My Continued Adventures With Pea Fowl

My eldest daughter raises pea fowl.  She has been working toward getting a specific color for a long time and finally got that one elusive bird this spring in Artemis.  

I hope I get this correct, she is a purple, black shoulder pied female pea hen. 

 PHEW!  

She was being picked on in the barn and got ill so daughter took her to the peacock vet 

(yes there is such a thing)

They fixed her up but while being treated she had to stay in the house.  

Now it is COLD in MI and Artemis has not been outside long enough to develop her winter feathers so she will be staying inside for the winter.  

As you can imagine this presents some issues, especially bathroom issues.  

So...mom and her diaper making skills to the rescue!  

This is not my first time either.

I have made them for Gizmo, Beep and Stan in the past.  

Gizmo and Beep have passed and Stan lives in the barn.  

I know she really misses Gizmo and Beep so I won't be surprised if she keeps Artemis in the house.  She cleaned out Beep's bedroom so things are trending toward that.  

She has not been able to make herself clean out that room since we lost Beep.  

You can read about that here if you are interested. 

 If you want to read about Gizmo you can do so here.  

There are many stories about them in addition to these if you search my blog. 

I digress.  

Last night she came over and brought Artemis.  

She is a beautiful bird and very well behaved (unlike Beep).  

She doesn't try to peck you in the eye or eat your shiny bits and bobs.  

She even knows her name!

So the mission last night was to make a new diaper.  

My daughter chose a Philip Jacobs print and I set to work.  

(pretty proud that I centered those swirls on both sides)

I had a pattern I made last time I made a diaper for Beep so used that as a guide.  

Each bird is particular, like we are, so each diaper must be made to fit that bird.  

I made the pouch part pretty easily with a few adjustments then we had to try it on her to make sure where all the straps would connect.  

Artemis was a trooper with the on again off again nonsense.

This is the finished diaper.  

A plastic bag gets placed in the pouch and the pouch covers the cloaca to catch the waste.  

We started using velcro and that was MUCH easier then the safety pins she used to use with Gizmo.

This is my daughter putting it on her.

You can see the back part here.

The pouch connects to the back as does the harness that goes over her head and around her chest.

The harness is sewn to the back part, while the pouch straps connect with Velcro.

Everything fit well and they were ready to head home.

Exciting times at my house last night!  

I am hoping to settle down and work on my baby quilt commitments tonight or at least this weekend.

Do you have any exciting plans for the weekend?

~XOP~

Some Finishes and some Farming

Last week my daughter asked me to make some pillowcases for her to give to a friend t

hat she is staying with while on vacation. 

 I always dread this because I always forget how to make them. 

 Every. Darned. Time!  

This time I went to my own tutorial (which you can find here) and 

followed the directions and was successful. 

 I think all the other times someone has been directing me so I really did not pay close attention.  When I had to make them on my own, I actually *learned* how to do it.  

Does that make any sense at all??  

My daughter and I went to a local quilt shop and she chose the fabrics.  

Not fabrics I would have chosen in a million years, but she loved them. 

 She drove me home and the next day I hammered out 4 pillowcases.

The space ones are actually 3D!  

The shop owner gave her a pair of 3D glasses.  When you put them on the space fabric becomes 3D.  That was pretty cool.

Then I got to thinking that I had bought some dragon fabric awhile back intending to make pillow cases for this same daughter. 

 Her birthday was on Wednesday so since she would not be home for it, I decided to make them and gift to her when she came by to pick up the cases for her friend.

I have to say that I LOVE how these turned out.  

The fabric reminded me of the movie How to Train Your Dragon.  

The little black one reminded me of the Night Fury from the movie, Toothless.  

I loved that movie and so did she.

Since finishing the other 2 baby quilts is temporarily on hold, I decided I needed to work on the fish.

I managed to get 2 more fish sewn along with a few "water" improv blocks too!  

It is coming right along. 

Making these fish has been a challenge but they are turning out really cool!

I think I have 3 more to go before I will call it a day and figure out how to put this all together.

We have been on farm duty this week and will be again next week while daughter and SIL are away.

That means taking care of all the birds, the cats, the mice, and the fish.  

She fed the snakes before they left and he will be home on the weekend to do that again.  

I don't like the snakes.  

They would probably die if I had to feed them.  

The pea hens are laying so I am collecting them and putting the eggs inside.  

A friend of hers borrowed her big incubator to see if he likes it enough to get his own, so she asked him to come get the pea eggs to put in the incubator.  

Each day I collect these I write which pen they came from and the date.  

Her purples had stopped laying, but I have collected 3 eggs from their pen this week!

I also collected all the chicken eggs each day.  

Aren't they so pretty?  Blue, green, pink and brown!!

The one I am holding is a purple pea hen egg, actually laid on her birthday. 

 She was pretty happy to hear that they are laying again.

The purple pen is on the right and the blue pen on the left.  

The boys like to try to fight through the wall.  

This reminded me of the Sharks vs Jets in West Side Story!  

The blue male was making his way over to the fence line on the left and 

both males had their "flock" on their sides.  

Humorous how they can mimic us!

She has set up a barn webcam to watch the chicks in the barn and t

he turkey (Jocelyn) sitting on a clutch of pea hen eggs.  

If you want to watch too, (you might see me or my husband in the barn) here is the link. 

 Mostly you will see the chicks running around but it is pretty quiet most of the time.

So that's what I have been up to.  I am going to link up with Crazy Mom Quilts.

Have an eggceptional weekend!  

~XOP~

Easter Weekend

Life is never boring!  I did manage to get the binding completely sewn on by hand on Friday night.  

I only had to stay up to 1am!  

 I also spent a LOT of time at church and cooking and cleaning!!

Hallie was there to keep me company (oh and Jack Bauer too)

As it got later she crept closer and closer to me to let me know it was bedtime!

Saturday morning we went out to our Daughter's farm.  

All the peafowl were out and about enjoying the beautiful day.  

Those two boys are Orion (in the foreground) and Octavian (in the background)

Orion was all about showing off where I could get some really nice photos.

He is a purple pied peacock.

Isn't he grogeous?

You can see him showing off in this short video

Here is a more close up of Octavian. 

 He is an opal peacock and I could not get a photo of him with his train up.

This is Blu, the first peacock hatched out at our house.  He will be 7 years old this summer.

Then there is Beep.  She came over for Easter dinner with my daughter.

Hallie loves being on this spring quilt that I put on our bed.  An oldie but a goodie for sure!

(Both Hallie and the quilt)

I hope you all had a nice weekend.  Spring is finally arriving in Michigan!

~XOP~