New Primitive Goodies!

Gonna make this short tonight. I'm beat! Took advantage of the beautiful weather we had today and worked in my flower gardens and mowed the yard! I certainly got my exercise today! I used to mow all the time. I'm really out of shape. Then I finished up a couple of wall hangings that I made out of old barn wood a friend of mine gave me. Melanie was so nice to give me the wood when they were tearing down one of the barns on her farm. At the time I didn't know what I was going to do with it. I knew I could think of something. I just listed this two cute hangers in my etsy shop!

Then the last couple of days I've been getting some amazing shots of the hummers!

So darn cute!!!!!!!!

This one I just love! He was stretching and puffing up after he got soaked from a rainstorm we had earlier that day.

Oh and almost forgot! My Monarch butterfly came out of its chrysalis on Sunday!!! It was so neat to see it take its first flight. I was kind of sad and happy at the same time.

Here it is drying its wings

Another shot just before it took off. I wonder how it's doing out there in the big world.

I will have more butterflies emerging in about a week or so. I have 2 chrysalis's and 2 caterpillar's right now. Nature is a beautiful thing.

New Items on Early Work Mercantile!!

Can you believe that August is half way through already! Please.... Summer slow down. I'm getting ready to list some new fall goodies on Early Work Mercantile! Thought I would show you a little preview here! I will be listing these awesome pumpkins I made with a pattern by Tickled Primitive. Great fun to make!

The pattern comes with three different sizes. I only made the medium and small one. They are a pretty good size pumpkin.

Next I will be listing my favorite little ghost make do's, made with my own pattern.

And last item is this Witch Pumpkin and little spider friend make do that I just made up.

And I'm working on another Witch Moon Make Do to have finished, to list tomorrow night in my etsy shop.

So I've been busy making these items along with several orders. And taking care of my flower gardens and raising monarch butterflies from caterpillars that I find on my milkweed plants. I have one caterpillar that just turned into a chrysalis on Friday. So it will be 2 weeks before it transforms into a butterfly.

Here is the Mama

Here's the caterpillar right after I found it. It was about a half inch long.

And this is it 5 days later!!! Amazing isn't it!

And here it is 4 days after the last picture! It's in it's chrysalis stage. It will stay like that for 2 weeks before the butterfly emerges!

 Isn't it gorgeous! You should see it in person. The metallic gold on it is amazing! It's hanging from the inside of a big glass antique jar that I have. I took the lid off to take a picture. I also have another jar with another caterpillar that is about a 1/2" right now. So I have to feed it everyday with fresh milkweed leaves.

And I got some amazingly funny pics the other day of a couple of young squirrels playing around in our backyard. I just started snapping pictures as they played and got some crazy pics of them!

They look like they are dancing!

And this one really cracks me up! Looks like he is laying back and laughing!

And this one is "Tag Your It!"

They played none stop for quite awhile. So fun to watch!

And the goldfinches are loving my Zinnia's right along with all the butterflies and bees.

And every morning this baby robin and it's parents are out when I am watering my flowers.

Well I believe that's about it for now. Have a wonderful Sunday evening!

The Great Outdoors

August already!! Where has the summer gone. I am not looking forward to winter. I think we are finally going to get a little cooler weather soon. Yesterday was just terrible. It was in the 90's with heat index, I think of 112º. The humidity was so bad it seemed like it was hard to breath. I'm really trying to get my orders done. I worked on one all day today, should have it done tonight. Also made a turtle for a fundraiser we are going to next week. I used a pattern by Crows Roost Prims. I just love the way my turtle turned out. 

I don't know if any of you heard about a guy that goes up and down the Mississippi river cleaning up all the garbage that people throw in the river. His name is Chad Pregracke and he is from our area. He has been on the national news several times. He started cleaning up the river when he was just a kid and now it's this huge non profit organization.  Once a year they have a big barge party where they serve up a Fish Fry and Shrimp Boil Dinner along with live music and a art auction. So I'm donating my sea turtle. Should be lots of fun!

I had someone on facebook suggest I make a calendar with all my wonderful flower and bird photos. So I have that in the works right now. It's going to take me awhile to gather up and edit my pictures. So watch for my calendar sometime in the late fall. I'll post on here, where and how to buy it! I'm really excited!

So with that here are a few photos from this week that may be in my calendar!!!

New Guinea Impatiens

Swallowtail Butterfly on my Zinnia's

Swallowtail

Mr. Bumble Bee loving the Zinnia's

Another shot of a Swallowtail.

Monarch Butterfly that I got a shot of on Sunday. It was flying around my milkweed plants laying eggs.

And then today I found this newly hatched monarch caterpillar while I was pulling weeds around my milkweed plants!!! I'm so excited! I could not believe how tiny he was. He was about a 1/2" long. I'm going to try to keep track of him. Can't decide if I should bring him in and watch him transform. My daughter did that one year in high school, for her science class and it was the most amazing thing to watch it turn in to a beautiful butterfly.

And here is a sweet hummer that I was able to get a shot of this morning!

That's all for now folks.