Monday, May 18, 2009

tie-dye, chickens, and nothing to report.

Love Party coop 8

Hi all. Sorry I've been such a slack blogger lately. Down to the last few weeks of pregnancy, and we are getting a lot of phone calls to which our standard response is, "No, nothing to report."

Lately I am back to my old routine of collapsing into bed by 9 PM or so, which doesn't leave much spare time for other pursuits. Even knitting has become kind of tiring. Instead I'm gobbling up books (I just finished Monica Ali's Brick Lane, if you're looking for a good read - it was great).

Saturday I did not manage to go on the Henside the Beltline Tour d' Coop, but I did hang out over at Mr & Mrs Love Party's house to keep them company during the tour for a little while. They had about 150 people come through their backyard to check out their chickens and ask the same dozen or so questions over and over again. A friend of ours on the tour in a very popular part of town had over 600 people come through! Backyard chickens have become a big thing in Raleigh, and every spring the fever spreads a little more via the Tour d'Coop. If you're a chicken fan, check out this local news video full of great chicken coop pictures and a short interview with tour founder Bob Davis.

Love Party coop 7

I grew up with chickens and fresh eggs, and I would love to have them again - especially for the poop. I think they would do our garden right. But HWWLLB is seriously not into this idea, and it seems that fresh eggs are becoming pretty abundant in our neighborhood without any contributions from us. I sure wouldn't mind going co-op with someone who wants the chickens-as-pets-and-for-eggs part, who would let me have the poop.

On a totally different topic, I did want to share a morsel of the previous weekend, which was a wonderful two days of family, friends, food, surprises, gifts, crafts... you get the idea. I should have written about it then. Anyway, my wonderful sister threw us a surprise (and very green) baby shower. There were out-of-town friends and family, and it turned into a whole weekend of fun. Bugheart and Grub came down from D.C., and after breakfast on Sunday morning we went out into the backyard and tie-dyed a big stack of onesies.

freedom rock onesies 1

HWWLLB has been plotting this project for a while. It was very messy and fun, and now our baby will feel right at home when he cranks up the Dead on a Saturday afternoon. More pics here. I love how bright they all are. And it really got me itching to dye the bundle of sock yarn I've had in the closet for so long...

7 comments:

  1. The tie dye is lovely! What kind of dye did you use?

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  2. That is a great baby shower idea. Love it!

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  3. What is up with husbands and their anti-chicken stance? I have one over in my home as well.

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  4. Looks like you got a good assortment of sizes and colors- how about matching socks? Don't knit just buy plain white cotton and dye to match-they grow out of them so quickly-

    The last few weeks are the longest but rest rest rest while you can.

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  5. Kristy, if it helps I was a semi-skeptical husband myself. I worried that they would be loud even without a rooster... they're not. In fact very few neighbors even knew we had chickens until we did the Tour d'Coop. I was worried they might smell... they don't. I was worried they would cost more than they are worth... we built our coop for around $200, spend about $12/month on feed and got the chickens as pullets for $5 each. And you can do a cheaper coop than that if you want.
    If designing and building a coop is an obstacle I've put together the "plans" for ours i'd be happy to pass along for a good starting point. Shoot me an email, maybe i can answer some questions and maybe help quell that anti-chicken stance.

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  6. Enjoy that sleeping while you can!

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  7. That is a great baby shower idea. Love it!

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