One Pillow Pal Puppy down...only 5 more to go! For this pup, I followed the directions as written...for the one I'm working on now (I have the head, nose, ears, and one foot done) though, I shortened the ears to round 22, cutting off the last 14 rows of stitching, most of which are rounds of only 8 stitches! To me, these ears aren't very secure, but it could also be that I know who these pups are going to end up with too! I also plan to eliminate most of the "neck" rounds as well when I get to the body portion, again it ends up with only 8 stitches and feels "not kid-proof" to me. This Yellow dude, though...he ended up getting a black beanie with a bright yellow stripe on it to hide his poor misshapen head and where the ears attach, lol. I still need to make him "toes", but that's hard to concentrate on when his future owner is running around the house! He knows it's for him...and he's equally excited to see what the rest end up looking like too...I suppose I should find out what color would be good for the other side of the family soon too, I'm making one for that nephew too. "My" side is getting one in Yellow, Blue, Red, and probably Green... I only have the yarn for two of the four at the moment, lol.
Oh, and I've learned to knit, sorta! I can now "cast-on" and do a "knit stitch" with fairly accurate results. I cannot for the life of me figure out the danged Purl stitch though! My brain just won't wrap around it, lol. I'll most likely go looking for a better tutorial than the book I have been working out of, but not until the nephew goes home, next week. I almost bought myself a "sock set" of knitting needles yesterday...but I decide I should learn the stitches before I start dreaming too big about what I might create with my new found hobby (like I really needed another hobby).
I am at this point assuming something happened last night with my computer. I got up this morning to do my normal "internet-crawl" while my nephew is still asleep (he wants on my computer to play World of Warcraft almost constantly) only to find my mouse "playing dead" and my keyboard only half working. I say the mouse is "playing" because the software for monitoring the batteries in my mouse and keyboard both say everything is holding a "good level" of charge. Yet, there my mouse sits, hooked up to it's little life support cable, with a red battery light blinking furiously, and not one "mousey movement" coming out of it. I miss my mouse... I am currently "stuck" using a corded mouse (shudder) that is one third the size of my nice mouse. I did a lot of looking and test driving a new mouse before I shelled out (or rather begged my other half to buy me) the $90 (on sale) for my wireless keyboard and mouse combo. Of course, that was long enough ago that my "w" has a dent in the top of it from where my fingernail hits it...(it's the "walk" button for WoW...yep, girl-gamer here!) so, it may be that it's time to start thinking about replacements, but I don't wanna! I love my setup! It "fits" me! Anywho, I got most of the keyboard to come back with a quick "turn off, turn on" with the switch on it...everything but the multimedia buttons on the top...so no volume control for me right now! The mouse is still hooked up to life support and showing no "brain" activity. When my nephew wakes up, I'll ask him if something happened and/or what he was doing when they stopped working. It could have been something overnight as well...power surge that only crapped out my mouse/keyboard? My text in to my local tech support (aka my other half) has yet to be answered, so we'll see what happens later today.
And the chickens! I haven't talked about them in a few days... They are all doing pretty well, I have noticed some pecking scabs on the bridge of Gerty's "nose", right at the base of her comb and on her comb right above her eyes, looks like my Wyandottes are picking on her comb (they must be jealous). I haven't noticed the pecking, but the other two are uninjured, so I'm thinking they are finally getting around to deciding who the "queen of the roost" is... Never a clear picture of all three at once...the first photo, with Henri sitting between Clyde and Gerty, is the best I could get last night of all three together, lol. Henri was sitting on top of Gerty's foot! All three are really getting red on the face and combs and wattles are coming in big time!
In the second photo, I'm not sure if you can see it, but Gerty has really pointy ears! To the left is Henri, I know this because of the giant white blur, her chest feathers are almost totally white! Gerty's comb is standing tall for the most part...it does have a funny "curl" to it though that makes it "flop" to both sides, lol. The front leans one way and the back half leans the other.
Clyde is always the last to bed...she was still running around inside the coop and popping her head out the pop door when we went outside to put them away last night. A few nights ago, I went out very late and she was still popping her head in and out of the coop while the other two were fast asleep on the roost together! It wasn't totally dark out yet...but it was well past sunset! I really like how Clyde's pattern has turned out, I was worried when she was little because she had a really funky, nearly all black, pattern! Her lacing though is awesome now! Henri's got a nice "back half", but her chest is mostly white with only a few flecks of black...no where near what a good quality Silver Laced Wyandotte should look like! Not that I should expect any of my girls to be good quality in coloring...they are hatchery birds and hatcheries are notorious for the poor quality they turn out just to have the numbers they need to sell. I hope to get some good quality hatching eggs next spring to add a bird or two to the flock from, I just don't know what I want to get yet! Black Copper Marans lay dark, chocolate brown, eggs...or there's the Green and Blue egg layers, Easter Eggers are the mutts of that group, but there are two other "true" breeds that lay colored eggs...or Olive Eggers! Yep...and that's just the egg color choices...if I lived where it didn't matter how many pets I could have, I could really go wild with "chicken math"! I want an Orpington, a New Hampshire Red (like a Rhode Island Red, but different), a Wellsummer...and I really want a Salmon Faverolle! Yeah, not anywhere near deciding on what I want for next year, lol.
For now, I'll settle in to count down the days until I get my first egg. I know it isn't an exact science and each bird is different...but if we go with the "typical" 18-22 weeks for first egg, that's between July 20th and August 17th! Still no crowing, though at times all three act "rooster like" and once about 2 months ago, while my Mother was here (she had a pet rooster as a kid), one made an attempt at a crow. But, nothing since or before that...I would hear something wouldn't I?
Well, by request of our nephew, tonight's dinner is going to be "Orange Teriyaki Chicken"! Another recipe to try from the slow cooker low carb cookbook! Except...the two stores I went to yesterday do not carry the no sugar Orange Marmalade, so I bought a jar of no sugar Apricot Preserves to use instead. I may make another attempt at a few more stores this morning before I go ahead with that substitute though. I'm actually trying out 2 recipes from the cookbook today...the other recipe is the recipe for low carb Teriyaki Sauce! I actually got carded yesterday while buying a bottle of cooking Sherry, lol.
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