Just Pure Lovely

"Baby"

Photographed (by me) in 2005.

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The Chicks

~ Spring 2008 ~ 

~ Spring 2009 ~

Grow slowly, Baby Girl.

xo,

Mama

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Soup Fixins

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This Little Thing...

...and 6 other little things like it, have me very busy this week.

I have many more photos to share of our new babies (of course so; you knew that).   Come back next week to see them!  Between now and then,

Happy Easter!

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Have a Good Weekend. Indoors. It's Cold.

We're not out here today, at the Bay. 

That was taken on Tuesday, when it was warmer.  Today it's Friday, and it's cold. 

It's 40 degrees fahrenheit for the high.

The kids think that's too cold to be outdoors.  I think, posh, Northern kids would call that Spring, and kick them out anyway. 

The kids do look sort of miserable, so I have pity on them and let them back in again.  Maybe it is a bit cool for Florida babies who are 90% of the time barefoot, don't own a jacket warmer than a windbreaker and can never find 2 gloves, if we even have 2 gloves around here.  Do gardening gloves count?

I wonder if the seagulls are okay.

My man, who was born and raised in Chicago, thinks it's silly to worry about the birds.  I, who was born and raised much more South of Chicago, think birds don't look very fat, so they must be very cold indeed.  

I worry that my chickens will freeze to death when it dips below 32F, like tonight, which will be 29.  He says, "Lori.  There are chickens in Illinois, too, you know." 

Still.  I'm sure I'll get up at least once or twice to check.

I hope you are warmer.  Have a good weekend!

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It Sure is Summery Around Here

I should have waited until the official First Day of Summer (Friday, right?), but when I get a whim, I get a whim, so I switched my banner out tonight and turned the fonts as close to periwinkle blue ~ Florida sky blue ~ as I can get them.  "Summery" is the word I think of when I see our Little Gal peeking over a railing at her Daddy's softball game recently.

And "Summery" is how I felt today, when, for the first time since my ankle injury, I was able to walk down our backyard hill to see my chickens (one of whom surprised us with a chick trailing behind her!) and my garden, full of zinnias that make me smile and rambling vines like yellow squash, watermelon and zucchini. 

Here in the Deep South our weather shines best from October to May, but there isn't much to complain about the (hot, humid) Summer days, if you stop to pay attention to what's good.

So why can't we celebrate Summer a few days early?

Who's Looking at My Chicken?

Flickr is a strange place.  After uploading a photo there, you never know if it will be seen by anyone, or if it will wander around cyberspace, from person computer to computer until it gets a bunch of hits (ie. someone looking) and then you really start to wonder: who is looking at my chicken?

This one of our Ameraucana hen has me flabbergasted.  It went from around 85 views to 503 views within the past week or so.

The thing that bugs me most is that I could have taken such a better shot of her, had I known there was so much interest!   It's not even her prettiest angle and she looks a bit frumpy, don't you think?

My #1? This one of some softies I made and brought to the local beach.  It's had 866 views, but that's understandable, since they came with a tutorial and were in a couple of softie photo pools:

And at #3 (418 views), passed recently by the frumpy chicken, above, is this one, which I myself adore, too (the bird, I adore, that's what I meant). 

This bird is not frumpy.  Plump, maybe.  But not frumpy.  And I think this must be his (her?) good angle:

The next time you look at someone's photos, you just might leave them perplexed!

Photoshop Actions for Free!

Do you Photoshop?   If so, you'll love knowing that Pioneer Woman put up (free!) Photoshop Actions on her photography website.  Here are the results of playing around with them for a few minutes......

This is the SOOC shot (Straight Out Of the Camera):

Fresh & Colorful Action:

Vintage Action:

Soft & Faded Action:

Black & White Beauty Action:

You can get the free actions here.  Oh, this is going to be a passle of fun! 

p.s. Did you catch that the American Idol finalists sang Shout to the Lord?  Surprising & beautiful.

A Weekend Flood

This thing...

...flooded to 13.21' on Saturday.   It should be at 0-2' (it's a tidal river).  The flood was a surprise to us, since we'd only had some rain that morning, really not that much.  I guess it rained hard, really hard, further up the river.

The weatherman/floodman?/person-who-predicts-floods  was wrong and the river did not crest (here, anyway) at 7:30pm like he/she predicted.  So at midnight, a full 14 hours since we'd seen any rain, we discovered that we had some trouble in the backyard.

I got into that blue kayak and my man got into his green one and after using shovels (awkward!)  until finding the floating oars, we kayaked over the goat's fence to get access to my poor chickens.

Here's a picture (from our First Day of Spring party) of the goat fence that we kayaked over.  To the right of our guest is the chicken pen.  You can see a couple of their perches there:

The water reached the wood frame behind the head of our guest.

The chickens were in some serious trouble, nearly drowned and covered in fire ants (the ants gather together to float, keeping their queen at the center, then climb up whatever/whoever is available above water).    They were clearly in shock, but I'm happy to say that all 9 of my girls are safe, and our one big fellow, Duchess. 

    

So much excitement!  So much adventure!  So many fire ant bites! 

And it's not even hurricane season yet.

Yum

They're best while they're fresh and young.   No prep work needed.  Just grab a recipe,  a pot, eggs (optional), baby chicks (of course) and a heat source.

It doesn't really matter which heat source you choose.  They're equally good on the stove,

or over a campfire.

Want the recipe?  First you need to go to the feed store and get some baby chicks, then...

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Oh, come on, you know I wouldn't.  They're my future egg-laying hens. 

See?  Here they are nice and cozy, safe from heat.  Our daughter placed them in an old campfire pot while cleaning their cage, and there was no way I could resist that photo op! 

Happy April Fool's Day!  A tip from experience: Don't tell the kids it's April Fool's Day until halfway through the day, or maybe even just an hour before bedtime, or there will be "spiders in your hair" alllllll day long.  Then again,  it's just too much fun for them to miss.