Lovely Mondays!

Mondays used to be hard to take, but now it is our day 'off' and its wonderful.  We get all the cleaning, errands, shopping, catchingup stuff done on Mondays.  Tonight I went to a cookie exchange which is the greatest idea!  How else can you get a variety of cookies for your parties without cooking a variety?  You save time and money and you get the greatest new treats and recipes!

Also, in the happy new category - My niece Kaylah brought a flashlight over so we could 'candle' the incubated eggs and we have LIFE!  Our first chick is due on the 23rd and I'm sure much will go wrong, but we are getting very excited!  Of course, people don't usually hatch chicks in winter in New England so we will have to keep them indoors and under heat lamps, but it will be an exciting project to have fun with while we have time to deal with new chicks and we have a super set up in the basement.

My sister came over yesterday and helped me make more lotion bars - we made Lavender X which is a stronger lavender for women and natural honey with no scent for men.  I LOVE these bars.  I have the type of skin that suffers in the dry winter and I use the bars regularly all day.  I keep one large bar in my purse and I have a backup tin at work.  And I love the smell of lavender, so soothing.

John has fallen asleep with a book in front of the fire and I should put this crochet project away for the night and get some sleep myself.  Be well!

PS - Gift of the day is Lunastix.  Get the kids off the video games and into life!

A busy day at the store!

We are cleaning up and moving around items to prepare for the new building, John will be preparing the outside tomorrow!  This is really exciting and we've gotten some great new products to share!

We also got an egg incubator today to start attempting to hatch Harriet's eggs :)  I haven't been able to master the temp and humidity yet but I'm hoping to have it down by Friday when she gives me another egg.  Usually at 9:30am on the dot!

The goats were still in a fuss this morning but settled down by this evening.  This is VERY good because they were making all the birds go wild with their yelling and beating the fence!  We are thinking maybe Cricket will wait another year to be a momma, she just isn't interested at all.  We do have a good mate for her if she changes her mind.  We will have to wait and see.

Stay warm and be well!

Easy homemade FREE nesting beds for your Bantams!

This is our Bantam chicken house with my new FREE nesting boxes made from scraps in the basement.  Let me tell you how they are made:



First you have to search your basement or garage for a board, 9 screws and washers, a thin piece of wood like some left over trim, and 5 large plant containers - we used some from trees we planted.  If you are local to us, I would be happy to give you some of our left-overs.



This is the set up of how it works.  screw planters to board using washers.  screw thin trim to the front with washers.  This is to hold in the shavings and/or straw when the bird exits the box.

This is a picture of how I screwed the planter to the wood using an old washer.  I brought the planter right up to the board's edge.

Here you can see what it looks like.  I had the board on a stand but that is unneccessary for sucess, its just an add on.

Here is a front view.  You can see the middle container has holes.  This should have no effect.  I like this design because I can powerwash the beds when they get dirty - and THEY WILL!

I hope this is helpful to you!  Be well!

Introducing Ozzy & Harriet!

First off, I was told these birds can't fly.  What I should have been told is they can't fly FAR and the run ver VERY FAST!  Ozzy had me running around the stores parking lot and in the woods in the pouring rain this afternoon after I tried to move him to a dry pen!  I wish I had video and I'm also glad I didn't.  People driving by must have thought I was nuts!  They are very funny birds, I hope to get video tomorrow if its nice out.

Harriet has the pompom head and Ozzy has the mullet!