My yard sale bargains -
- $5 white KitchenAid classic mixer that FITS under my cupboards. I have a cobalt blue KitchenAid, but it's the taller version and sits elsewhere in my kitchen.
- Seven turquoise Corning coffee mugs (all for $1) that coordinate well with my retro kitchen. (Is it retro if it's really just not updated?)
- A cobalt blue oven-safe serving tray that is my favorite color and also looks nice with my kitchen colors, bought for $1. ( You know, I wanted my bridesmaids to wear midnight blue dresses and carry a single coral rose in my wedding. Instead, we went with deep purple dresses and white roses. Sometimes I wish we'd gone with the midnight blue and coral after all. That was almost 17 years ago.)
- A fun, summery glass kitchen trivet to set on my stove top that obviously matches my kitchen colors and was only $.50.
We also bought some clothes and shoes for a few children, but these felt like Mother's Day gifts to me ... and Anniversary gifts, since that is later this week.
Saturday we moved our remaining 9 hens and 1 guinea hen from the barn to this hoop-chicken-tractor. We will move them every 2 days (or thereabouts) so they have fresh grass to destroy with their scratching and eating. LOL!! We still need to put a tarp on it for a bit of rain protection and for shade when we move them to sunnier parts of the yard.
This picture shows my lonely guinea hen with the lonely Buff Orpington hen, too. We have a few Barred Rocks and Production Reds left, but the majority of them are Ameraucanas.
This is what the chickens see all summer long. Don't be fooled by her sweet appearance. She isn't Lassie. She is just waiting for one of them to let some feathers, a foot, or a head poke out from under one of the boards ... so she can bite them. Or it would be even better if one of them would be foolish enough to hop out as we enter the door ... so she can chase them ... and then bite them. She is a chicken killer. Sigh.
And here are our little chicks. Most of them are 5 weeks old, a few are a bit younger. They rushed into the one sunny spot in the chicken yard this morning to soak up some warmth after their first night outdoors. We have 12 Buff Orpingtons, 18 Ameraucanas, and 4 Pan Fry Specials (who won't be long for this world). Seriously, Pan Fry Specials are nasty things ... ugly, aggressive, pigs. They're even half-bald. Gross!
This is one-half of their enclosure. We bought the nesting boxes with a roost bar on the backside at a recent farm auction. They didn't use them last night, but hopefully they'll figure it out. As you can see they rushed into the sunlight for warmth this morning. They had slept around the feeder and they were eating and drinking earlier in the morning before I took this picture at 8:30.
And that was our weekend ... in pictures. Well, part of our weekend. It doesn't show our time at church, dinner with Steve's Mom, the wild phlox bouquet my 11 yo gave me, the dark chocolate my family gave me ... or the piles of folded laundry in my living room. LOL!!
April E.
