Ms. Dipper (one of our frequent feral chicken visitors) hatched three chicks! On a concrete slab no less, ha ha.

She started out this journey into first time motherhood with six eggs, which she laid in the corner of our front porch behind a couple of brooms, one of which she knocked down about a week into sitting on the eggs.

We didn't even SEE the eggs until there were already five of them, and then she was sitting on them the next day or maybe one more after that. So we let her be.

Amazingly, to me anyway, never having spent much time around chickens before we moved to Hawaii and discovered all the wild ones running around everywhere, as the number of eggs dwindled, I never saw any trace of them. No broken eggshells littering her "nest" spot or even just chucked off the edge of the porch. So I don't know if she ate them or what... but there was no mess!

And then yesterday, late afternoon, we got our first sign of life!

Just two little eyes peeking and a couple of fuzzy little butts! Or maybe heads. It was hard to tell! And we didn't want to get too close, of course.

This morning before we left for school drop off, she was still there, but when I got back?

Crack, crack, crack!

And when I poked my head out the back door, there they were!

Hiding in the grass behind the lawnmower! Eeeeek! They're SOOOOOO cute and SOOOOOO little when they're first hatched!

So prepare yourself for cuteness overload, ha ha.

1, 2, 3!

And this one is the best one:

Awwwwwwwwww! Ha ha ha ha! (I can hear the collective sounds of cuteness coming right through cyberspace as you read this!)

We are going to have SO much fun watching these little floofs grow.

We hope.

This IS Dipper's first time having babies. So we'll see how she does.

But she did manage to hatch three chicks on concrete, so... maybe she's got this! She didn't eat them as soon as they hatched anyway. (I read that can happen, and there's no way to know if a chicken will be a good momma or not until she tries! Yikes.)

Wow. Okay! That was exciting, ha ha. I just had to share! Hopefully I didn't get too carried away, lol.

Aaaaaaanyway.

In other news!

I had my first full appointment with an Occupational Therapist last week and boy, he worked me OUT. By the time we were done my hand was TIRED!

He did a soft suction cup "massage" on my forearm that freakin' hurt, y'all (but it felt good on my palm!) plus some regular type massage on my thumb that felt fine except for when it was directly on the joint that's injured.

There was some ultrasound therapy, which didn't feel like much of anything, some dremel looking thing for a little vibrating massage, putty squeezing that absolutely wore my hand out, and my favorite, of course, was the paraffin wax dip and heating pad.

My forearm was actually still a little tender from it for a couple days and my thumb has definitely bothered me more since then, but he said he was pleased with what he was seeing and that the goal is to reduce swelling and get the blood moving in there to stimulate growth and healing and to break up any scar tissue that may have formed from the injury.

So. Slow going, I think, but progress! And I have permission to keep working, too, ha ha. Just, with breaks and not overdoing it, of course.

Which is good news because it's officially fall! And even here in Hawaii that gets me wanting to make nice cozy things, just like everyone else. Actually, I have a couple unboxings to do for y'all, now that I've finished up the project for Spin Off magazine and fall break has wrapped up (that was last week, so I hung out with an eight year old for ten days straight), so watch the Facebook group for those! Maybe next Friday for the first one?

Who's ordered an advent this year?? I always want one, but I usually waffle around until it's too late to order. Same for making holiday gifts, actually. How about you? Who's all over it and who needs help? The Indie Gift-along and the Fasten Off Yarn-along will be coming up soon, so be sure to join in on one or both of those if you need a little community support for your holiday gift making! (I'll share more info on those next month; I do plan to be a participating designer again for both events.)

Okay! I think that's quite enough from me for one email! I should go get busy with something besides bird watching, ha ha. Wish me luck. It's going to be hard to stay away from those cute little peeps in my backyard!!

Cheers, y'all.

-Connie

P.S. I've started sending out postcards to my Patrons! The first batch is going out now and I've started working on some new ones for next month, so if you'd like to get a little spark of joy in your mailbox, you can join me for as little as $2 a month and, for the time being at least, get an original, hand-painted postcard from me!

Here's a look at the postcards going out to everyone who was a paying Patron on October 1st:

Would you be interested in purchasing reproductions of any of these as postcards or blank greeting cards for you to mail out yourself? Hit reply and let me know! (I don't want to print them if no one will buy them, y'all—so I really do need to hear from you if this is something you'd like to see from me!!)

P.P.S. I know I've been neglecting the crochet content a lot. I really appreciate your patience as I try to rest my thumb. It started way back in May, y'all. It's been bothering me a LONG time. But I hope you've enjoyed following along for some of the other adventures, creative and otherwise, ha ha, with all the birds and whatnot. I'm thinking about tying some smaller projects together with my paintings, all accessories, I expect, starting next year after my residency in Molokai. I think it would be really fun to do patterns that are inspired by the paintings I put into a calendar one year! It would be a lot of work, though, which is why they'd need to be smaller designs. But it's something I've been thinking about! Let me know your thoughts. :)