New Bird Feeder

To be honest I wasn't sure what to call this post...You see the bird feeders aren't really new and neither is the limb they are hanging on...So here's the story...

Sadly the arbor that covered this pathway fell down last winter and we had to remove it...

Which would have been OK, but my beloved bird feeders hung off of it and I SOOO ENJOY watching my birdies!!!  In the winter I could see the feeders from my favorite chair as I enjoyed my morning coffee.

My husband kindly put my feeders on a ladder so that I could still enjoy the birds....

but we had a problem...

Autumn's chicks quickly discovered they could climb the ladder and help themselves to the food...

Not only were they eating all the food but they were also chasing of all the Woodpeckers...

In the spring, I go threw about a package of suet a day...This is truly AWESOME because so many of the birds...

bring their young to my feeder...

and I get to enjoy the show!!!

Anyway my solution to this problem was simple and cheap!!  :)

I cut a limb off a tree that had fallen during one of our winter storms. The boys dug a hole and placed it in the ground for me.  Now the birds have a perch that they are totally comfortable with and the chickens can't eat their food.

Don't worry they still scratch the ground below the feeders picking up left overs.  :)

Well, thanks for stopping by!!

I will be linking up to many of the party's on my side bar...Check them out...They are full of great ideas!!

Denise

Kitchen Pot Holders

Here's my "Crafty" post of the week...And you have no idea how hard it was to get up!!  My goal was to post on Tuesday night.  But then, my darling son was feeling so CRAPPY that he actually asked to go to the doctors.....He's been fighting something for a while and it finally got the best of him...he said the back of his throat was killin him...Well it should have been ...it was full of white blisters...To make a long story short ..He has MONO!!  :( 

So I got up early Wednesday morning only to find my Internet down....Another sad face :( ....

Well here it is Thursday morning and I am happy to share with you my KITCHEN POT HOLDERS...

YEA!!!!

These were so fun to make...Joann's had a 50% off sale on their cotton fabric so Autumn and I trotted down there to pick out our fabric....I had a tough time deciding....but these are the ones I narrowed it down to.  (OK I admit it ...I'm not very good at narrowing down)!  Anyway my kitchen has lovely brown counter tops with a Harvest Orange paint on the walls...This explains why my color choose looks kind of "fallish" for the first of July.  :)

The first thing I did was cut the background fabric into 9" squares...

I then ironed Heat-n-Bond onto the wrong side of the piece I was using to applique...The cool thing about Heat-n-Bond is that you can draw your design on it and then cut it out!!

You then peel the back off...

And place it on your background fabric...moving it around until you get the look you want....Then simply iron it on.

Next step is to place the applique piece right sides together with the fabric you choose for the back....On top of that I added a insulated lining (Insul-Bright).  I cut this piece just a little smaller (8 1/2" square) so the seams wouldn't be to thick....Now sew 3 sides of your pot holder together, clip corners and then turn right side out....

 Pin the 4th side...sew along all 4 edges.

Stitch around you applique design...

Stop admire your work...and then hurry off to make more!!!

I spent $13.00  on materials and have enough fabric left over to make at least 4 more pot holders...

so the cost was under $2.00 each!  :)

RIGHT ON!!

I'm linking up to those WONDERFUL LINK Parties on my side bar...

Won't you join me?

Denise

Love My Chicks Butt...

For those of you who follow my sons blog, http://3gracinggarretj.blogspot.com/, you know that he and a buddy brought home some chicks the other day....Two of the little gals ended up with a problem that's not uncommon to chicks, but can kill them. Their little poo was collecting to their back end and stopping anymore from coming out .... that's not good, (neither was trying to clean them up)!! I called the feed store who said we probably could have prevented the problem by adding ground scratch to their feed...Sure wish they had mentioned that in the first place... I had a house full of guest and a chick that peeped at the top of her lungs all night long!! I even got up at 1:00 in the morning to clean her feathery little butt.....Man, did I ever have some tired company the nest morning!! :)

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=42161687

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=43111814

Oh well that's life on the farm......And to think my cousin complained about having to sleep with the lizard...but that another story.