Michelle Legler

Blue Bird Violin

I finally finished up the violin custom order. This violin will be heading to New York to the lovely and talented Ruth from Artful Creations. She is the owner of one of my bird houses too! :-) Her requests for this violin was for it to include a blue bird, a nest with a couple of eggs and a blue background. Mission Accomplished! She wants to be surprised when she opens it, so she will not be visiting my blog until her violin arrives. I think she will be happy.

I just added these 2 pics as I made an addition of the flowers and leaves.

Thank you so much for the order Ruth!!! It was sooooo NICE to make something other than a cupcake! LOL! :-)

xoxoxoxoxo!!

Michelle
 
 
 
 
  
 
 

Jewelry gone local

Wow! Look at me posting only 3 days after the last post! It's a miracle I tell ya.

Anyway.......I just wanted to share with you that some of my mosaic jewelry line will be headed over to Siren and Saints tomorrow. I was delighted to get an email from Shelly awhile back asking if I would be interested in selling there. Shelly is the owner of Siren and Saints, as well as, Rust and Roses which is next door. They are located in the central Phoenix area and if you have never been, well get your booty over there. You will be glad you did. Follow the links for directions.

Here's what I'm taking tomorrow

See ya soon! I'm not sure if it will be in 3 days, but soon ;-)

xoxoxoxoxoo!!!

Michelle

I Love Weddings <3

This is a surprise gift for a bride to be for her shower. :-) The mother of the bride is planning a vintage bridal shower! Ooo~la~la!! Wish I could be a fly on the wall, however the mother has promised to send me pics. :-) Can't wait!!

Need a bridal shower gift?? Email me :-)

Talk to you soon!

xoxoxo!!

Michelle

p.s. Had a breakfast of eggs this weekend, supplied by my hen Red. They were Delicious!!! Waaaay better than store bought. :-)
  

Raising Chickens

So, I haven't chatted about my chickens in some time and there is a BIG reason why I haven't. The experience has not been exactly how I imagined it would be.

Remember these sweet little guys??

And this??

Yeah, well those sweet little guys turned into just THAT! GUYS!! Well, 5 out of the 6 of them. Yep, they were roosters. The farm I bought them from has NO IDEA on how to determine the sex of their chickens, even though they claimed to.

Here's a few of their mug shots

  

If you are not familiar with the difference between a hen or a rooster, YOU will BE when they start to cock~a~doodle~doo! Which is at about 14 weeks of age.

I heard the doodling and ran out to the coop to see which one was making all of the noise and found myself dumbfounded when I saw 5 of them competing on who could crow the loudest. (ugh!)

Roosters are against the law in the city limits. They had to go (not easy for me). I called the farm and told her about the problem. She apologized and told me to bring the roosters and she would trade them for hens that were about 6 weeks old. She told me that she had gotten better at sexing the chickens and that I wouldn't have a problem this time. On the phone, she told me that the roosters would be going to a good home, but when I arrived with ALL of my roosters, she told me that they were actually going to someone's dinner table. The hubby was with me and said that if they were going on anyone's dinner table, it would be ours since we had raised them for 14 weeks. So, we took home the roosters along with four 6 week old "hens". Stop reading here if you are a vegetarian or a PETA member..........

Hubby (who is a hunter) took care of the roosters. They are now in my freezer, except for the ones that I made into chicken quesadillas. Let me tell you, this experience has made me really appreciate where my food comes from. I think we are disconnected from the idea that this animal has given up it's life when we shop for meat at the grocery store.

I wish I could say that the story ends here with a happy ending, but NOPE!

 A couple of months go by and what is that familiar noise I hear???? NO!!! More roosters!!! 3 out of the 4 that I brought home are again roosters. Let me tell you, by the time that I finished with the lady at the farm, I'm sure she had to wash her ears out from all of the cuss words I said to her. I have no regrets about it either. I was PISSED!! 10 birds and 8 of them are roosters??? She's lucky I didn't drive over there! So, 3 more roosters in the damn freezer.

It has now been almost 6 months of raising chickens and I have 2 hens in a BIG beautiful coop.

Here is Red

Delta is the white one

Red is almost 6 months old and Delta is about 4 months old. Did you know that you can't put baby chicks in with older chickens?? The older ones will kill them. We actually had to put the baby chicks into a separate cage inside the coop (pain in the butt) until they got bigger and they were all used to each other. Still, after all that, there were a few fights.

Did you know that chickens usually start to lay eggs at about 5 months of age?? Did you know that they don't need a rooster in order to lay an egg?? If there is a rooster present, then the egg will become a baby chick, but if not, just breakfast.

So, to end on a positive note, Red (a real sweetie)

gave me a present a couple of days ago

and has continued to do so daily since then. I REALLY appreciate my eggs alot more now after seeing what a chicken goes through to lay an egg. It's like going into labor daily and pushing out a baby!!! This has been a little stressful for her and ME. The hubby thinks that she'll get used to it after awhile and it won't be such a strain. I hope so.

Speaking of eggs....

Check out this awesome pillow that my friend Deb made for me!!

Isn't it just FABULOUS??!!!!

I LOVE it Deb!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Check out her website! She's one talented chick (ha~ha)!!

AND, don't faint, but I'm actually going to be posting 4 birds in my etsy store today. I need to fill up the boutiques, so these birds will be the only ones added to the store for awhile.

Okay, that was alot of posting. I've got to get back to work now.

See ya soon!

xoxoxo!

Michelle

p.s. I will eventually get more chickens, but being that it is hotter than Hell here in the desert right now, I will wait until the Fall. Chickens, like humans, do not like the heat.
 
 
 
 
 

  

phew

What a very long week! I am really EXHAUSTED! I have taken 2 naps in the last couple of days and I NEVER nap.

Daughter #4 graduated from high school this week :-) Last one! Yahooooooooo!!!!!

 

Her and a friend goofing off before graduation

Grand daughter, sitting next to her papa, is ready for the ceremony in her cool shades :-)

She also thought that she might see what it's like to sport the cap and gown LOL!

We had people stop over through out the week and we had family staying at the house. Mad house!!

Here is some of the family. Mother-in-law, son-in-law holding grandson, daughter #1, granddaughter, and daughter #2

Our little grandson is getting so big and cute! He's smiling at his daddy in this pic, who by the way is the nicest guy.

The cousins got some pool time together

I was trying to rest on the couch, but my grand daughter decided that I needed a lipstick make-over! Check out her lips! LOL!!!!! This was one of many applications that my lips and the surrounding areas received.

I'm catching up on laundry and I will be spending some serious amount of time in the studio today getting it cleaned up. It always looks like a bomb went off in there after I do a show. I don't know where the hell anything is!

I have 4 cupcakes that I will be putting into my Etsy shop today for those of you who have requested that I do so. I have MANY, MANY, MANY deadlines over the next few weeks, so hopefully I won't lose touch here on the blog. Once again, thank you so much for your patience.

xoxoxo!!!

Michelle
 
 p.s. To daughter #3 in Europe, We Missed You!!!!