A quick stop by the farmers market this week.

Lizzie and I found some fresh chai basil (quite yummy in pesto), yellow squash, mixed lettuce and spinach, a dozen sweet potato starts and a couple of homemade peanut butter cookies for the ride.

Being thrifty.

I have this dilemma, we live on a budget but I like to buy the "good stuff". For example, instead of polyester I like to buy cotton batting. I like handmade and wool/cotton yarns, without all the acrylic. Sometimes the two don't go very well together, but I do have a few tricks to help me survive. For example, for my recent lap quilt project I used cotton batting, but instead of using the entire piece for the quilt, while cutting out the fabric, I made the quilt a wee bit smaller so I could I could make some coasters for wedding gifts and to go with the quilt on the front porch.

Some coasters and a felted potholder for a wedding gift.


Coasters for the front porch.

Hollyhocks.

After showing the photos of sweet pea starts I was thinking about all the hollyhocks I spent hours digging out of my flower beds thinking they were just really big weeds. When we first moved to Mound City I spent a lot of time cleaning up flower beds to put in some of my favorite flowers and herbs. These really huge lettuce looking leaves kept showing up and I would have to take a shovel to get rid of even half of the roots. You can imagine my horror when I found the same leaves in a pot with a price tag of at least $9.00 per plant!!

Since then I half left a few. But just incase you may make the same mistake I've taken some photos of them at various stages. My first ones started blooming just yesterday.

Picnic lunch.

Trying a couple more recipes from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day and Apples for Jam. The chicken legs had an orange sauce-yummy. And deviled eggs and fresh bread just make good picnic food.

Without internet.

Well, it has almost been a week and it is going be be a bit longer. :) So, just in case you are wondering, I am collecting about two eggs per day from the girls and they seem to have made the full transition into our hen house and runs. They have even learned to walk (is that the right word to describe hens moving?) quickly when we are moving out into the yard.

Have a great week everyone.

My first green egg.

You have no idea how cool it is to see a green egg laying in your hen house-unless you already have eggs in your hen house. ;) If it was just after 6 in the morning, I would have let out a really loud holler of joy. This egg is from the ameraucana from Suzanne.

Four new hens.

Our three hens left seem to be doing fine. They are behaving normally and are able to stand whenever they feel like it. Huge Praise! Yesterday, my friend, Suzanne called, and then came over with four new hens-already laying hens-so this morning, we found our first egg.

Just to give you an idea of the size difference between a full-grown hen and a young hen. Here is one of the few photos I snapped of them together.

Yesterday afternoon and last night I kept our original girls and the new girls separated. Since there is a big size difference and they are new, hens have the tendency to peck the less dominate. This morning I kept them together for awhile and they seemed alright. The younger hens would kind of fly/run away when the more mature would come close, I have also noticed that even with the larger hens, they try to avoid eye contact with the most dominant of the group.

Another great thing about getting the hens from Suzanne is that the hens are friendly and don't mind being handled.

This is my first year to grow sweet peas. I have always seen them in magazines and books, however, this year, after spending so much time looking through Slice of Organic Life, I thought I would grow my own. To be quite honest, I had no idea what they would look like when they came out of the ground. In case you haven't seen one before, here is one that is still pretty young.


And another rose in bloom with a visitor...


Last but not least, some photos of my finished porch/lap quilt. The idea for the quilt was totally inspired by a quilt in January's Country Living magazine in a article about Amy Butler. I even used a blanket stitch around the edge.