high times in the hen house

for the past few years we have been keeping chickens, which i LOVE!  they are so much fun to watch, running around the yard, always busy busy busy! and the eggs are just wonderful. so much nicer than store-bought eggs. if you've never had a fresh egg you should really try to find some. they are worth the bit of extra cost and don't even look like those pale old eggs you find at the supermarket. and the flavor is amazing!

anyway, for one reason or another, our chicken population has dwindled, as chicken populations tend to do,  leaving us with only 2 this summer. i was worrying about the winter coming up with only 2 chickens trying to keep warm in the coop, and if one should die that would leave one chilly little chicken all alone! so i asked around and my friend jennifer gave me 2 of her girls. i was a bit worried about introducing the new chickens as chickens can be quite awful to eachother sometimes.....but we stuck the 2 new ones in after dark, and after the initial "meet and greet" involving some pecking and chasing around, they seem to be getting along quite nicely!

this is gretel , low man on the totem pole, as it were. she is very sweet and lets me pick her up.

and this is agnes who is HUGE, and is definitely the boss!

it's hard to take pictures of chickens because they never stop moving!

annie and poppy have been knocked down a notch, but seem happy just the same. so i feel better with a full coop!

this was pretty cool! my camper is "famous"!

have a great weekend!! we've been having some amazingly gorgeous weather-hope it keeps up a while!

sunday

hot.

so long, mr. mouse!

i went out to the camper this afternoon to give things a look see. i was afraid of water perhaps leaking in with all of the snow and melting that has been going on lately. thankfully everything looked a.o.k.!!

and i must tell you an interesting thing. someone told me that you should take cotton balls soaked with peppermint essential oil and place them where you don't want mice. i've had a few furry winter visitors in the past out in the camper, so i really loaded that thing up with peppermint cotton balls. really, it smelled like a candy cane factory when i was through! i've checked out there a couple of times this winter, and i see absolutely no "evidence" of mice!!! so great! plus, it smells really nice in there! i may have overdone it a bit, but it's a nice smell! so, i'd say that this method has worked quite well!

looking forward to hanging out in there in the not-so-far-away future!

christmas campers

well, i had this great idea for a post showing this phenomenon that i have noticed of people selling christmas trees in parking lots and staying in vintage campers. i was very excited.  however, the lack of sun and SNOW (!) has left me a bit disappointed.....these three i drive by every day on my way to work.

that shasta is super cute, but the man who works there is looooney tunes! wow! if you go there for your tree, make it snappy!

busy weekend ahead. *sigh*

camper crafts!

this weekend it was warm enough to sit out in the camper and  crochet a few little circles. these are for garlands to sell at CRAFT FIX.  i hang these everywhere, the bathroom(shown here), bedroom, dining room and even one on the chicken coop! they do quite well outside. such cheerful little strings of color, and a great way to use up all the odds and ends of yarn you may have.

back to work today after a very relaxing vacation. i did some sewing, and went out for breakfast quite a lot, which was nice, and watched a lot of movies. good to unwind before the bakery craziness of the holidays!

hope your week is off to a good start!

a public service announcement!

watch out if you are ever in a card game with this guy.

he looks innocent, but you will lose your shirt!

camper sleepover

before school started, my 6-year-old niece came for a sleepover in our camper.

her favorite part about camping out was peeing outside in the middle of the night.

not mine.

rosco says "hi"!