The Wishing Well and Grandma's Plants

Will you cross your fingers for me? I do not have a green thumb, but I really want to keep these alive. I've got a complicated relationship with this stupid planter. When I was growing up, Mom kept one just like it in the kitchen.

I hated that thing with the kind of irrational passion that only pre-teens can summon up...and I have no idea why. Maybe it was because every antique mall I set foot in during that time period had at least one and it made no sense that they were worth so much money. Or because it's kind of ugly. I'm now at that stage of life where I have a whole different appreciation for vintage-ugly.

It's been a family joke for years that I'm going to be the one to inherit the wishing well...then my youngest son fell in love with one at an estate sale...so he's its future owner.

Except we found one for a buck at an estate sale. The chain is broken and the ceramic is chipped and I'm sure it was worth less than the dollar I spent, but now it's mine. I wanted to plant some succulents in it and I've got a strawberry plant full of something we rescued from Grandma's garden before the house sold, so now some of those are in the well.

(Did you know that there's a matching cookie jar? I really kind of want one of those...)

I'm still stressing a bit over the ladle.  I've pruned away the dead leaves twice, and kept it alive through one winter at my house.

There are more plants in it today than there were when it first came to live with me, but I'm still not sure if there's dirt under that moss.

Farm Fresh Eggs

Finding chickens on Craigslist has been an interesting process. Some of the ads are very, very vague. "Free chicken" is not nearly enough information. Is that live, egg-laying chickens, or pieces that are breaded and ready for the oven?

A couple of days ago, I saw an ad that listed how many chickens there were, what town they were in, and what breeds they were....and the guy answered my call...and he didn't want to weirdly screen me to make sure that I'd provide a proper home for his flock... (I totally will, but I'm not inviting a stranger to come look at my property to see if it's suitable for his chickens.)

Wednesday night, the boys and I headed out into the boonies -- not the same ones we live in -- to pick up chickens. We had to do it in the evening so they'd be in the coop and although I've been to that town before, I've never driven there from here.

Now we've got eleven more chickens in the coop and I'm checking out Jo's recipes that use eggs so I can figure out the best way to enjoy the gorgeous brown and green eggs they're laying.

Shadowy Stripes Shawl

Here's my eighth shawl of  the year, Shadowy Stripes...

 Yarn: Loops and Threads Madrid, Slate  

No Pattern

Back in November I bought some sale yarn at Michaels that looked like it would make fun shawls. One skein became Hufflepuff Lace  and another became this shawl. I think I'm done knitting from big 350 yard skeins for now because they're so awkward to deal with. The yarn wanted to slither off in big tangly loops.

This skein had three knots in it, so I didn't even get the advantage of not weaving in more than two ends. (For non-knitters, when I say a skein had "knots" it means that the yarn was broken and then knotted back together during the manufacturing project. It's not uncommon to find a knot in a skein, but three in the same skein is a lot.) Between the knots and the splitty yarn, this wasn't a very fun knit.

I do love those subtle black stripes.

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {6/15/18}

Let's Make Baby Quilts Linky Party Rules: 
Link directly to your post or specific Flickr photo. Your post can be about a baby quilt that's finished, or in progress, or you can be writing about what you have planned,  as long as it's about baby quilts. You're welcome to link to baby quilt posts that aren't brand new, but please don't submit the same post or picture more than once. I'd love it if you linked back to my site, either with a text link or the Let's Make Baby Quilts! button.