I don't know what she's doing. Do you know what she's doing?

It can't be good.

These are the guinea fowl hatched by our surrogate mother, Ms. Broody White Orpington. She picked up where the buff Orpington left off and hatched our quartet here. Looks like two pearls and two lavenders (possibly white but odds are with the lavs). It is yet to be determined which sex they are as its difficult to discern by sight. Most guineas are sexed by their call and these are blessedly quiet for the most part. That will change and we will hear the annoying, telltale "buck wheat" bleat soon enough.

These birds grew up inside after being snatched from their hatching place and now are fletched out enough to brave the great outdoors, under protection. Soon we will integrate them into the rest of the flock, but not before they've all been introduced and the young ones are happy enough to stick around.

In the next week we should have a new group hatch from our incubator (the mechanical one, not Ms. Broodypants). Our workroom will once again smell like a barn.

My Studio, a.k.a. the place I pile all my crap

It's absolutely wonderful that I have this great space to work in. Finding the time to make it a space I can work in is proving quite daunting. With the little one now walking I tend to stay in safer zones of the house or outside in the garden. This is my latest excuse for not getting my dream studio up and running.

Under all the chaos there will be space for individual and small group (very small) art lessons as well as my own working area for various media. My number one artistic passion is CLAY. I have a kickwheel waiting to be delivered as soon as I clear a space. My kiln is at the end of the shop. There's a large worktable I just retopped with masonite and two other existing workstations for "cleaner" arts like papermaking and block printing.

This shop will be seasonal as there is no heat and we live in zone 4. It gets a bit chilly round these parts and I plan to eventually inhabit a small heated sewing room (It doesn't actually exist yet. One thing at a time) in our attic during the coldest months.

That's the plan. Now to act.

Beautiful Pickles

Don't they look wonderful? The truth is they are not even close to being edible. My husband and I are responsible in that he poured the remainder of a salt container into a mason jar which I found in the cupboard, unlabeled. Unable to find the last of the sugar bag I thought was still bouncing around, I found the salt jar in the cupboard and assumed it was sugar. I used it in my bread and butter pickle recipe without tasting it to be sure.

Dumb and dumber.

A real bummer considering the time invested and the loss of resources but I think we both learned a lesson from this one. Good thing my cuke crop is just getting going.

Sigh.