Stash Managment

I totally geeked out last night and finally cataloged my stash on ravelry, which was an enormous job. It also gave me the opportunity to sort and organize my stash. I really liked how Loopy Yarns, the LYS I visited in Chicago, was organized by yarn weight, so I reorganized my stash from lace out to superbulky, with a sort of sideline area for hand-dyed & handspun.  Since the pictures above, I’ve also sub-organized each section by color. I haven’t actually done any culling yet, and I still have lots of scattered skeins to collect and add, but I do think there will be a big fat clearing sometime soon. To be on the up-and-up, I really ought to sell off enough to pay for my recent vacation extravagance.

But I’m very excited about having a well-organized stash. Now I should be able to quickly match would-be projects with stash yarns! Hurrah! If I were clever, I’d devote a full day each and every week or organizing something new. I imagine my life would be much smoother and more lovely if I weren’t such a pigpen.

On the egg front: last night, I candled all of the remaining 6 duck eggs, which survived my departure. They all looked more or less like what I could find online (most of the candling pictures are chickens, illustrations, or just much earlier in development), and they all showed a little movement. One had a little chip out of the egg, so I thought it might hatch early, but today it was still chipped and unhatched, so I decided not to mess with it.

Tonight, I candled a couple again so Stephanie could shoot a few pictures for me. The first one was very active, but the second one seemed totally still, and I thought I detected the dreaded blood ring. None of the blood ring photos I could find are this late in the game, however, so I don’t have a good guide.

Afterward, I wondered if the ring might have just been the wax pencil ring I’d drawn on all the eggs so you could easily spot a chicken egg in the nest. I decided to leave them alone, either way, because they should hatch on or around Thursday if they’re gonna hatch. I’ll find out soon enough. Although I didn’t actually want 6 ducks, I have to admit I felt a little panicky about the likely-dead one. I’m also nervous about what might happen once they do hatch, what with the two mommies, and with all the other chickens looming about. Luckily, the most aggressive hen is also one of the broodies.

In other chicken news, Kaylee’s definitely molting:

She’s got mangy bald patches and new quills coming in. Watching Bridgette’s feathers grow back in taught me how the new feathers look, although it’s interesting to see the difference between white and colored feathers. Speaking of Bridgette and new feathers, the little lady is finally growing some tail feathers. Hooray! Way to go, Bridge! She’s got a grand total of three, so they look a little daffy right now, but hopefully they’ll fill in before too long.