Feather your Nest Friday, 26th November, 2021.

It is less than a month to Christmas Day!  I hope everyone celebrating Thanksgiving had a wonderful day.  Because so many of you celebrate Thanksgiving I have come to really appreciate it and did think of all the things I have to be thankful for much of yesterday. 

It was a busy week!   Our weather has been very cool, so far.   This is great but there is a downside which is some of the veggie plants have just sat there not really growing as they do in warm weather.    To try and remedy my pumpkin patch Andy dumped a big heap of compost for me with the tractor.  I used this to plant another dozen pumpkin seedlings that I grew from seeds I saved.    They are looking really good!  

I added compost to raised garden beds and planted more spinach, capsicum, cumbers and zucchini.

One of my hens has been sitting on ten eggs.  I knew if there were to hatch it would be Sunday or Monday.   On Sunday I heard chirping!!   I investigated and found ONE little black chicken.

I got such a surprise as most of my hens are brown... but I have two grey and one black rooster plus three black hens.    At this stage no other eggs had hatched.    

The next day another chick appeared.    I got two chickens!   This breaks my previous record of one chicken.   I have a  Bantam also siting on eggs... they are due in another week or so.   I hope I can beat two!   But still I was thrilled with two chickens! 

Today I saw a snake near the hen house.  So tomorrow I am moving these just in case.  I would have done it today but I need to set up alternative accomodation. 

My Grand daughters were here for three days.  They went home this afternoon.    Watering the garden, collecting eggs etc is all fun for them.   They collected, cleaned and packed four dozen eggs for Mummy and they collected and packed a dozen for Nan Nan Pat (my Mum.).  Each egg was inspected closely as any damaged egg goes to the dogs and they wanted them to be damaged so Scout and Molly would get some!

The girls love the goats.  It is a bit of a circus, the kids playing with the kids.

They played "how many kids fit on a stump" type games! haha

My neighbour gave me a huge bag of fabrics... almost all velvets.   They are beautiful.   The bottom piece is 8 meters.... the rest are a couple of meters each.  It is so much beautiful velvet.

I was really thrilled.

I mostly kept up with my little bit of sewing every day.   I made some more cleaning cloths...

And bundled some more up ready to give as I completed three that went together.

In the evenings I finished more wash cloths... the muslin ones for babies...

Then some in towelling.

My tomatoes plants are looking really good.   The veggie gardens that get the afternoon sun are doing best.  I need to tie a lot of plants up over the weekend they are beginning to sprawl.

Now to think about the Christmas tree.  I helped the girls to make Angels for their tree and they made one for ours.   

They loved this.  The conversation was lovely as we worked on them.   What type of angel should go on the tree or should it be a star?  What type of angel appeared to Mary?  What did the star that the wise men saw look like?   We sang Christmas carols too.  It was beautiful.   Their little hearts swelled with pride over what they had made. 

So I had many blessings.   It was a very good week.

We have been building up our pantries and gardens for some time now.   I was very happy to get a whole turkey added to the freezer.  I can't wait to cook it!   Some things you can get ahead of by watching world events, weather warnings and so on.   Some things you can know quite well but the reality still somehow comes as a surprise.   We had two friends tell us just tragic things this week, one of them being in our closest small town.  The powers that be, the media... are whipping up an effort to divide people into two groups.   You can probably guess what those two groups are.  What we saw in our little nearby town was pretty ugly.  What happened to another friend is so terrible and in the same vein.   Suddenly things have reached even here, the bottom of the world , out in the country.   Suddenly Covid reached our local towns listed as exposure sites.   This is new territory for us.   I want to be careful, cautious and wise and unafraid.    

But truthfully I wish it wasn't so.   Don't we all!   

How did you get ahead, build up your pantry, garden, gift cupboard or any other area this week?  I hope it was a week full of opportunities!  xxx