Succulent Saturday - Completions...

What a couple of BIG BIG sighs of relief
I've been able to breathe this week -

First of all, after months (more accurately years) of working on the Wind Dancer series, I *finally* painted the last painting and Fedexed off the last piece of art. It took extra-extra late nights of working - and I ended up pulling an all-nighter to get it finished/scanned/covered/packaged. Got to bed after 8:30am the following morning - I think that's a personal record!

Secondly, while I was sleeping off the all-nighter, the kitchen fairies came and installed the countertops and sink! A few hours later, my fix-it guy came and hooked up all the plumbing and did all the finish-work. After waiting the 24 hours for it all to dry, we now have a working sink, disposal, and dishwasher. I must say, life is much, much easier now. I've ordered fancy-schmancy cabinet pulls and knobs and there are a couple of little odds and ends, but it is essentially *done*. Big, big hooray.

I can now take a bit of a breather to catch up on things like sleep, and housecleaning, and seeing my family, and The Garden! In fact, I got to import my mother for a week to help me with long term garden planning and organization (she's very good at this sort of thing, and I find I am still pretty much without a brain, so all help in that arena is appreciated!)

And if things go well, I may even get to go out and *read* blogs again. I've missed being more two-sided the last several months. Hope to see you soon.

Semi-Succulent Saturday - Kitchens and Chickens

The bulk of the cabinets are in. The stove (and the gas line) get moved over tomorrow. The last of the cabinet-stuff should be pretty much installed by Monday. Then it's just waiting on the counter top folks and some finish work. Still nearly 2 weeks more until a kitchen sink... In the interim, my back is getting really tired of washing my dishes in the bathtub...

So - for fun, I bring you photos of Baby Chicks!!

One of my critique group friends, Suzy, has a couple of flocks of 'fancy chickens. These are the very cute, and very tiny Serama Bantam chickens (look at those completely vertical tails!) She incubated a new batch a few weeks ago - see how tiny the chicks are?

But they are nothing compared to the most itty-bitty, stripey, jumpy batch of Buttonquail that hatched this weekend! They are the teeniest, most active little fuzzy bird babies you've ever seen! They are like bumblebees with beaks!

See! Compare! There are *17* buttonquail babies being held in these hands (compared to the two tiny serama chicks above..) It was amazing to see.

And in other Good Chicken News, all three of mine are successfully laying again.

Yay chickens!

NON-Succulent Saturday or Kitchen Remodel part 1

We have begun our kitchen remodel... Ah, what upheaval!

(Here is our world's-tiniest-kitchen - pre-intervention. Band-aide colored tile and all.)

And, here is it with everything but the fridge and oven removed... Wiring, plumbing, and patching all done. We are now sinkless for the next three weeks.... No succulence happening here at the moment...

And in a sort of mysterious and creepy aside - here is what was underneath one of the base cabinets- yarn scraps, stuffed critters, a draw-string purse and five half-filled baby bottles... (eww!) We've lived here for over 6 years, so it's obviously been there awhile. *How* it got there - I have No Idea....