Market Research, and of course, Chickens.




Today was a busy day doing market research, or at least that's what I always feel like I'm doing when we go on one of our family craft fair expeditions... Today we were at a huge one - me, mom, Aunt Nancy, and Shannon (my cousin - gets confusing, yes.) I pick things up, ask how they're made, poke around, and rarely if ever buy anything but the occasional funnel cake. Today, though, I did make one purchase, an oh-so-appropriate Yankees bandanna for the dog. E's going to love it...the dog is usually his baseball watching buddy anyhow. :)

I saw some very cool stuff, including gourd jack-o-lanterns, complete with orange light bulb and cord, a nativity set of all small sewn figures (that's sort of what I collect for Christmas decorations - I loved Nativity sets when I was little - lots of little pieces to move around, and to warm my an-sci heart, more then half are different forms of livestock:) I made my own Nativity for our first Christmas out of balsa wood that I stained and glue gunned together, with characters made of Fimo and flexible sculpture wire covered in fabric. It turned out...eh, OK. I like the manger and stable I made better then the figures and animals - although the sheep turned out really nice. I'm hoping to be making more of my Fimo stuff, especially the fern embossed switchplates, since E's G-Ma is giving us another toaster oven that I'll be able to use up here just for baking Fimo stuff. That reminds me, another thing I'd love to trade what-have-you for is a pasta machine to do Fimo with.

Some other cool items I spotted that might deserve copying: a star shaped quilted Christmas Tree skirt - it has a slit sewn into it so you could just slip it underneath the tree, and a kid's teepee in beige and hunter green, which my Aunt bought for Shannon's little boy (her grandson) for Christmas. I also saw, as always, tons of stuff I could/have made for sale (and made better!) and wondered for the millionth time, "Why don't I do this?" Looking around, I also was able to remind myself that the reasons I don't sell my stuff, especially at craft fairs, is because of the extreme competition - ten other booths selling the exact same thing, the fees, and the traveling, especially the highway driving, that I just couldn't handle. My crafty nature will come in handy soon though, as inspired by a photo of a mural artist's , Shannon was talking about how she wished she could do the same thing for the new baby (due in April's) room. I told her that once they get it painted, I'd be more then happy to dash it together for her- pretty simple design. The letters of the alphabet at chair rail height, with a small illustration like in a kid's dictionary, you know, E for Elephant, that sort of thing. I think it will be cute, and she's thrilled.

Since coming home (Oh, BTW, my mom, in the presence of the stabilizing forces of two other people, didn't say anything nasty about my haircut. Nothing nice, mind you, but nothing nasty. Which is good), I've been rummaging around doing random stuff - basically cleaning up for when E's G-Ma brings his Aunt Yvette over to see the house (Apparently "early evening" DOES not mean before 8 in their vocabulary, as they still aren't here). A lot of laundry got put away/folded, and the house is pretty spiffed up. I'm trying a milk/egg bread recipe in the bread machine, hoping it doesn't rise over the top of the pan, and I NEED to tackle the bills and pay the ones that are due immediatly if we have the money in checking, so those remain on my to-do list for tonight. Minute by minute homestead alert: the dog just fated, yuck. One dog fart in a small room like this goes really far!)

I've been in touch with a woman who keeps chickens in NJ and she has four young 'uns for us! Yay! One of them may be a rooster, and we're not going to take chances with that, but the other three look to be pullets - kind of "mutt" chickens - we'll see what color their eggs turn out to be. They are only about eight weeks old, so they have another few months before they would be expected to start laying - they ARE old enough to be in an unheated coop though, which was one of my only requirements. I didn't want to put more animals in the sunroom since I just found homes for the snake and Golom the tree-frog today. It's animal free (except for rabbit food supplies and some e-bay animal stuff) and I think E would be a happy man if it stayed that way. Read more to see "our" chickens - three different colors, how fun.


Here they are at 7 weeks - these are pics from Dawn, who we will be getting them from! *knock on wood*.

Posted: Sat - October 18, 2003 at 05:54 PM        

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