Chicken stories....

These are the last 2 eggs of the year... from my last lonely chicken. Look at that tiny one! So cute!

The good news is I still have one chicken. The bad news is the rest are gone... seemingly from a fox. We came home from a movie one night, and I went to close the coop... and I found 2 of my girls outside the coop. Only one was in. I couldn't find the rooster. I sent my husband out to see if he could find him. He was several feet away... doing his job to protect his alpha hen. I was devastated. That was back in October.

So, I have one lonley hen. She's adjusted fairly well. I will get her some friends soon....

We celebrated New Year's Eve with friends at dinner at Millie's Diner in Richmond. Yum!

Stay safe... and Happy New Year!

Vacation pics....

It's been a looooooong time since my last post, I know. My hard drive on my laptop died, and it has taken me a while to get everything on here back to normal! But, all is well. I hope to start posting on a more regular basis!
My husband and I promised our girls a real vacation this summer where they would have to fly and use their passports. We decided to take them back to the place where we honeymooned: St. John in the USVI. At the last minute, Ralph's parents decided to join us, too, and we had a great time!
The journey was complicated by the arrival of Hurricane Irene... in fact, the outer bands arrived in Richmond minutes prior to take-off! We were flying up to Philly to make our connection to St. Thomas, and there was a slight chance that the airport would close before our outgoing flight! But, we did make it! We even got to see the outer bands of the storm from the air.
Here are a few pics...

 Cruz Bay... the main hub of St. John.

Foxy's Bar in Jost Van Dyke, BVI

 Sir Foxy himself. He's quite a character!

 One of many collections at Foxy's... had to take pics of the VA plates!

 Taboo, Foxy's dog.

 Trunk Bay on St. John. There's an underwater snorkel trail around the rocks in the middle of the bay. Ralph and I were really sad to see how much the coral and water quality have deteriorated since we were last there in 1999.

Loved this picture... the first one I took after settling in on the ferry from St. Thomas to St. John. We waited for the ferry in a bar on St. Thomas, watching The Weather Channel's coverage of Hurricane Irene, even footage from my hometown's NBC affilliate, WAVY TV-10, which services the Outer Banks of NC. So strange!

I will update you all with more later... including some crafty creations and some thrifty finds! And do I have stories to tell about my chickens... and it's not all good. :(

I hope you all enjoy the holidays!

Anne

What is with this obsession with birds?

So, besides my pet chickens, I have been on this embroidered birds kick lately! I made this project while we were at the beach:

which was inspired by a bag from this collection at Fossil:

 

My next project might be an homage to my beloved pet rooster... I seriously need help! 

On a different note, did anyone see any of the original footage from the first day MTV was on the air 30 years ago? I remember one of the highlights of our  biannual trips to my grandparents' house in Florida was watching MTV, since we didn't have cable until I was in middle school. My kids watched "Video Killed the Radio Star" with me :) Perhaps the weirdest part is that my younger daughter is about the same age now that I was when MTV launched! Did anyone else set their Beta VCR to record "120 Minutes" like I did? Happy Birthday MTV!

Have a great week, everyone!

Burger Salsa....

I was driving home from Trader Joe's tonight thinking about what I was going to cook for dinner. I felt like fixing the turkey burgers I'd bought, but I was kicking myself for not buying a big tomato to slice. Despite having a million tomato plants in my garden, not one has produced a tomato worthy of slicing. I do, however, have a million grape and cherry tomatoes, and not much to do with them. The thought occurred to me that I could make a kind of "salsa" to go on the burgers. It wouldn't be that much different than the batches of salsa we made while on vacation.... except with slightly different ingredients and better equipment. Nothing beats your own kitchen!

I used a couple of handfuls of grape tomatoes from our garden, a big slice of Vidalia onion, and several dill pickle slices. I mixed them together in my mini chopper, and in a few minutes, had my salsa!

I thought it was pretty good for a spur of the moment idea! After dinner, my girls ate some with chips as a snack. :) Now I have one more use for the gazillion teeny tomatoes in my garden!

Fun finds!

I fell in love with this vintage broach at a flea market in Myrtle Beach. Love how much it sparkles and that it's my favorite color! After hemming and hawing about it for a few minutes, the booth owner told me it was on sale. It came home with me....

We have been in serious celebration mode of my younger daughter's birthday, which was yesterday... she's now 6. She reminded me this morning: "Now remember, Mom. I'm a BIG girl now!" This was after she systematically re-organized her lip glosses and mirrors to go into her new, purple sequined purse. Happy birthday, baby girl!

We had been neglecting the garden for all of the celebrations... and we just discovered this cantaloupe which was more than ready to be picked!

It smelled just like candy, it was so ripe and sweet. I was afraid it was beyond edible.... but was so happy that it was just fine when we cut it open!

Not too shabby for a bunch of volunteer plants! We have at least 6 more that are almost ready to pick :)

I hope everyone's having a great week!

Two Little Birds.... embroidery!

This is one of the things I've been working on since taking a break. The break really wasn't intentional, but necessary. Sometimes you just need one, you know? Last week, my family and I took a trip to Myrtle Beach. It was nice to get away... very relaxing. And I got to work on some new embroidery projects, including this one! I used lots of chain stitching with this one. I was inspired by a felt figurine I saw on Pinterest. And if you don't know what Pinterest is, then you should check it out! What a fantastic place to find inspiration (i.e., waste time...). Seriously. A huge time hole. But I love it, anyway!

I was prepared to teach my girls some basic embroidery skills just in case they became curious, which they did. I will share their projects later! My older daughter even did some bead work with some of her projects (she's 9), while my younger daughter (almost 6) stuck to the basic backstitch. I'm really impressed with how well they took to needlework and how enthusiastic they were about their projects!

In chicken news, I am sad to report that I've lost a hen. I'm so sad. She just vanished without a trace... no feathers or anything :(. I haven't a clue what got her. So now I'm down to 3 hens and the rooster. It might be time to shop for some new hens :(. 

I hope everyone has been well!

Manic Monday! What is that in my garden?

Mother Nature continues to play games with us. We thought for sure once the many volunteer squash plants started to look more grown up that they were cucumbers. Well, weeks went by with no fruit. I was beginning to wonder what was going on when we started spotting these.... not exactly cucumberish. Well, another couple of weeks went by and it became apparent that we were dealing with a much larger fruit....

Watermelon. Lots and lots of them! I don't like watermelon, but everyone else in my family does. I was so hoping to make pickles this summer.... hopefully my two little cucumber plants I grew from seeds will produce. I really don't know how well the watermelons will do. We set them up to climb like cukes.... not to sprawl and have room to rest on the ground!

Yesterday we spotted our first tomato hornworms of the year, one of which had nearly decimated one of our grape tomato plants :(. I started using a tip I'd read many times from other organic gardeners to carry around a bucket of very soapy water while harvesting your garden. If you find any bad bugs in your garden, simply drop them in the bucket. The bugs won't be able to get out! So add "bug killer" to my list of occupations... we got rid of lots of June bugs tonight.

 

 

This was part of my dinner tonight. I love caprese salads! I wish I could say that these beautiful tomatoes came from my garden, but they didn't. The basil did, though! We also had frozen pizza... and I nearly fainted when both my girls tried the spinach pizza! They both went back for seconds, too!

Sorry I did not post last week. We had VBS at church in the evenings last week. This is my 4th year in a row being craft leader (whatever gave them the idea that I like crafts? ;) ). The kids had a blast! I'm exhausted, though!

I went to a little reunion with some of my Sigma sorority sisters Saturday night. It was so nice to see everyone after all these years (I graduated in 1995!) I hope we can get together again soon!

Have a great week, friends!