Can you believe it? Look how they have grown! Bless their hearts I have not raised them to be all friendly like so when I approach they run; bless their hearts!!! I have been reading a heapa bunch on how to get them to come to ya and be friendly. Maybe next batch.
7 week old brood
Looking into brooder from above
Apparently the chickies hate that. Looks like a predator swooping down. It is really time for them to be in their coop.
Me leaning in, unzipping their brooder scaring the bejesus outta the babies; sigh!
Aaaah, here’s it comes!
So, the second brood has dark brahma, assorted marans, welsummers, and dixie rainbow breed chicks. They are unsexed (well 10 of them the brahmas and the marans) I have not a clue the roo or the hen. Will be cool finding out during the upcoming weeks. I hear tell some say their roos began crowing at seven weeks. Yikes!!!
Hatched on Wednesday 8/3 they are three days old. I purchased 20 chicks and only one DOA. 5 Dark Brahmas, 5 Marans, 5 Dixie Rainbows, and 5 Welsummers. For now I do not know the breed of the one that did not make it.
Hubby at post office back door for my babies
Introducing chicks to brooder and water.
I put a bit of food on the floor of the brooder (read that somewhere) for them to get used to the food. I also read not to use wood chips at first so chicks don’t eat it.
Looks as if they will be going through puppy pads by the dozens. They were eating, drinking and pooping from the beginning.
Three day old chicksShowing chick where water is.
Ten of my chicks are pullets (hens) and ten are unsexed meaning their sex was not determined before being shipped to me. It will be interesting to see which are roos and which are hens. I am looking to keep at least two roosters to handle the flock of 27 (for now). Chicken math – you know!
I’m the prettiest of this bunch. Doncha think?
I’m the lilest of the bunch and such a cutie!
Stay tuned as this chicken mama learns to take care of her new babies. Can you say “eggs come spring”! Yes!
ETA: The lil runt cutie over on the right did not make it. She/he transitioned yesterday (Sunday). We also lost another one (yellow color). So, out of 20 ordered we now have 18 left plus the eight that are brooding in a separate space.
And I am not complainin’. After all, I could still be living in Ohio where if snow fell in April or November it would not be surprising. The humidity has been off the chain for several weeks now. Thankfully I work in an air-conditioned store, part time, and other times I work hard to not dwell on it. Fall will be upon us soon and that spells a bit of relief.
Still, I am grateful for the southern weather patterns. I am just now looking into growing things and living here affords a longer growing season. For instance, cover crops, from what I have read I can put some down this month (August). I guess there are some for fall and others for spring. I have been reading up on permaculture, no till gardening, food forests, and Back to Eden gardening. You see, I believe what I am hearing about impending food shortages, supply chain interruptions, and the FACT that people need to take care of themselves and NOT depend on, ahem, the ruling class to sweep in and save us. Fact of matter we are getting a late start on all this but I am thinking “just keep going, don’t look back, do what you can with the time you have left.”
Are you putting back food to feed yourselves, shoring up your water supply and things along those lines. I highly recommend you go check out Appalachia’s Homestead on You Tube, run by Patera. Seriously, please, go check her out, ponder what she says, and let me know what you think. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnjOYbNua4U
Really, ’nuff said. Go handle it my precious people!
I did it. Purchased my first set of chicks. They came home last Saturday, July 2 and today I decided to clean out their brooder. Not sure what I was waiting on. There was no smell or anything. Last week when I was setting them up I had never touched a live chicken. Having to put them inside their brooder forced me to do so. They are so lil and squishy. Kinda gives me fingers the creeps. They sure are cute though.
Ameracauna Chick
Hubbs took the pics for me (ughhh). I have got to get better pics. One week old and counting!
Hello My Lovely People. I have five things going on here. Was supposed to be arranging letters from pen pals. Don’t know HOW I wound up here. It’s all good though. For some reason I can NOT delete this blog. Blood and sweat went into the posts over the years and hitting the delete key just seems disrespectful somehow. There is always that little voice in the back of my head “But what if you get good at blogging?” Laughing at self. Believe it or not I am still mildly interested in switching from free to paid with my own domain, blah, blah, blah.
Meanwhile, let me give you Cliff’s notes on what’s up in my world. The biggest, most interesting (in my book) thing is I have decided to adopt a flock of chickens. Yay! With so much being shared online about impending food shortages, inability of trucks to get food to the stores due to diesel shortages, etc., etc., etc., I decided to err on the side of caution and put at least a few things in place to feed ourselves. Hubby is already a country man, so this is all good for him.
Really, this will be a return to how we were living in Florida. The difference is I have a change of attitude. I hated living off grid, having chickens running everywhere and more. Not going to relive it, besides, like I said I have a new attitude (sing Patti LaBelle here). We have more acreage, so chickens should have their own space and not need to be running into my kitchen, pooping, then running out. Noooo,none of that. I told hubby I want the chicken care to be my responsibility. I am going to learn to touch them, even maybe pick them up every now and again (no such thing would I do when we lived in FL). I thought they were ugly lil things. Oh, but I have a new respect for them now.
They say the egg is pert near the perfect food. I am wanting dual purpose birds (good for eggs AND meat) I wanted to begin with eight or so. But noooo, the hubby say we need 40. Thankfully I talked him down to 20. I told him I want to learn how to keep chickens small scale at the beginning, make sure I want chickens and be the best chick Mom that I can be, I joined an online discussion group or two all about raising chickens and I remain hopeful and excited. Stay tuned!
What about you? Do you believe we are in/headed to a recession/depression? I have my own thoughts about where things are headed. It is religious and I won’t “go there” (hint: read the Bible book of Revelation). It is all exciting and I believe mankind will not be allowed to ruin this earth. ‘Nuff said.
For all intents and purposes the pattern destashing is going well. Or shall I say went well. I decided to go with eBay and a Facebook group to rehome them. Yes, I actually opened up a FB account to accomplish this. Within a few days I wound up taking the patterns off FB and hopefully before end of month I will delete the account.
Now, let’s talk about the eBay experience. I have been an infrequent seller on eBay for decades. Have achieved “above average” seller rating. Uwww, my! 🙂 Regarding this destash I posted about 10 children’s patterns initially. I think maybe three or so of them sold (which is why I removed from FB which nothing moved in the short time there, I admit). I went ahead and listed starting with my Simplicity patterns. Thankfully, I did not list all the brands I had which as you know topped at about 100.
My listing strategy was one I was told when learning poker (or was it Bid Whist?). “Play to win” they said. So, I listed to sell (still, in the back of my mind hoping to recoup SOMEthing. Many of the patterns were listed $1.99, $2-$4.99. I did have two Charm Patterns by Gertie which (in my book) were very expensive. Both, uncut. The one, “Night and Day Dress” originally cost me about $30 including shipping. It comes in a box . . . uwww wee. I put that baby on eBay, and auction vs. “Buy It Now” for like $10.99. FOOLISH OF ME!! Seriously, I took a big hit on that one. I really should have priced it fairly – fair to me that is – and simply waited and not been impatient. The other Gertie pattern was a little bit less expensive but still not one of your Jo-Ann buy one get one priced patterns. I think it may have been like $18 or somewheres in that neighborhood. Of course the same seller bid on both (she’s not stupid). Wonder if she is going to turn around and resell like someone with sense or keep and make for herself. I know, not my business.
Okay, so nine patterns sold to one person including the two above that I mentioned. The rest were relisted. After getting the few children’s patterns together that initially sold, packaging them, printing shipping lists, schlepping to the post office, blah, blah, ladies I deleted all the other eBay auctions! Like I told hubby for $2-4, minus eBay fees, minus my fees for shipping supplies it WAS NOT worth my time and definitely NOT my effort. No way!
Remember I had all together about 100 patterns. At this point there were still stacks of other brand name, uncut patterns on the sofa. I boxed those babies up and told hubby to take them to the Goodwill vehicle in the parking lot of a shopping center. I guess he did. Lemme go ask him right quick. BRB. Ok, he states that he did.
Still in Ladie Lair reorganizing – check out the shelf that held all those printed patterns.
Those plastic containers were once chock full of patterns. The whole shelf side-to-side had patterns on it. Now, there is one box, on the right end with patterns that I decided to keep. Pdf patterns are on the bottom shelf. Will be interesting to see what makes the cut for them. Honestly, I do not favor pdf’s and I doubt that I will ever make any of them. I will give them one last look-over and chance to redeem themselves.
One last thing about eBay which drove me to chuck selling my patterns there. Recently they have made changes with their payment system. They no longer deal with Pay Pal they way they used to. In the past bidders paid me via PayPal. eBay used to bill sellers and we had until a certain day to pay the fees for the month. Wasn’t broke (IMHO); did not need fixin’. Okay, so NOOWWW, eBay has taken control of the money. Customer pays, then eBay gets THEIR $$ and puts the rest into seller bank account.
Here’s the problem: 1) I don’t like companies/folk IN my bank account especially a non-essential thing/service. 2) It seems to take longer for ME to be paid than when working with Pay Pal. For instance, the patterns in the box at the beginning of this post were paid for on 9/3. I am STILL waiting for the funds to hit MY account so I can pay for all involved with shipping it to the customer. Yes, I know the secular holiday. My concern is this may affect my “above standard” rating because the items were not shipped the minute the bidder paid. I hope the holiday is taken into consideration.
Having said that, reflecting on the new algorithm of eBay payments . . . as soon as the bidder gets her box and all is well I am pulling seller status from eBay. I am “stick me with a fork” done. I have not the patience nor desire to deal with it all. The low price of my product made this WHOLE thing a waste of my time and if I think about it too long I get angry at how stupid I was.
Back to the fun stuff – cleaning up the Ladie Lair. A loong way to go. That carpet needs cleaning (pssst, it needed cleaning when the property manager dropped it off). If it were MY house I would replace it, put down a hard floor, and m a y b e have an area rug in some small area; but definitely not where I sew, serge and roll the chair around getting to one area after another. 🙂
This project is bigger than I realized it would be. Pulled out all the Simplicity bunch. After taking this shot I grouped them by style and they are sitting on top of Hadassah (my 1890ish treadle sewing machine. From what I recall about selling on Etsy not sure if the rigamaroll is worth it for one project. Also, I think Etsy listing are for a limited amount of time versus until sold. Suppose I should check. K, I am back. Etsy is a no-go for this pattern destashing project.
Looking at this laid out perhaps I should assign a number to each pattern and retake the photo before uploading to eBay. I have seen where people will have several items in an auction versus having dozens of individual auctions. That would keep from having to list ALL my patterns separately. They should probably be grouped by price to make things less confusing for the viewer. Guess what, the second photo, top row . . . I have already pulled that vintage style swing coat to keep for myself. LOL!
Really should have taken the top left pattern out of that bag, ugghhhh! Ok, well, I am re-taking group shots with respective numbers anyway. Phew, the afternoon is flying. Think I will finish this up and take a break from pattern organizing and selling for the day. Other chores are a callin’ me!
After taking photos of my pattern stack in the Ladie Lair I figured it would be fun to spread them and and get a real good look-see. By far, the majority of them are new and uncut.
These have been stored in plastic containers with lids. Kind of out of sight and out of mind. Now that I am gathering them for re-homing I feel some kind of way. Geesh.
These do not include the children’s patterns and the few vintage ones here. The vintage ones are so old I am leary to touch them. I should show them for they are so cute. Here’s hoping they find a new home where they are useful, appreciated.
Vintage Stack 2
Vintage Stack 1
Hmm, something just crossed my mind. Ethically speaking if a pattern has never been cut do you think it should be sold for less than the original price (keeping in mind if it was purchased on sale – then that price)?
These are a small portion of what is here that needs to find a new home.
$25.00 including shipping Accepting Pay Pal for your protection!
I recall having to have the Charm Patterns Night and Day Dress. Practically felt it was to-die-for and now here she is on the chopping block. This has to be the MOST expensive pattern I have ever purchased. Never cut. 72 dresses, can you imagine? This is one I refuse to donate; NEVER. I need to recap some funds.
Along those lines, I took Laura’s advice. I went ahead and created a FB page (ONLY TO MOVE THESE PATTERNS THEN, bye-bye). I have applied to one group so far. Wanting this project to speed along I probably need to find others. I started uploading my children’s patterns to eBay last night. If the FB pattern selling group goes as well as Laura indicated perhaps I can cancel the eBay auctions. Let’s hope.
Almost forgot, I have a crate FULL of printed pdf patterns. Should I include them for sale re-homing or repurpose the copy paper for say calligraphy practice?
Thinking of how I should catalog these during the “Rehoming Sale”. What do you think: by pattern company name, by style, by size? Remembering advice given when learning a certain card game “Play to win”; I want to price these to go. With the exception of the one or two Vogues and definitely that Charm Pattern, should I simply make them all the same price? What would you knowing ladies look for in a destashing pattern sale?
Ya know, I have been thinking since Thursdayish. With all the parameters to consider about blogging I should probably change my blog name and go ahead and buy the url. Not going to reinvent the wheel and list all the stuff that needs to be considered. Ain’t nobody got time for that. I need your help!
Brainstorming possibilities this morning I came up with a few. Needless to say some I like better than others. There is always that gotta find something NOT taken, short enough to remember, easy to spell, blah, blah, blah. Without further ado, here are my first thoughts. Not married to any of them so don’t worry about hurting my feelings. Let your honest opinion(s) rip, please. In no particular order (all are dot coms):
craftnotart
craftyoldgal
craftyher
lovemesomecrafts
itsacraft
wishitwereart
whyisitnotart
wantittobeart
shouldbecalledart
gotaknackforit
gotaknack
aknackforstuff
flairforcrafts
flairforstuff
donebyhand
Of the myriad of principles swarming through my mind the main one that is gnawing at me was the one about the name should reflect the niche/topic. My blog will be about “stuff”; stuff I do, wanna do, used to do (don’t plan on deleting all that old content). Oh, and I gotta say . . . I have a thing about arts vs. crafts. Actually looked up the definition. As it turns out I am craftsy not artsy and I feel some kinda way about it (see some of the choices above). I am sooooo funny – laughing at self.
So, you say what, my blogging peeps! ‘Preciate your input.
Sew Lyrically Vintage 