Candled eggs in Bator

On April 20th, 7pm I placed 25 eggs from my hens and Brown Leghorn roo into my new incubator. I couldn't wait any longer, so I candled tonight, night 6. Out of 25 eggs, 21 are good and growing! Hooray! Looks like an easter hatch date, too. :)

ok, I was sooo excited that I forgot how to count. It's the weekend after easter.

4/7--We're down to 20 eggs, and mr. Roo is gone. I'm suspecting the neighbor's dogs, but can't prove it. They also got another of my gold hens, so I'm down to 6; 3 golds and 3 reds.

Yarn Challenge 2010

I stumbled across this at kristine-creativecrochet.blogspot.com, who found it on futuregirl.com. I have decided I should try this as well.

The idea is use up your stash, spend nothing on yarn, for the entire year. These ladies gave themselves small budgets for the year, in case there was something they couldn't finish the project without. A few dollars a month.

I have a great stash, so I'm hoping that this won't be too hard. And it helps that I picked up 6 or 7 balls of yarn this past November at the arts and crafts store. They were closing out their yarn assortment. They weren't moving much as their selection was very similar to the new yarn store. And last month I got 3 balls of crochet cotton for dishcloths. Then I found a website for suncatcher eyes, and picked up safety eyes for my little creations. So I should be all set for this challenge!

Wish me luck!

Dear Hubby's Leather work

Mikey has decided that leather work is his new found passion. Which is fine with me. This past weekend the boys were in Salt Lake skiing with my parents. I spent all day Saturday crocheting and Mikey played with his leather. It was perfect!

He traded this clutch purse for a pair of spurs. It was a kit, with all the materials included. He stamped and antiqued the leather. The lacing gave him a few headaches, but it came out nicely.

His first picture carving. I was elected to find a suitable rose picture and draw it out on paper so he could transfer it. He has since bought a very good book on the carving.

These are my shotgun chaps, his very first project. He designed the tops himself, and they have a beautiful basket stamp. Don't mind the pajamas!


These started as Armedas, which are full length, and then Brad changed his mind. He want chinks, but still with the Armeda fringe top. Everett is a wonderful model!

Everett picked out this flashy leather for his chinks. It's black with gold splash speckles. It's a 3-4 oz. leather, and we were all sure that it would rip up the first use, but they held up nicely through the pick-up man job and bull roping at a rodeo.

My saddle tree is here, and he's itchin to get started.

Bolt the Curly Horse

This is Bolt. A tank of a horse. And Curly through and through. His leg hair (feathers or feathering) is curly, and thick. His hooves are large and sturdy.

His body hair curls up in the winter and he slicks out to a wave in the summer. Someone that knows about horses, but has never seen a Curly, would say that he was very wormy, as worms and vitamin deficiencies can also cause curled up hair. But his is all over his body.

Look at that beautiful double mane. Thick and curly.

He does shed out his tail some in the summer. A lot of Curlies do. He doesn't shed out the whole thing like some, but it definitely thins out.

He's got the easy going, in your pocket attitude that is a hallmark of the breed. If you're out in the pasture doing something you can count on Bolt to come check it out, and probably hang around to "supervise".

Just wanted to show off my cool new Flour Sack tote. The front says Cal Rose Rice, Mikey's family's favorite brand of Japanese Rice. Master Photographer Paul took this photo, even "set" me up. "No, mommy, smile. Look over here. I can't see the bag . Hold it up better". He was so proud of himself!

It is soooo roomy inside!! Much more than I was expecting. And it has this great pocket. I had to try it out, so I grabbed my little list and my new bag and headed to the grocery store. Of course my little list grew, as they always do. "We could use some more of this. Ooohhh, I'm out of this!" etc. etc. etc. You know how it goes. And all my stuff fit! It was perfect.
And a bonus (for me, totally horsey obsessed) the pocket on the back says Alfalfa. And for some reason that also means horses. :)

This bag is sooo awesome that I've ordered another one from the great ladies at Tlc Inspirations on ArtFire.com. Mikey's Grandma Nakamura is going to love it!

Ok, I hope she loves it as much as I do. At least likes it a little bit. She can be hard to read, one tough little lady.

So go on over to ArtFire, check out Tlc Inspirations, and all the other great handmade things on there.

I have a "store" but I don't have anything in it yet. Soon I hope. I like that there are no listing fees, insertion fees, final sale fees. It's Free! But if you have a lot of thing to sell you can sign up for a pro account. Check it out.

This is my new haystack. Isn't it Beautiful? 7 ton from the Begoas in Battle Mountain. $140 a ton (delivered even!!), and because we got a whole load from him he cut us a deal, so we only paid $130/ton.

From now on at least $50 from every paycheck goes into savings, so that by the time we're down to one ton we can call Mr. Begoa and get a whole trailer load again.

The chickens are having a "hay day". Hehehe. Climbing up and down, checking out all the little nooks and crannies. Hiding spots for future eggs.

This is what I woke up to yesterday. Ugh!!

Monday was sooo nice. Cool, but not cold. Rainy off and on. A nice spring day.

I knew the snow was coming. It always does. It's the week or so of nice weather and flowers peeking up that get you ready for spring and itching to garden, and then *BAM* You have snow. Again. Welcome to Spring in Northern Nevada, I guess!

Gonna get stuck in your head!!

Spring Song (Tune: Are You Sleeping)

It is spring time

It is spring time

Winter's gone

Winter's gone

Summer time is coming

Summer time is coming

It won't be long

It won't be long

Thankx Jennifer...I'll be singing this for weeks!!

I'm dreaming of.....my hands in the dirt!

I have been dreaming of gardening all winter long. Doesn't help that we put the chickens in the garden for the winter....I go their daily and dream of planting. I just cleaned up the straw and chicken poo that were spread everywhere. It will all get tilled into the soil, soon I hope. I turned the soil in the carrot box/raised bed and it's soooo pretty! Thick and dark and not clay looking. I want to go plant it now!

I tend to get into trouble trying to rush plants into the ground. Our evening temps still get to the 30's and low 40's in the spring, and not a whole lot higher in the summer. It's no fun to be sunburned from the 95+ daytime temps and then shivering cold in the 45 degree nights. Joys of the High Desert. One of the only places you'll need shorts and a sweater in the same day!

So I crochet carrot and veggie toys inside. And I can areate my little patch of lawn. And try reseeding it again. This year it will definitely get a top dressing of soil prep or compost. I'll have to buy either of em, I used up what compost I had last year. The new pile isn't ready.

I have all my seeds, but I may pick up some more squash seeds. Oh, and hubby wants to plant horseradish. I do need to finalize the layout for the garden. I will be starting some winter sown boxes, and would really love to build some cold frames. I'm having trouble talking myself out of buying the $50 grow light set up down at the feed store...I already have the seed soil and the little jiffy pots. It would help my often short growing season. But so would some hoop houses. I'm going to try using milk jugs for cloches again. I picked up a few wall-o-water things, our neighbor up the road has great success with em. I'm hoping for tomatoes in time to ripen on the vine this year! And I did see some hot caps just around the corner from the grow light....

95% of the snow is gone in the yard, just the shaded places left. That are always last. Like behind the house and against the brown barn door. (We have two barns. The upper Red barn, the barn that was built on this property, and then the bottom Brown barn, which is really a bully barn thing.) I do suspect that we'll get a few more skiffs of snow, but it won't amount to much.

The tulips are starting to poke up through the soil. I really need to get a fence up this year so the chickens can't dig them up. Or munch off all the greens. Or peck out all the seeds I have planned to put in the beds. We just stacked 7 ton of hay on Sunday, so that ought to keep em busy for a while. I'm sure I'll be finding eggs there soon.

What a beautiful sight, all that hay! To me there's nothing better. Security. And it's good stuff, from a local hay farmer. We got 4 ton from them in October, perhaps a bit earlier. Ran out around the end of January. Stresses me out! We won't be loosing their number! This 7 ton should last us until August or so, unless we get cows.

Chicks and turkey poults should be here in a week or two. 32 birds total. I'm just as excited for their arrival as I am for real spring weather. I need to get all my stuff for brooders together. Unlike last year, when I was putting the brooder up as soon as I got home with chicks.