28 piece bucket of legs, thighs & breasts

The quail and some impulse purchase peeps moved out of the basement and into the old duck coop today. It was time. They stunk to high heaven even with a twice daily cleaning. They have a heat lamp and a bed of straw out there and are very, very happy.

Bee was very happy until she realized they weren't for her.

The feather patterns coming out are so interesting. 

Tomorrow I hope to do a decent post. There's been so much going on. Spring is finally here.

Baby quail

The basement is very active today. The quail eggs have been hatching over the last 48 hours. Out of 30 eggs 25 hatched. 2 didn't make it but all of the rest are doing great. Very happy with the results, especially as the eggs came through the mail.

Here are a few of them. Look at all of the variety! It will fun to see how they feather out.

Honestly I've been feeling pretty down this week for a couple of reasons so this was a nice suprise. There was also a baby mobile completed and more quilt stars that will be posted later.

Easter flowers

Quilting, seedlings, other stuff

I started making some quilt blocks earlier this week. The idea is to make 7 of them into a Seven Sisters block formation and maybe turn it into a lap quilt for the living room.  

. I've been using the English paper piecing method but have been to lazy to baste the papers in properly so have just been holding the fabrics over the papers with paper clips. It works.

Here is the fabric I've been fussy-cutting.

And here is the block I'll start tonight.

Down in the basement the seedlings are coming along well. You can see the peanuts and borage are huge and need transplanted already. The rest of the seedling are coming along well but the peppers which I always have trouble germinating.   There are 4 flats under 2 lights and I think they really need moved over to the big workbench so there is more room and I can add another set of lights.  In the basement the quail eggs are coming along. 27 of 30 look well developed. There are also 14 chicken eggs in the incubator because,  why not. My friend that gave us Kwazii the rooster will take 8 that hatch and since we had another hen drop yesterday I am ok with erring on the side of a few too many this early in the season.

While the oldest and I were puttering around the basement the Easter Bunny delivered some hotcross buns to our front porch.  Just kidding, we did see your car. Thank you so much, it really was touching since Easter has been effectively cancelled this year.

So pretty. They smell amazing. 

We had some really warm days this week.  The kids played in the mud.

And Kwazii supervised some landscape painting.

A baby on the way, mocktails!

In addition to everything else going on around here I am growing another baby! Having just passed 12 weeks, the new one will be here in October.  We can't wait. The oldest is hoping for a sister this time, which is a suprise.  There's a lot to plan for in this uncertain time (we're going to need a bigger vehicle and frankly a bigger home) but we are beyond happy to be welcoming another one.

I've had to switch from craft beer and martinis to mocktails.  Here is my favorite right now.

1/2 glass ginger ale
1/2 glass carbonated water
Fresh lemon juice
Freshly grated ginger (easy if you keep the ginger in the freezer)

It's also good with some frozen currants from the freezer tossed in.

Rhubarb shrub mocktails

I can't wait to drink these again and go check the rhubarb every day.

I had totally forgotten I used to make the oldest "bartend".

So, fun times around here inspite of what's going on with the outside world.  Something to look forward to.

Three! My husband and I often feel outnumbered with the two we have now. Wish us luck, we'll need it.

Crafts & a mini quilt

We've had a lot of time on our hands and have turned to arts and crafting every day. Here are some of the things the kids and I have been up to.

Dying eggs with the kiddos. It was a colorful mess.

I keep track of the eggs every day and the chickens laid 199 last month, plus a couple of nests on the property that I didn't bother to clean up and skunks ate. That's ok. I like skunks.

We use white vinegar for cleaning and had a couple of lemons laying around that were starting to wrinkle so I sliced them up and canned a gallon of lemons in vinegar. They probably didn't need to be water bath canned but I wanted a good seal.

We ran out of envelopes so I got out an old atlas and learned to fold envelopes and made some homemade ones.

I got out the fimo clay and some gauze and made a tiny Egyptian cat mummy for my curiosity cabinet. 

It's tiny. I've been spending too much time on pinterest looking at miniatures and miniature rooms lately. It's a distraction. 

The youngest had a tiny hole in his pants so I mended it with blue floss.  There have been some magazine articles lately about decorative thread mending and I had nothing to lose.

This is an old Napoleon Dynamite board game my husband and I used to use as a drinking game years ago. You draw two cards and have to create an animal that is a cross of the two. The oldest loves it and will play it forever. His drawings are much better than mine.

Another atlas project. I covered a shoebox with a map to hold all of my stamps and postcards.

Here's something I made years ago but just found again. I was really into miniature quilts for awhile.  Half the fabrics here are vintage, 30's and 40's,  and I remember this being a lot of fun to make.

Well that's it. I'm surprised to find myself making things as frankly, I've been pretty damn depressed lately as many people probably have. Waking up every day and going to sleep with a dull ache in my chest. I'm not worried about sickness so much as a total collapse of the economy, people's retirement funds being gutted and hoping to God people have jobs to go back to when this mess is over. All things I can do nothing about.