(I answered all your comments yesterday but it was pretty late. If you ever want to see the comments from yesterday or another day’s post, just click on the BLOG tab above the title and that days post will come up, with all the others stacked below it.)
At 6:30 Thursday morning we greeted 25 new arrivals in our living room. They came in at the Post Office and my hubby picked them up on the back docks. They enjoyed the ride home but didn’t say much… although since arriving they have made themselves known. My hubby got their “brooder” box ready and it looks “so lovely” in our living room.
Gone is the chair that once graced that corner and now we have 25 new baby chicks chirping away almost constantly. Every once in a while they all go to sleep but a few always seem to be awake. Fortunately their cheeps are pretty quiet so it doesn’t bother us in the least. Even Reuben seems like he could care less and we thought he’d be barking his head off at them. They’ll grow pretty quickly and then we’ll sell the ones we don’t want at a swap meet nearby. We got a variety of breeds and it will be fun watching them feather out real soon. They are under a heat lamp so the pictures are sort of bright yellow in places…
This little girl wanted some extra loving from Rebecca’s finger. She just stayed there and let Rebecca stroke her until she fell asleep. (I love to watch the ones wobble standing up and then fall down asleep…)
Since the chicks were the highlight of our day, I thought I would feature a few “chicks” of my own from the “archives” …and one “ducking…” I’m sure I have more pictures, but this was all I could find right now.
Here’s Kit, in her 2010 bright aqua and white Easter dress with her aqua chickie…
My sweet Riley doesn’t have a chick in her basket, but she has them on her Easter dress, from 2009…
Back in 2009 Molly had an Easter dress with ducks on it. She also found a toy one in the Dolly Toy Box…
I just found another picture using the duck fabric like Molly’s dress. I made one for my Katie Effanbee doll in it, and she had the dress in a coordinating print with her jacket in the duck print.
Lian was all decked out 2 years ago in a pretty Easter dress set and she had LOTS of chicks surrounding her…
Last year Janie and Lian wore this fun black and yellow dress for Easter. They may have shared the dress but they each “owned” it their own special way.
I hope you enjoyed both sets of my “chicks.”
See you tomorrow,
Blessings, Jeanne
I love seeing all of your photos…both of the new little chicks as well as of your dolls dressed in their becoming Easter dresses. It’s sheer pleasure to read your blog and follow you along in life’s journey.
Take care.
Hi Becky,
I’m glad you enjoyed seeing both of my chicks today… that’s just life for me and I’m glad you enjoy whatever I write about…
Blessings, Jeanne
Such sweet little chickies – both live and in doll form! I’ve wanted to get some chickens too, but then I think of all the work involved and decided I’d rather be sewing. 🙂 Good luck, and I look forward to seeing more photos as they grow.
HI Karen,
My hubby has had birds of some kind since he was 9 years old so he loves to raise them. It’s pretty much all him… I just collect the eggs and wash them and put them in cartons to give to people. He does all the rest…
I can see them in the pen from my sewing room and it’s enjoyable to watch them running around…
Thanks so much Karen,
Blessings, Jeanne
Those chicks are soo cute! It’s amazing how the same dress looks on the two different girls. All the dresses are pretty. 🙂
HI Christine,
It IS amazing to me to see how different a dress looks on the same doll size, only with a different face. Sometimes I have a hard time deciding “who wore it best” and who should be featured wearing it in my auctions.
Thank you very much Christine,
Blessings, Jeanne
Oh Jeanne, your blog today reminds me of the time when my parents got a whole crate of chicks too, and had to put them in the kitchen for a bit because of the cold! Was that ever an experience! We had a big old farmhouse that we lived in while our “real” house was being built, and it had a large screened porch off the kitchen for the chicks, but it was just too cold for them, so inside they came. Oh gosh, when they started jumping over the sides of the crate into every nook and cranny in the kitchen!! That was the last time my mother allowed us to have anything inside the house for a good long while! Aren’t they called pullets or something? We raised bantams, which are full of personality and gave them names too! Their eggs are small, but we loved them anyway!
Love the chick and duck dresses too! The print on Molly’s dress looks very 40’s!
HI Linda,
I enjoyed your story and we’ve had a few chicks in our kitchen too, when it got extra cold too. One year we had to move them to our basement with a heatlamp and we gave them one whole room… of course our basement isn’t like a typical basement… concrete floors and stone walls, so they didn’t hurt anything.
When you order them you can get pullets which are all females, straight run which are a 50/50 mix and males, which obviously are roosters. We got pullets so we don’t have to worry about feeding potential roosters.
We got a few new kinds this time… Salmon Favorelles, California Whites, and Welsummer’s. The rest were our regulars…
Molly’s dress print was from the 40’s and so was the Bunny Bear pattern…
Thanks Linda,
Blessings, Jeanne
Such cute baby chicks. We have been looking into possibly getting a few chicks, but not that many. I’ve read on a number of varieties and really like the Buff Orpintons or Buffs as they’re sometimes called. The are very calm and friendly and apparently like to be held and are excellent layers. We would only have three or four, just for 2 to 4 eggs each day. I can’t tell, do you have any Buffs among yours?
All the outfits are cute. Since AG made Kit a Chicken Keeping outfit, Kit should be around keeping an eye on those new chicks.
HI Laura,
We have bought and had Buff Orpintons many times before, but we didn’t get any of them this time. Buff’s are wonderful hens and so friendly. They are excellent layers and just like you said, very friendly. We are trying a few new kinds this time… Salmon Favorelles, and Welsummer’s. We love the Golden Laced Wyandotte’s and the Silver Laced Wyandottes and we got a few more Isa Browns. We like the hens that lay all year round and love the big brown eggs best.
I’ll have to look up Kit’s Chicken Keeping outfit… I don’t recall it by name…
Thanks Laura,
Blessings, Jeann
Aw… They are adorable. My grandfather raised chickens. Had 500 in town during the Depression. My grandmother made Angel Food cakes with the eggs, which she sold. I loved the little Bantams. I used to hide the little eggs behind my grandmother’s couch cushions. Apparently, as I heard, she had ladies over and there was this smell… That’s when she discovered that I had forgotten an egg. Bad me.
HI Joy,
What a story about you hiding (or should I say “missing” one of the eggs!) There is nothing worse than a rotten egg. I won’t even ask if you got in trouble!
Thanks for your thoughts… how fun that your grandfather was a chicken man!
Blessings, Jeanne
Always a pleasant surprise when opening the Jeanne Marie Blog! What fun to have the chicks at Eastertime. That just wouldn’t “fly” in the suburb where I live. Glad they didn’t keep you awake. The dresses are just adorable. Amazing how different they look depending on the models’ coloring. I may try a vest and hat like Lian is wearing with my next dress.
After looking up the definition, “kludge” was perhaps the wrong word. Disparate parts but, hopefully, a harmonious result. I had never seen the word in print before and thought it was spelled with a “c” but Spellcheck caught it.
HI Susette,
Yep, I’ve gotta keep my subscribers guessing all the time, otherwise they might get bored with just dresses all the time… sometimes my life just gets too busy for sewing even though that is what I do most often.
I don’t think I had ever heard of kludge, but I like that word…
Thanks Susette,
blessings, Jeanne
Love your baby chicks. It has always seemed so odd that they can be sent through USPS but it has been done for years…when we were on our farm there was a hatchery in town and when you went to the post office there were stacks and stacks of boxes all “Peeping”
Loved your choices of dresses to show us…especially fond of Mollys blue vintage print dress..she looked so cute in it!
Have a good weekend!
HI Kathie,
Thanks for your thoughts on the baby chicks… When my hubby went to pick up our chicks, he said there was a big box of chicks for the Rural King store here in town. They got an assortment of little cheepers too… You have to order 25 at a time so they stay warm. We checked the tracking on ours and they went from Iowa to Minnesota to St. Louis and then to Carbondale, (southern Illinois). So our chicks were world travelers almost!
Thanks Kathie… yes, Molly’s fabric is one of my favorites…
Blessings, Jeanne
That made me remember. My great grandfather lived in Iowa and had a chicken ranch as well as his job as a pharmacist in town. When my grandfather was a teen, he and his twin brother road the train from Iowa to New York taking a load of chickens to market. They slept with the chickens and had to keep them watered and fed on the long trip. All arrived safely in New York. Quite an adventure for them, not the chickens.
Oh the baby chicks are so cute! When they grow up and become ladies, they are kind of cute and they seem to have such interesting personalities too, – like the birds that come to our feeders.
The little chick dress, Janie and Lian are wearing, is one of my favorites. The flowered one that Lian has on is pretty too. Actually, the Little Darling clothes you make are all so darling. I keep saying, some day I want to get a LD doll…just for your LD outfits.
HI Paula,
Yes, our little babies are already starting to show feathers on their wings… they grow up and change very quickly.
I’m glad you enjoyed the dresses I showed today… It’s fun to see things that I’ve made in a group… like I’ve shown today. I just realized I have one on my Katie Effanbee doll, so I think I’ll add it to the bunch… It’s out of the same fabric as Molly’s.
Thanks Paula… look out… I see a Little Darling in your distant future…. :o)
Blessings, Jeanne
A little educations on chicks today. i went to the feed store along with cousins as a teen to pick up the chicks.I remember the chattering. I think they were happy to be raised together.
HI Jan,
I don’t think there’s anything much cuter than baby chicks… everyone loves them, generally!
Ours have already grown since yesterday. It’s amazing how fast they change. I’ll show you pictures every week so you can see what I mean…
Thanks Jan,
Blessings, Jeanne
Hi There,
I love all these dresses, you have such a wonderful talent!!
Robin
Thank you very much Robin,
I’m glad you enjoyed seeing the Easter chick and duckie dresses. It is such a joy for me to sew doll clothes. I love it!
Blessings, Jeanne
I remember Lian’s dress with the silk ribbon embroidery. I also remember being outbid very quickly. It’s still one of my favorites.
I’m looking forward to pictures of the growing chickens. They wouldn’t have been happy here today. We had at least 11″ of snow. The weekend is supposed to be sunny.
HI Marilyn,
Thank you so much for your sweet comments on Lian’s dress set. It was one of my favorites to put together… I smiled when I was all done with it… :o)
Oh, my goodness… 11″ of snow? How can that be? We had 60 degree weather. Although there is a chance of snow for us tomorrow night. I hope the weatherman is wrong!
Thanks so much Marilyn,
blessings, Jeanne
I’m a day late, but I just had to tell you this chicken story from 30 some years ago… My sister, Mary, worked for the Farm Bureau Co-op, and customers often ordered chicks there. One customer, Mrs. Parrett, had ordered baby chicks, and when they arrived, they were placed just inside the area where Mary’s desk was. So Mrs. Parrett comes to pick up her chicks. Mary is hard at work at her desk – Mrs. Parrett comes in, points to the crates and says “Are these Parrett’s?” Startled, Mary looks up and says, “No, they’re chickens!”