The last few weeks have been very busy ones for my chickens and for me as well. (This has been our busiest season at work.) It has been difficult to complete any new stories or drawings to share with you, but we have still tried to stay up with our reading here on WordPress. Here is what has been happening lately. It’s what you might call “The Scoop From The Coop!”
Bessie has been eager to get back into the kitchen. Partly because with the colder temperatures it is the perfect season for baking. She hopes to have some recipes to share with everyone very soon. It has been wet and dreary here for quite a few days, and that is not the best for her when it comes to making the illustrations for her recipes.
Straw bales have been purchased and placed around the run area to serve as wind blocks. Everyone enjoys getting on top of them and surveying from this higher perspective or making a nice dustbath in a protected corner. They are convinced there are millions of bugs hiding inside the bales of straw too! So Gracie and the others have something new to provide protection from the cold and amusement as well. As for me, I think they are perfect for sitting.
Our search for an old and inexpensive manual typewriter continues. Emily and Amelia have been very patient, though they are just as eager as ever to be writers. For now, Amelia’s words are kept safely in her heart, a perfect place for them.
“How To Explain Christmas To Chickens” is going well. It just may not be available through Barnes and Noble for this year’s Christmas season. There is much more work involved with a novel than I had imagined. Right now my extra time is spent editing and illustrating. My goal now is to at least be able to share a free draft copy with our regular readers here sometime in December. It may likely not have illustrations at that time. This is not such a bad thing because the story truly should be able to stand on its own, and I believe it does. More to follow soon.
Pomegranate season is here! One of our local grocery stores has some very large pomegranates at a very good price, and so I’ve stocked up for the holiday season. My chickens love these special treats, and they even have worked their way into playing a key role in one chapter of “How To Explain Christmas To Chickens.” I will be sitting on one of those straw bales I told you about earlier and hand-feeding pomegranate pips to my chickens beginning next week on Thanksgiving Day. The hard part will be making them last!
Most important of all: We have a continued appreciation for YOU, our readers! Thank you so much for reading and being a part of this creative journey with us. You make the gray dreary days and the cold windy nights much brighter and warmer for us!
Your friends,
John, Gracie, Bessie, Pearl, Emily, and Amelia
Have fun feeding the pomegranate seeds to the chickens! Happy thanksgiving!
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Thank you, Ruth. We are looking forward to it, most definitely! A day off from work, and a day to spend just with my chickens…for me, that’s just about the best kind of day! I hope it is a wonderful and special day for you as well!
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It’s looking good. My son and family either the three youngest grandchildren plan to be here!
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love those pomegranates! Looking forward to all you share.
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Thanks so much, Judi. If you were here, I know my chickens would be happy to share them with you!
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I love pomegranates too and had NO idea you could feed them to chickens……i guess i now need to make a trip to the grocery. 🙂
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Yes, indeed! They love them, and while some people might think it’s being a little extravagant, I get so much joy in seeing their excitement, much more than I would receive from eating them myself.
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🙂 I love this! Thank you……..I can’t wait to experience that myself.
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I put poms out for mockingbirds. They won’t let me hand-feed them, but they do love these treats.
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That is so kind and wonderful of you for you to do that. For birds, I think it’s sort of a “double treat.” They get the juice that is full of antioxidants and the seed that is full of energy. Sometimes animals know what is good for them so much better than people (I am imagining a bowl of Thanksgiving Day mashed potatoes, herb dressing, and gravy right now!)
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And a long nap after!
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Glad everything is going well!
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Thanks so much. I really appreciate that!
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A great post. I hope you get your book into print before too long. I think the illustrations are brilliant
.
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Thanks so much, Phil! Your comment was actually the motivation for today’s post which looks at how my illustration style has changed since this same time last year. Thanks again, John
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I am glad it helped you. I wish I could draw.
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You and the girls make OUR days brighter and warmer. Cheers, John and family. Happy Thanksgiving 🙂 ❤
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Thanks, Will. The girls and I appreciate that so much!
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I know what you mean about finding time to publish. I’ve been doing things away from the computer for the past week (new fences, boiler leaks, dismantling furniture, emergency babysitting and an unplanned new tap) and I still have my monthly contribution to the reading group to finish, the new printed volume of writing group stories to check over and some poems to look at that I promised to edit for a friend. Not to mention the volume of short stories I’d intended to publish before Christmas (looking unlikely). Just to help matters, I tipped a glass of wine over my laptop on Saturday so I’m currently squatting (virtually speaking) on my husband’s laptop.
Good luck with your book. With Christmas on the horizon it can only get busier.
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Yes! Sometimes I think no one in their right mind would ever want to be a writer. But then again, I think we write because we don’t have a choice. The words and the story will not let us rest until we have have them on the page.
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John, thank you for sharing the latest scoop! Everyone has been busy. You are progressing on your novel. I am too much of a chicken to hunt and peek my way towards the completion of a novel, but perhaps I will feel motivated to finish a long short story soon. It needs some added dialogue and editing.
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