tiny friends!

A box full of sweetness came in the post today:

C built the most amazing brooder for them, and he's been hanging out in the barn with them all day and most of this evening. It's pretty adorable. He was way more excited about them than the kiddo was...got all curled up on the shavings and just adored them all night. I think it brings back very fond childhood memories for him.
When they are big enough, they'll join our grown chickens and soon, I hope, they'll all be out ranging in the pasture...you know, the one that will be free of SNOW. That day will come soon, yes? Let's not even talk about the inch of snow that was on my car this morning and the GIANT FLAKES of the stuff that continued to fall from the sky for...a while. The rain, however, did wash most of it away, so I'll shut up about it. The crocuses and irises are still shooting up, a few are even blooming already, and I can see that the black-cap raspberry bushes really want to do something. We pruned the crap out of it last year, so I'm hoping for a bumper crop...like, enough at one time to make a nice project, like a pie.
Anyway, we are loving the sweet li'l chickens, and I think we've found a better hatchery...these little girls are much more robust and happy and healthy than the ones we got last year.

I'm sure the Little Guy would have appreciated them more, but he looked like this for most of the afternoon:

Wasted. This picture was taken shortly after he fell asleep standing up. Standing up! It was totally bizarre, but a little bit later he definitely had a fever and was quite obviously not feeling well. When he feels better, I'm sure he'll curl up in the shavings with his Papa, too.

I have actually been knitting, btw, and finished a project:

My first me-sized sweater! I will model it as soon as I've blocked it/set the stitches. This is a heavily modified version of the Garn Studio jacket about a million Ravelers have already knit up. I adore it, and would definitely knit it again, but probably not with Malabrigo. It is fabulously soft, and they have nice colorways, but I think if I sneeze while wearing this jacket, it will probably felt. Breathing will definitely pill it. I'm thinking a dark, tweedy two-ply yarn in the heavier gauge next time...
Anyway, the buttons are by Happy Silence, and I heart them much, much, much.
I wanted to make the collar longer, but I ran out of yarn. Boo.

This weekend will be all about list-making and scheduling for the insanity that will be the next few weeks. I did make it into the Farmer's Market, and while I am thrilled and looking forward to it immensely, I have a lot of work ahead of me this month to get ready for it, plus MSW, plus possibly Art Star, plus deciding whether to put updates on hiatus for the shop or to try and keep up on that, also. Plus, a personal project I'm working on and would like to chronicle in my journal...still thinking about the format. It involves my first baby...the one that eats 35mm film and has been sadly neglected for a couple of years. My sampler of b/w films has arrived, and as I loaded the TMax 400 (not my favorite, but I'm saving the Ilford and the Plus-X 125 for after I've gotten my feet wet again) I was transported back in time, bathing in chemicals in the lab, relishing the magic that happens in the dark...