Cast in a show, Backyard chickens and fireworks, I need an etching press, first cucumbers, lively garden, slow crochet

Lets see.... Where were we?   Oh yeah.... (its been a long week)  Chickens, gardening and  generally artisan lifestyle.  
Chickens: The fourth was supremely hard on the girls.  I had to yell at the neighbors for shooting bottle rockets directly over the coop.  They took it well and with a laugh...... and sort of pointed them the other way. .... sort of.   Sooo, I spent a good portion of my day sitting in the chicken pen reading. Cuz as long as I was there and not reacting to the explosions they would come out of the coop.   Hashtag spent  a good portion of that time on my lap and trying to crawl inside my shirt.   How stressed were they?  Normally my big girls lay brown eggs.  July 5th they all laid white eggs. I could have laid a white egg myself.  One of the neighbors who is normally ok turned full on D(*&  on the evening of the 4th.  Drunk and reckless and ignoring safety concerns.  He wont be invited back next year.  I'm ok with fun and I understand that boys are driven to blow things up, but beligerance and explosives are an unacceptable combination. 
Garden:  Oh Yeah!  Its finally taking off.  Its gowing so fast now that I wanted to know 'how fast' so I marked the pea strings with black ink and was surprised to find that my pole beans grew 1 full inch in four hours.   The summer squash are growing at almost the same rate.  I am finally a happy Gardener.
Crochet:  The run away  rug project is now under control and doing well.  Its 6 feet long and currently 4 feet wide.  Its been too hot to work on it this week and its getting so heavy  I have had to slow down  alot. But it is beautiful and should be quite the piece of art once it is batiqued(sp?) and dyed.
Canning:  Made Jam... but you knew about that.  Jimmy was adorable yesterday. He came into the house with two pickling cucumbers and  wanted to get them into the brine bucket. I had to explain that 2  3 inch pickles wasn't enough for one jar and you cant just leave them in the bucket all summer waiting for more cucumbers.  He looked so disappointed.  I might go to the farmers market and pick up some sort of fruit so he can play with the dehydrator  I bought at a garage sale for $3 .  It will give him something to do.
Etching press: I bought   a $100  press off of Amazon that barely works.  But it does work. I can do pieces up to 7 x11 with  a 2 inch margin.  I had to mount it to get it to work at all.  Fortunately Feral Jane and I managed to scavenge a really nice solid wood ,  2 foot by 2 foot  table from a back alley in the U-district.  The press is nothing more than a roller and a bed. The action is no way near smooth but it makes a  better print than a baren with   a fraction of the effort. There is some slippage so learning how to handle the thing is  a trial and error  quest.  It kind of reminds me of my first car  (a 69 fiat spider that over heated  and shut down every 15 minutes)..... But I had a car!   So far out of 20  attempts at printing I have had 3 successes.   Considering the crappy press and my inexperience... I'd say that's pretty good.   A real etching press that will print up to 24 by 30 is still very high on my 'I want' list.   Ok its really the only thing on my 'I want'  list.   Alright fine, I have convinced myself that if I had an honest to god   etching press my whole life would become rainbows, unicorns and strawberries dipped in chocolate  everyday!

And last but not least , I auditioned for a local play and was cast.  So, now I get to add memorizing lines to my already very long to do list.