The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, Chicken-Style

Way back in Olden Times, (specifically, last winter) one of our little red hens got her toes seriously frost-bitten in one of the more bitter cold spells. Since the other chickens picked on her toes (both literally and figuratively) and were generally mean to her, we shifted her into the old chicken coop to recuperate. She had it all to herself, with a little yard of her own, fenced inside the main chicken yard. Once she got away from those vicious bitches the other hens, she seemed quite happy. Her toes healed, her feathers grew back. Life was good.
We took to calling her Little Miss No-Toes. (I once called her Stubby in Madman's presence. "Oh, don't call her that!" he said. "You'll hurt her feelings!")
Now, in the main chicken yard, there were the 15 other hens and 2 roosters. The big rooster literally ruled the roost. All the hens were his, all the food was his to dispense, the sky was his, the air was his.
The little rooster skulked around, trying to stay out of the King's view, sneaking up on the occasional hen when the Big Guy wasn't looking.
As Winter turned to Spring, I noticed that more and more often, when I got home from work, Little Miss No-Toes would be out in her little yard, and Little Rooster would be all alone in his. They seemed to be having one of those So-Near-and-Yet-So-Far courtships, with the chicken wire fence between them. They always seemed to be chatting, with through-the-eyelashes glances at each other. It seemed kind of sweet. "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou?"
Then one day, we got home from work, and discovered that Little Rooster had burrowed under the fence to join his True Love in her little pen. We laughed, watching him strut around with his "flock" - he'd finally found a world where he could be the Big Guy.
We let them stay that way a few days, but eventually they both had to rejoin the main flock. We had other hens who needed the "Infirmary." A lot of them had lost a lot of feathers due to the attentions of the roosters - saddle feathers from the 'treading' and neck feathers from the grabbing-with-the-beak-to-hold-them-still.
So, one night we snuck Little Miss No-Toes and Little Rooster back into the main coop while everyone was sleeping. (Chickens are not terribly bright. If they wake up with new chickens sleeping next to them, they really have a hard time puzzling out whether they know those chickens or not. Seriously.) Since they'd been in adjoining pens, and not really out of each other's sight, we didn't anticipate any problems with reintegrating them with the main flock.
What we hadn't considered was Little Rooster's new attitude. He had him a flock. "I iz a Man!" He strutted. In front of the Big Rooster. In the Big Rooster's coop.
"Yo, Little Man," said the Big Rooster. "I don't think so..."
And he thumped the little guy. Soundly. Very soundly.
And in the following month, we finally noticed something that we should have noticed a long time ago. It wasn't the big rooster who had been damaging the hens, as we had thought. We realized that he is actually very gentle with the girls.
It was the Little Guy who was hurting them. He was always in such a hurry to 'get a little action' when the Big Guy wasn't looking, that he was pulling out feathers and being rather violent about the whole thing.
Little bastard.
We had him for supper. With gravy.

Mangofeet's First Law of the Universe

If you spend more than 5 minutes with Norma, you will cast on a red scarf.

Good food, good friends, good times

(Yeah, a pretty prosaic title, when you consider how much fun I had...)

My favorite way to spend an afternoon is with my good friend, AnnaMarie, knitting and spinning and talking (and eating! In addition to all her other talents, she's an expert at tasty!), so yesterday I braved the monsoon rains and headed up to visit.
The only thing better than an afternoon with AnnaMarie is an afternoon with AnnaMarie and Norma...
I don't know if I contributed much to the conversation - I got so fascinated listening to those two that I might have forgotten how to talk. And I was laughing so hard that I was only capable of a word or two now and then, anyway.
I took my wheel along (I had planned to take only my knitting, but when I opened the car door, the wheel hopped in and stuck its head out the window in joy. How could I refuse?) and finished the singles of the lovely sparkly purple batts AM had invented for me. Luckily I brought my lazy kate along, just in case, so I got most of the plying done, too.
Of course the picture doesn't do the yarn justice. Lovely dark and light purple, with sparkles.
I'm in love with this yarn. I've got 300 yards of (roughly) sportweight. (I was trying for worsted. Still having trouble with the thick yarn...)
Must get more batts...
Maybe green next time. Or red.
Life can't all be purple...

Uh oh. The Tomatillos are Blooming.

Only a foot tall and blooming already. Considering they're going to get at least 5 feet taller... and bushy... and covered in blooms... and fruit...
Okey, dokey. Salsa for everybody!


I was going to call this post "Can't post! Spinning!" ala our Team Crankypants Fearless Leader (Go Team Crankypants! Phhhhlllllbbbbttttt!!!) but spinning isn't all that's going on around here.

We're only moments mere days away from picking peas! We check them about every hour or so. "Are they peas, yet?" "No." "Are they peas, yet?" "No."



And there are tomatoes forming in the hoophouse. Only eleventy skillion years till they're ripe... Luckily time flashes by at a breath-taking rate.

And there are peppers!
And basil! This plant is tucked into the tomato plants and is very happy. It was about 2 feet tall, until we voted to have pesto for supper tonight. It's slightly shorter now. And nakeder.


Madman has been harvesting poplar saplings for uses around the place. Here's the grape arbor he built last year. Underneath the arbor (and the plastic and the log...) is a very large stone that we use for a bench. (When it's not under a piece of plastic and a log.) It's about 2' by 2.5' by 8' - and is a pleasant place to sit in the summer, shaded by the apple tree and the grapevine.

Here's a view from the upper end of our garden, looking down over the beans, toward the squash and cucumber hills. Those posts are more of his saplings, set in to support our climbing green beans. (Johnny's Seeds Fortex) And, yes, those poles are overkill. They would support gorillas. Madman is very thorough.

Here's the same posts from the side. Notice anything odd about the closest post?

Here's a closer view.

Madman may have set that post when it was a little too green... It's growing.

And that sky? That's what we've been looking at for most of the spring and summer.
Gray.
Fluffy.
Not Blue.

Tour de Fleece, Day Two

Really, I am spinning. But no pictures to prove it - every battery in the house is dead. I know because I tried Every. Single. Damn. One. of. Them.
*grumble*

Tour de Fleece, Day One

*sigh*
Last night, as I was madly trying to finish off the plying of the last of the orange laceweight, so I could clear the bobbins for the Tour de Fleece, disaster struck.

The drivestring on my wheel finally gave up the ghost. Broke. Came unstrung. Went kerputt.

"Gorgonzola!" I shouted. "Mostaciolli! Frangiapane!" (That last one surprised me, since I don't even know how to pronounce it...)

Ten thousand pounds of fiber in the house, and not a bit of string to be had.
And a holiday weekend.

I was already going to be starting behind, since I had to work 9-5 today. The original plan involved finishing the orange last night, then maybe spinning my purple for a few minutes before leaving for work, and really digging in this evening when I got home.
Instead, I bought string at the store I work at (the evil of having to work today was thus balanced by the good of a store with string being open), made a new drivestring when I got home, and finally finally finished the orange.
Ta-da!



I ended up with 1220 yards from a smidge over 7 ounces. (Is that good? I have no idea...)

So, here I am, as usual. A day late and a dollar short.
*sigh*

Almost Ready for Tour de Fleece

Almost done with the plying on the orange laceweight - I finished the last of the singles at AnnaMarie's yesterday. Then sat up waaaay too late last night trying to get the plying done. (Question for the Universe: Why do the singles never ever ever come out even? I'm going to have to do that Andean bracelet thing again. I'm not ept enough to do that Andean bracelet thing. It usually ends up that Anaconda bracelet thing. *sigh*)
And I was telling a story to AM yesterday, and she said "And you didn't post about it??"
So here it is.
I've previously mentioned that our sheep are afraid of the camera. What I've actually discovered is that they're afraid of shiny things. I bought them a nice shiny new feed bucket, thinking it would be easier for them to snack out of than the Cabot sour cream container we've been using.
They were terrified of that bucket. Wouldn't come anywhere near me. Scary shiny bucket. I finally had to go hide it.
So, Sunday, when I went to go feed them their evening snack, they were all jumpy and skittish and wouldn't come anywhere near me. No camera. No bucket. It was hurting my feelings. Now, at first, I thought it was just the fact that Madman had been bustling around all day with the garden tractor and his new weedwhacker (give a man a new weedwhacker and suddenly the world is just full of weeds...) That was a lot of new kinds of noises to throw at them. But I had thought they'd had plenty of time to calm down by then.
It didn't occur to me till days later what was really upsetting them.
That was the first time this year that I had worn shorts. They'd never seen me in shorts before.
They were afraid of my shiny white legs...