Vita Marie Lovett

Exciting news:  The Fall issue of “STUDIOS” magazine is out and it features 5 pages on my studio!!   It is an honor to be one of the seven artists selected  (from around the US and one from London).  “Studios” features ideas and inspiration for art and creative spaces, each artists talks about their space and how it works for creating, along with tips, hints and floorplans.  The magazine is published by Interweave Press/Cloth-Paper Scissors and is available at any book store and craft shops like Joann’s.  I am lucky to have a great photographer:  Linda A. Waterhouse and that they spelled my name right!

The chickens had a week filled with surprises!  Chicken-theme gifts from their fans…..some from Georgia and as far as Russia.

The “Westies” Stitchers (my old and dear stitching group) from Georgia came up for a visit  and brought along some treasures old and new:

An antique wooden painted egg crate circa 1920’s along with an Acme Egg-Grading Scale (1924) and a glass “brooder egg”  

A new egg-theme tote with a matching modular knit scarf  and Barite Geode, this is actually older than dirt.

A surprised mailed from Marietta, Georgia – A glass little red hen from Lynn & Bob (mainly Lynn).

All the way from St Petersburg, Russia, “pickin chickens”…you spin the wooden ball on the bottom , which makes the chickens peck at the grains!  While in Russia on vacation, Butch and Sylvia found this.  The chickens are quite continental now.

While my friend Rusty was visiting here, she got to meet the “girls” but also to see my comedy routine of trying to balance buckets, feed, treats and eggs back and forth to the coop.  Since they are laying a few eggs at a time, we do not need to use an egg basket yet….I  have been carefully carrying them from the coop to the cabin (for someone who can not walk and chew gum at the same time  it is quite a feat).

Rusty being very clever made me two aprons for collecting eggs  – hence the ”Egg-pron” !!!  They made up of fun poultry theme fabrics: retro-chickens, egg beaters, and chicken wire and have deep pleated pockets  for safe keeping and carrying of eggs.  (I just filled the pockets with 9 eggs prior to writing this). 

Dan planted a flower cutting garden for me this year…it is filled with an assortment of sunflowers, zinnias, queen annes lace, cosmos, daisies and more!  I have enjoyed making up mason jar bouquets to share with friends.

Today the girls lovingly laid the first dozen eggs!  For the past few weeks we have had 2 eggs gradually up  to 8, then  10 per day, today we hit the lucky dozen…. even got a light blue one from Betsy Ross, the Americana!   Which means at least 12 of the 25 are laying.  The eggs are laid at different times during the day.  Funny note:  Generally the next days egg is laid an hour later than the previous day.  Our heritage breed hens will each lay approximately 200 eggs per year.  (The commerical production breeds can lay 300+.)  So far everyone who has tasted our eggs has given them rave reviews!  The spoiled girls are fed organic feed,  along with free-range grass and each day a variety of treats from fresh fruits and veggies to cheese and  yogurt.

We ordered 500 egg cartons last week…adding substantially to the cost of giving our eggs away!

We received a wonderful surpise from our friends at The Castle Group – a red Radio Flyer wagon!  I had been wanting one for use in hauling the girls, garden goods and eggs.  So here are the girls inspecting the new “poultry porter”. 

 Thanks Mark, Scott, Carol and Cindy!!

http://fa.smithbarney.com/castlegroupsb/

Emma … ready to ride!

                                        The garden haul

Oprah has been coming into the chicken coop cackling for the past few days…something was up…over the weekend she laid her first egg!  Oprah came in “second” in our egg laying contest.  Here she is in the chicken coop quite proud of her accomplishment!

And yes, you can see there are curtains and framed  family photos (baby chicks)  in the coop.

I found the egg in the coop when I zoomed home on a break from Kim Nixon’s Rug Hooking Retreat at RT Lodge.  So I thought you might like to see it on a background of one of the hooked rugs designed by Kim.  To see more of her creative work, visit www.undertherug.com

Here is the group of fun and crazy artists at the retreat, who also learned more about chickens than they wanted to know. 

The egg laying mystery is solved:   it is our little Emma who has been busy!  While I was cleaning the coop she came in, started  hopping in & out of the nesting boxes and seemed anxious.  She followed me out the coop’s front door, into the smaller yard and found her xylophone and started playing a tune (normally she plays only one note at a time for a treat).  She still seemed out of sorts, so I placed her back in the nesting box and bingo a little while later she laid an egg!  

Here is Emma playing her tune in a pre-egg-laying concert. (More to come on Emma’s Rockin tunes…) 

Emma’s Egg laid July 9th displayed on a quilt made my dear friend Nance, whos birthday is July 9th!!

FIRST EGG!! July 6, 2010   I found our “first” egg in the coop, on the ground next to the nesting box in the morning – Yippee!

Estimated cost $5,000

Here is a re-enactment photo of how I found it in buried in the wood shavings (I was so excited I picked it up, ran in to show Dan, then had to get my camera and put in back where I found it).

This is Emma who came in to seeing what I was up to, she jumped into the nesting box to show me where it should have been laid.  It is a mystery just who laid the first egg….

Second Egg – July 7…this time it was laid in the nesting box ! 

Look how tiny these first brown eggs are!

Second Egg estimated cost:  $2,500

Well I guess Auntie Lil will have to be called Uncle Lil….she started crowing….eeek!  Everybody told me that she was a he, since he towers over all the other chickens and bosses them around.  So we have a Rooster.  Rats.  We ordered all hens and they gave us a free one, guess which one! 

I still will call him a “hen-ster” and hopefully “he” will learn to behave!  You do not need a rooster for the hens to lay eggs by the way.  They will lay eggs anyway.  You only need a rooster if you want the eggs to be feritized and to hatch chickens.

Red, White & Blue – I love to celebrate the 4th of July!  The cabin is decorated inside and out … barrels planted with red, white and blue flowers, flags flying, quilts and lots of hand stitched “Americana” theme projects I made through the years.

The baby Keets are one week old, they are taller and started growing little wing and tail feathers.  They look like tiny ostriches now, with their legs  set further back, long necks and tiny heads.  Look and see what I mean…..  

Baby keets are little Guinea  fowl.  They were born on Tuesday …so here they are at 3 days old.  My friend Karen got some for her farm and gave us four.  We hear that they are good watch dogs for the farm and chickens; as they are loud and obnoxious.  They are so tiny compared to the baby chicks.  They are hard to tame and have a spaz fit every time we go near the brooder box.  We are handling them several times so they get used to us.  So far it is not helping!  They are so cute now….but just wait and see how funny they look when they grow up.

We spotted a couple of turtles today….they are late arrivals this year.  Normally see them around and about a month earlier.  They must have been busy.  They are Eastern Box turtles.  When we first bought the property 23 years ago we spotted several of them, some munching on the strawberries near the creeks…..that is how we named the place:  Turtle Creek Farm.

Chicken version of playing ball – with the ‘Refs” on perch above the  field watching the plays.  Chickens play only when they want to, they do not follow rules, or play as a team.  They cheat whenever they can.

Misty morning shot of one of our vintage hay rakes against the background of wild roses.

To honor those who served our country– Dan’s father, Daniel Lovett served in the US Navy as a signalman, along with his brothers, Gerald, who served in the US Army as a Medic, and Raymond, a medic also served in the US Navy.

This is the season for wild fragrant honeysuckle.   It is growing along some of our fences, the pastures are filled  with its beautiful fragrance.  Honeysuckle is one of my favorite “weeds” as they refer to it around here!  Below the actual photo is a thread painting I did of some wild honeysuckle .

The garden is really starting to take shape, first up were the radishes

Also growing are the little birds…..this birds nest gets remodeled each year with a new family.

One of the first things every girl should learn how to do:  The Princess Wave

Little Emory learned this new trick from her Aunt Jamey, after noticing how she was watching her hands.  Here is Uncle Dan holding her, as we are all laughing at her gentle slow wave from side to side….the people at the table next to us said “that baby is doing a parade wave”.

A girl never knows when this wave will come in handy, always good to be prepared.

At the break of dawn two car loads of Maryville Ravelers headed to Atlanta for the Stitches South event….had a  great time shopping and seeing friends from Atlanta….we returned with boatloads of yarn, patterns and ideas for new projects.

Walking out the ramp to see the great outdoors for the first time ….

The chicken coop has two chicken doors, this one is to the little yard at the entry and the side door takes them to their large yard with a movable electric poultry fence.  This fence hopefully will keep them in and other critters out (it also works on battery and solar power).  Dan and I are setting up the fencing now…..so if this is my last blog entry you will know that I was fried.

 First brave chick was Auntie Bessie (yellow one) followed by Oprah (black one)

Movin’ on up….the girls were packed up and moved out to the chicken coop.  They squealed, they squawked, then settled in.   The chicks are 8 weeks old now and working on pecking order as to who will be Queen.

                                                 The girls coming over to Dan for a snack.

Everybody wanted to “roost” when I sat down!  There are 5 on my right leg and 4 on the left.

Garden gazebo at the La Playa Hotel in Carmel -

where we were married 21 years ago!

On the road ….  photos to follow….Happy Trails!