
I let her put a dab of glue between the petals and I help her center them:)  Rotate them so the petals fall between the one under it. We just used three circles of different sizes with petal cuts out of each one.
Once she placed them how she wanted them I came in with the needle, thread and button off of one of Daddy's shirts and secured them together.
She found the perfect place on the headband to place the flower and I stitched it on for her. She loves the headband "she made".
Sometimes with crafts for preschoolers it's more about letting them guide the work and fully giving them the sense of accomplishment. That feeling of "I made this" is just really really cool:)

We also made up some with pom poms we had left over. Sometimes we go on a pom pom making kick around here...just because we can.