Sunday Praise

Have a blessed Memorial Day Holiday.

What's Bloomin Wednesday

 No words about the blooms this week.  Somewhat sad.  We had a fox in the yard today and now have one injured hen and two missing.  Walked around until we found 3 hiding out, in hopes of finding the other two.  I'll check back in a couple of days.

Blessings!

Announcement

My youngest daughter has been a single mother for the last 6 years to these pretty little girls.

 My Granddaughters!!

I was off playing with them at the Rockford Dam Overlook while their Mommy and Daddy to be were getting their picture taken for invites to their upcoming wedding.  This is what the complete family will look like.  Of coarse this was taken by my camera and not as nice as the pictures will be for their announcements.

The wedding is taking place in our back yard the end of July.
Blessings!

Sunday Praise

Have a wonderful Sunday!  God is Good!

Sew Saturday

Sew....I participated in the Friday Night Sew In yesterday and this is what I got done.

Three Barbie doll nightgowns.

One of three robes.

The other two robes are about one half finished.  Hope everyone had a wonderful Friday Night Sew In.  I felt as though I got enough done even though I did not completely finish the project.  For those that participated in the last Friday Night Sew In you can see the finish of the bag I was working on here.  That is all I have for you tonight because it is finally gardening time and that is where I spent most of my day.  Blessings!

Friday Night Sew-In

I've been sewing this evening.

 I have some vintage barbie doll clothing patterns that I am using to make gifts for my granddaughters and a niece for this coming Christmas.  If you have been following me you know I have crocheted a set of cloths for each of them, but I am finding that is taking longer than I thought it would so I decided I need to add some sewn sets to the gifts also.

This is what I already had sewn so far on a gown and robe set I am making.  I will show you what I get done this evening sometime tomorrow.

These are two of the three little girls I am making these Barbie cloths for.  They love their dolls.
Sewing along with everyone else over at Handmade by Heidi.


Blessings!

Sunday Praise

Good Morning Friends.  Going on a short trip to the Win-some Women Retreat on Mackinaw Island Monday with my Mom-in-Love, best friend of many years and an Auntie.  We will have a great time and many blessing I am sure.  Check back in with all of you when I return.  Blessings!

Good Mail and Warm Weather

I was actually going to post this yesterday but since I was unable to do that here is my post a day later than it all happened.  Which from the comments and posts I am reading today it is a good thing because it would be gone today. 

Yesterday, I received some great mail.  First I pulled out the package that I ordered from my winning gift card over at Cozy Little House.  The gift card was for $25.00 at Fashionable Fabrics.

The Farmdale fabric, three on the right, is going to be used for an apron.  It will be a gift.  The pink/green fabric was a remnant that I have in mind for a bag for someone else.
Next I pulled out the June/July MaryJanesFarm magazine.

Love this magazine.  I think it must have been the only one I renewed this year because I have not received any others this month.   I pick up the mail at the end of the drive on my way home from work.  When I got in the house I decided it was diffidently warm, no hot, enough to make the first jar of Sun Tea.

After going out to check on the chickens, whom we have given free range this last week for the whole day in hopes of improving their health after this fight we have been having with the feather mites, the tea and the magazine was how I was planning on spending my evening.  Found a couple of the chickens were digging down in the dirt to cool off  and dirt bath.

These girls can dig a hole as deep as our Ladybug can and in just about as short of time too.  I was planning on linking up to Farmgirl Friday but I think all the bloggy problems may have put a damper on the Friday night party.  This just felt like a farm girl post.  Fabric for aprons, a farm girl magazine, ice tea and even a chicken, how much more farm girlish can you get.  Have a great weekend friends!  Blessings!
 

What's Bloomin Wednesday

I am going to try and post a picture of something different each Wednesday that is blooming on our property.  Crossing my fingers I can follow through with this.  Hope your having a great week.  Blessings!

Ladybug Keeping Watch

The Bug has a window that she spends a good part of her day at watching for squirrels and other critters that might pass by.  She sits on the back of one of our sofa's so I have to keep an old raggedy throw on that corner so she has a place to perch.  She just had a trip to the groomer last week and I caught her with the camera near by so I took a few pictures while she is still clean and presentable.

 The last two pictures are usually what I end up with because she does not really tolerate sitting for a picture.  But we love her.  A lot!  Blessings!

Sunday Praise

Have a wonderful Mothers Day!  Blessings!

Hen House Feather Frenzy

Happy Farm Girl Friday!  But not so Happy Hen House Friday.  From the outside, the hen house looks as spiffy as ever.  Hubs did such a wonderful job building it for me.

But it is what has been happening inside that has had myself and hubs so flustered this spring.  My largest hen Esther is a Black Jersey Giant.  She lost feathers this past winter on her neck and back.  Since April marked our first full year of raising chickens, I unknowingly  thought she was molting.  This is what she looks like right now.

You cannot see it but her back and the back of her legs are bare also.  After a lot of questions asked and a lot of reading we thought that we had one chicken that was snatching feathers from the others because within the last three weeks all but one of the girls was messing feathers and not growing any back.  We were told by the farm store to spray Blu-Kote on the irritated areas and seclude the bully from the other hens.

Poor thing, I was feeling very bad about this.  On top of it all she is the prettiest hen we had at the time but the only one we caught accosting the other hens.  We also cleaned out the hen house and started spraying all the other hens with the Blu-Kote which is medicated to help healing.  So we ended up with a lot of blue backed and blue bottomed hens.

 So a couple more days passed and I decided that Esther was just looking too terrible and was afraid I would wake up to a dead chicken so I started making phone calls again.  We live in the middle of farm country and do you know, there are no farm vets anywhere near us.  I was given a different phone number each time I made another call.  There was an office that would make calls for cows and horses but had nothing to do with chickens.  Finally I found a vet that was a couple of small towns over that deals in tropical birds and said he would see one of our chickens. This vet told me that our country is very low on farm vets and it is sad because we do not have anyone to take care of the animals that are being raised for the food on our table.  This was something I did not know and am sad to hear.  Hubs built a carrier and we packed Esther up and I drove her a half hour over to the vet.  She actually rode rather well and just kept up a little chatter most of the way.  Here is the shorter story.  Our hens have feather mites and they were biting off their own feathers.  Ouch.  So five days later we found ourselves again cleaning out the hen house and dusting it and also dusting all the hens.  We have to do this again in a few day time because if there were any mite eggs left on the feathers they hatch in ten days and we need to re-dust.  I was told these mites probably came from wild birds which we have a lot of.    The hen house is certainly going to be clean from getting swept, scrubbed and dusted for the third week in a row.

 Most of my hens are friendly but after all the spraying and dusting they are not wanting my attention.  When they see me coming they only check to see if I have something good for them to eat and if not they keep their distance.  Except Florence, she has always been my favorite and always comes over for a little petting or to get picked up.

Florence

 On a side note it has finally warmed up enough here in Michigan to pot up some flowers.  So far I have only picked up some Pansies and Violas from the greenhouse.

I split a flat of Pansies and Violas with my Mom in Love yesterday.  I love their happy faces.

I want to thank Tilly's Nest, whom I met at a previous Farmgirl Friday for all her help and suggestions on how to help with the hen house trauma.
Scoot over to Farmgirl and Farm Friends Fridays and check out all the fun posts that are being shared tonight.  Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!  Blessings!