I've been working on my prayer projects whenever I can squeeze in a little bit of time, which has not been often lately. I did finish spinning 3 bobbins of GCNI fiber for the Hurricane Sock Yarn I am making for Dale.



Now I just have to ply them. This will be my first three-ply yarn ever. I understand three-ply is better for socks. I can't wait to see how it looks. I would have plied it up right away, however, Bill Wyatt, of Wyatt Wheels recently developed a high speed bobbin and whorl for the Pegasus and I am testing one out for him. So, I thought I would move onto my Moderator Yarn before plying the other.



I grabbed two ounces of Funny River Ranch alpaca, three ounces of Serenity Farms Corriedale wool and some angelina fiber for my blend.



It carded up into some beautiful batts.



The yarn is a bit challenging to spin because the fiber is a bunch of different lengths, but I sure do appreciate Mr. Wyatt's fast bobbin!!!

In addition to spinning and praying for Dale as she prepares for her bone marrow transplant, The Christian Artisans are knitting the Elegantly Simple Shawl while praying for Dale too. Due to everything else I am trying to do right now, I've barely done anything on my shawl. However, it is much prettier than I expected thanks to some very beautiful Heritage Yarns tencel yarn. It is hard to see the pretty purples and the teal in my picture unfortunately.



I think everyone is farther along than I am. Oh well. I do need to refocus a bit on it after I have completed my spinning for Dale because one of the ladies from Christian Artisans, Theresa and I are going to knit along with the Peacock shawl later this summer.

We've been doing a bit of gardening around here as well.



This is our family's first attempt at a vegetable garden. We are pretty good at growing weeds. Other than that, only Gregory's corn looks really good. The other plants are hard to locate among the weeds. We have tried to pull out the weeds, but I am worried about pulling out the vegetables at the same time. At least we can tell which plants are corn.



In our ever increasing quest to raise some of our own food, we are still pursuing the chicken thing. We visited Barbara's house last weekend to take a look at her chicken coop.



She has a couple of Dominique chickens. I understand she just bought another 69 chickens Tuesday. I'd love to have seen them.



Barbara and Jerry are still modifying their chicken coop. What they have finished is really nice. They promised to help us with ours. And. . .

We need to get our chicken preparations going because yesterday I ordered 50 Plymouth Rock and 10 Araucana chickens! They will be here by the end of the month. I figured we needed a deadline or we would never get it together.

Here is our chicken coop today.



Okay, I will admit it takes quite a bit of imagination to see it.

Alright, this is where we plan to build our chicken coop. I can't wait to get it started. It will be great to get the chickens into it - especially since they will have to spend the first few weeks in our house. (We don't have a garage.)

And while I am using my imagination, I would love to clear some of the woods behind our house and build a barn.



Can't you just see a barn back there? And maybe some sheep and a couple of goats? I wonder how far I could get my husband to go with this farming stuff?



I have all sorts of ideas for our property if we stay here long enough. Behind the first set of trees on the east side of our house is the creek that separates our property from the next property. I thought we should explore this creek and find out what feeds it. Perhaps we could build a pond off the creek.



At a minimum it would be nice to clear a little path to the creek and perhaps set a bench there to create a quiet little retreat.

Here is the dirt road leading to our property. I just love how old fashioned it looks. It reminds me of something out of the Waltons or something.



The 7 acres behind the line of trees coming down to the road used to be a part of our property before the prior owner subdivided it. I think it would have been great had the whole 12 acres been a part of our purchase too. Oh well.

In addition to eggs from our chickens, we hope to get meat. I will need to learn how to butcher the chickens. (YIKES!) The prior owner of our property was apparently a big deer hunter. On the back of the property behind the workshop is a little hunting shed of sorts.



From inside you can see it was once something else, I don't know what. Now it stores a bunch of junk. However, there are lots of big sinks and counters. With substantial cleaning we may be able to turn it into a place to butcher the chickens. I am going to have to convince my husband to start mowing in this area or it will be lost to the woods though.

What I really need are more hours in the day. If I could just get up earlier, I could get more done, but with allergies, it is hard to do.



Like his mother, Michael is not much of a morning person either. He often wakes up grumpy.

However, there is nothing like exploring to cheer him up.



Even though he can't crawl or walk, he can sure figure out how to get into stuff.



He manages to "scooch" around on his stomach and face often getting up on all fours like he is going to crawl, rocking forward and back a few times, then leaping forward onto his stomach. It is quite funny and naturally defies my efforts to catch it with the camera.

Michael really likes stuff. At the foot of his crib we keep a few toys. Like a dragon, Michael likes to sleep on his toys.



I sure hope this isn't a sign of a bent towards materialism!