Welcome to the world, little fuzzy-bottoms...

If you let me, I could get really carried away showing you my 15 new Silkie babies... this is not the final count either because Sadie is now sitting on the 6 eggs she laid on top of poor Clementine while she was busy brooding.

*Sigh*....

I love fuzzy bottoms....

I have a fever, and the only cure is more fuzzy bottoms.

Contrary to what you might think, I haven't been spending ALL my waking hours peeping into the box of peeps in my sewing room... well, most hours, but not all of them. I have managed to do something productive, like.... buy more patterns on eBay! *Squeeeal*

I bought two new chicken patterns- one is for an appliqued apron and the other is for a cute little shelf-sitter. I'm in the process of cutting out the patterns right now, so they're spread out all over my cutting table. I also organized my fabric stash and cleaned off my sewing table.... now that the garden is finished and mowing is slowing down (just a little) I plan on spending the hottest part of the day inside with my sewing machine.

I also made some more grape jelly for Hubby this weekend using the most incredibly easy (and yummy) recipe from my Ball canning book....

Quick Grape Jelly

3 cups of bottled unsweetened grape juice
1 package powdered pectin
4 1/2 cups of sugar (I actually thought this was a bit much the first time I made it, so I cut it back to 3 cups this time and it was still plenty sweet enough!)

Combine juice and powdered pectin in a large saucepot. Bring to a boil over high heat. Add sugar, stirring until dissolved and return to a boil. Boil hard one minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and skim foam if necessary. Ladle into hot jars, leaving ¼-inch headspace. Adjust caps and process 10 minutes in a boiling water canner.

This recipe makes about 4 half-pints, so I doubled the ingredients and came out with nearly 5 pints. Hubby was very happy!

Have a happy Monday, everybody!

Busy days winding down

Where has the summer gone? It's hard to believe it's already August- and even harder to believe I haven't posted in 2 weeks! Time has really gotten away from me lately... but the garden is officially finished and I have pickles and preserves in the pantry and sweet corn in the freezer. Our pumpkins look to be right on time, despite all the rain we've had. (And are still having.) Hopefully with all the moisture in the ground we will have a gorgeous Fall this year.
For a while there was hardly anything new to tell on my blog, but so much is going on right now, I don't know where to start!

How about I start at the chicken coop... (does that surprise you? LOL)

Two of my Silkie girls are on the fast track to motherhood- Gertie's eggs should start hatching at any time now....

..... and Clementine's should hatch this weekend.

Gertie has 9 eggs under her, and Clementine? Well... uh... 15. There's a story behind that- she started out on 8 eggs- I checked her nest at 2 weeks and found 12. This was very puzzling to me since normally a broody hen stops laying. I watched a lot closer for the next couple of days and found the problem- my sweet (but ditsy) little Sadie had been climbing into the nest with Clementine and laying her eggs while poor Clementine had to just sit there and take it! Needless to say, Sadie has been moved to give Clementine her space. How many of the 15 will hatch? Who knows! She's having a hard time trying to cover all of the eggs with her little fuzzy bottom (*squeal*) but somehow she manages.

To add further drama, Belle has decided to be broody again, but how many eggs do you think she's on?

You guessed it- zero.

She just can't get this thing figured out....*sigh*...

And if that's not enough cuteness for one day, feast your eyes on these sweethearts-

Meet Baby, Molly and Dolly, our new woollies!

Baby is a year-old ewe...

and Molly and Dolly are 5 month-old ewes....

Daisy and Edie are not really happy about sharing the sheepie spotlight around here...

.... but they're slowly warming up to the newbies. And since we are still keeping them in separate pastures for right now, they are not having to share any of their meals, so for now all is well.

Several of you asked about my pickle preserving and the recipe I used- I actually bought some bags of spice mixes at Walmart called Mrs. Wages. Hubby likes the dill but the bread and butter are my favorite, and although it called for a lot of sugar, the pickles have a really good flavor.

I have so much more to show and tell, but right now I'm off to try and catch up with all my blog friends.... I've missed you and can't wait to see what you've been up to!