The Mammoth Egg

When I told my boys that we had a mammoth egg and that they should come and see it, they were awe struck. "But,..... aren't they....... extinct?!?"

All that needs to be said about this has already been said in one succinctly brilliant post by Sairer at Vintage, Pretty and Shabby in her post entitled,"Massive". She's the one who suggests that the french word for  egg - "oeuf" - is much more descriptive (oooof!) of a hen's efforts with these things. Leave it to the french (I say fondly).......

Well, that's my scandalous post for the day!



Love, Kate

Green Acres!

Do you remember that t.v. show? It's the one with Zsa Zsa Gabor playing a woman who moves to the farm with her husband but she's really more adept at shopping on 5th Avenue.

 It's really not quite that bad around here but, I'm tellin' ya, I probably wouldn't have dreamed of owning chickens on my own. Sure, Martha Stewart does it but, you know, that's Martha Stewart. Luckily, my mom raised us with fine china, antiques, pretty dresses and ducks and goats and ponies and rabbits and hens and dogs and gold fish!

(We're all allergic to cats, sorry!)

I'm afraid my posts are a titch schizophrenic.

One moment, I'm blogging about lace table cloths and the next, you have turtles.

What can I say? I married Tom. He spent his summer on the farm that's been in his family for generations and generations (The King gave them the land) AND, I live in the country!

This will help to explain this post.

I forgot our lovely ladies' (10 Rhode Island Red Hens) birthdays, this week! I was going to toss them some fresh greens and apples. I was even thinking of making them some spaghetti (tasty worms!)

Rats!

Better late than never.

Well, in their honor, here are some baby pics.

 

 

 

Happy Birthday Girls!

In celebration, I thought that I could share a video with you about the nobleness of chickens!

~Chickens Of Fire!~

(Really, truly, it is worth it! Watch it to the end - it's not that long!)

Well,......

almost in the same breath.....

I am linking, once again, to Tablescape Thursday at

Between Naps On The Porch

  and, Show and Tell Friday at

My Romantic Home

 

I am sharing one of my very favorite posts. It's the one where my men and I had our own private tea, one stormy evening, after the whirlwind Ladies' Tea for 50.

My cozy evening tea! 

 

Dear Friends, I want you to know, that I will not always be linking to blog parties. It's quite a bit of fun for me to "talk and share" tablescapes, as it were, but it, also, feels a bit like having a lot of company over! =] It's nice to have friends over for a visit but very pleasant to have a nice quiet chat with "just us".

Now, if you've read all the way through this post. There is a punchline!

We are getting 18 new baby chicks this Friday.

Where are we going to put them????

Love,

Katy Noelle

Things to share and some fuzzy chicken butts! (I can't believe I just typed that!)

Things to share:

Number One

Today, I received my first plucked bouquet of the season from my boys.

 

I've received some single plucked dandelions, lately, but this was a full bunchy handful.

 

Number Two

On May Day, the 2nd through 4th graders at our local elementary school made spring baskets full of goodies and trimmed with ribbon, flowers and lace. Then they, including my Toby and David, took them around to the elderly in our little town.

I made sugar cookies. 

 

A lot of sugar cookies.

 

Number Three

I have a story to share.

A story about chicken butts.

Fuzzy, fluffy chicken butts!

 

You see, the girls already give themselves airs.

 

 If I called them chicken derrieres, they'd demand white glove service.

If some of you have wondered why I haven't posted about the hens for a good long while, it's because, for the past few months, they've been in a slow molt. This is the first year that we've ever actually had chickens of our very own and I've learned that they just look ghastly through the feather replacement process. It's actually been a bit depressing and I've decided to let them keep their delusions of dignity.

Just recently, however, I noticed that instead of looking like, well..... like plucked chickens, those bald spots have been filling in with fuzzy, fluffy new feathers.

It actually made me run in the house to get my camera, I was that excited for them!

 

They were so frilly before - like multi-layered petticoats.

 

 Now, they look more like an explosion of frizz!

 

Enough of those feathers have grown back in, at this point, that a few of them have been able to, again, fly over the fence to where the grass is greener. I had just noticed this rediscovered ability after the rain storm that we had a few days ago (in fact, the one from my last post.)

That afternoon, after the rain, as I was wandering around in a dream, taking pictures of glistening dew drops, I was completely unaware of the plight of Silly Chicken. I only discovered that she was missing when I counted only ten fowl in the coop that evening. We searched but couldn't find even a trace of her. We were so worried that the fox or weasel or coyote or hawk had gotten her!!!! It was when Farmer Tom had gone out to the mailbox the next morning that he was relieved to see her come clucking out into the lane from the lilac hedge where she had, apparently spent the night.

What we think happened is that, ...

With her new found fluff and freedom, when the windy squall at the front of the storm hit, she was blown completely off course to the other side of the house. (Just think of the scene in Mary Poppins when the Nannies are all blown away and, delete the nannies, and, insert one flapping Silly Chicken!) She found herself in completely unexplored and, hence, unknown territory. Lost and alone, she hunkered down in the hedge. In the morning,  even though she was completely disoriented and didn't have a clue where she was, she had regained her dignified air and Mr. Tom had to herd her back to the yard. She did seem extremely relieved to see the driveway again, though!

And,

I cannot tell you how overjoyed we were to have her back! 

 

Silly, spoilt, well loved girl!

 

Well, that's what I have to share from my home.

Love,

Katy Noelle 

I am participating in My Romantic Home's  "Show and Tell Friday".

You should see the gorgeous roses growing over her arbour that she has shared. Wow!

Super Chicken's Fine Day Out (a true story).

The forecast says, "snow likely" for the next week or so. This evening the clouds have started to move in. I have to confess that I've been dreading it. Winter is still with us.

Today, however, lovely today has been like spring again.

We've had more thaw, it seems, than snow this year. I can see the ground and the mud keeps threatening to suck my shoes off of my feet. One year, we had ten feet of snow in March. It was piled so high from the snow falling off of the roof that we couldn't see anything but white out of our first floor windows! I think that this year is going to be completely opposite of that.  You never know, but, I feel quite in a flurry and a hurry to get those seeds ordered soon. I think part of the reason that I feel so compelled to get a move on is because ...

today I saw my first robin!!!!!!!!

There was a whole flock of about thirty actually. They were looking for worms but there's only about an inch of thaw on the ground. It's still quite frozen beneath. (What do the worms do when the ground freezes?) They (the robins I mean) seemed very happy to make do with the plethora of hips from our old fashioned Goliath rose bush though.

I was born and raised in California and have only lived in Vermont for a short seventeen years. I never quite fully understood the poetry of spring. I mean, I'm rather a romantic soul so I enjoyed the sentiments, but, I had no concept, living in the land of eternal sun, what it's like after the bleak winter to welcome back feathered friends that were taken for granted until they were gone for so long.

In short, it's quite a to-do around here when the robins are back.

Meanwhile ...

Super Chicken (that is her name) escaped from the enclosure for the first time since the autumn.

There was liquid H2O to examine.

When you're Super Chicken, you're bold as brass. Nothing frightens you.

Why not head into the big dark barn? I mean, there might be food there.

We must confess, there was some jealousy in the barnyard today.

Handsome Jack paced back and forth keeping a watchful eye on her and nudging any other hens that had any bright ideas and came too close to the wire.

... but, when you're Super Chicken, the world is an adventure just waiting to be discovered.

Flopsy Bun agrees, life is pretty darn good!

Love and cheer,

Katy Noelle

"There's some blue sky. Let us chase it!" - Marianne Dashwood

What an absolutely gloriously beautiful day it was today. Simply put, it held the promise of spring.

Everything was light and bright. I felt so refreshed. Everything looked new - like I'd never seen it before - both inside and out. It was a lovely day.

Perhaps the warmish temperature had something to do with it. Perhaps it was hearing familiar birds' songs that have been missing through several months of winter silence. Maybe it was the white puffy clouds floating high in the sky instead of low, dark and glowering.

Spring, even if it's only the February thaw, can make us so poetic.

I was doing more "spring" cleaning today but finally gave in and plopped down on the couch to soak it all in and to ruminate. I never get tired of the sunny spot here.

The boys spent almost the entire day outside. There was no dashing back inside after a short time to melt out by the fireplace. They've invented a new olympic sport. Plastic sled snow boarding. They're so cool!

The chickens heard the shouting up on the hill and seized they're opportunity to squawk out their complaints. They've been stuck inside again since the snow's been so deep that it would be over their heads. The snow has thawed enough now. I threw them some scratch (you know, yum!) The rooster walked the plank first and the girls all came out after him - all lined up behind him. Trouble was, he was stuck at the end of the diving board - afraid to jump off. If one more hen came out, he'd be tossed into the drink. Safely, they all, decided to beat a hasty retreat back into the hen house. 

Another toss of scratch and they thought that they'd brave it after all. They stayed on this little rock island for a while. I think that they eventually enjoyed the sun too.

Bottoms up!

Meanwhile, back inside ...

Yesterday, I unpacked a box from our move a year and a half ago. It was labeled "silver tea pots". Since I had no place for them to go, they've stayed safely sealed up but when I finally opened the box, oh joy, I found some missing friends. A gigantic cloud came along to make it difficult to take good pictures of them. I'll have to do that later.

This lovely lady is one of them.

Maybe a couple of you remember the post about how I was spending the gift card that Tom got me for Christmas to the local antique center. Here's what else I got.

I also got a lovely blue plate. (The lower one.)

As I was photographing all of this glorious blue, I noticed a matching flash out the window. Of course, I chased it! Now it's a beautiful evening.

Love,

Katy Noelle