Guinea fowl hatching timeline

Guinea Fowl

Hatching timeline.

This year’s guinea keet hatches were especially successful, so I’m going to record it on my blog, so I can find it next year. Right now, my notes are scribbled on a scrap of card stock!

I’ll write down more details later, in regards to the incubator we have, and how we manage to hatch so many live keets and keep them alive. But, for today, because I am preparing for a road trip and have a jacket I want to sew and a studio to tidy up, here is my schedule.

The day before loading the incubator, make sure it’s clean, has a stable surface to sit on where you will check it regularly, turn it on and get it to the appropriate humidity.

Day 1 - When incubator is ready, set the eggs in. Our incubator has a simple, but effective, automatic turner and I highly recommend that. I try to keep the humidity around 35-45% from days 1-23 and the temperature at 37.2C. My little humidistat is in Celsius.

Day 23 - Stop the egg turner and increase humidity to 70% or over and increase the heat to 37.5C.

Those are the 2 most important dates. I didn’t know to turn the egg turner off the first time, and 4 of the keets ended up with splayed legs from jumping over the frame that turns the eggs.

A couple of other important modifications that I made. I cut a shelf liner to fit and on the day I stopped turning the eggs, I carefully put that liner under the eggs before leaving them alone. I worked quickly and carefully and then upped the humidity right away.

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Day 25 is when my guinea keets almost always start hatching and I’ve had hatches go as long as day 31.

Questions for me? Leave them in the comments!

Anne Dovel

The Hug Hoodie Sweatshirt

I love sweatshirts. My favorite outfit, that I would wear every day if it were cool enough, is jeans and a sweatshirt. We are taking a little road trip to Montana this week, and I really didn’t need one more thing to do, but I knew I had some grey French terry in my stash. And, I knew a sweatshirt really wouldn’t take long to sew. I don’t even know if I’m procrastinating on something else, which is usually the case when I decide to make something right before a trip.

I started searching on Instagram, which is my favorite place to find new garment patterns, and ran across the Hug Hoodie by MadeIt Patterns. I was drawn to MadeIt Pattern’s modern, fun children’s patterns awhile back, but I don’t really have a little to sew for anymore. You should go look, if you like funky, modern patterns.

I wasn’t really sure if I would like the angled waist on the Hug Hoodie, but since I have tried to stop overthinking my projects and just dive in, I decided to give it a go. It’s just fabric, after all, and a little time.

Overall, the pattern is really well written, and easy to follow. I think even with the blunder when I thought I knew the next step and ended up having to pick out a seam, it took less than 2 hours. I have an old Bernina serger, which speeds things up when sewing with knits, for sure. I also had some really nice ribbing yardage, in 2 shades of blue, that I picked up for a song at Goodwill last winter.

During construction, I got a wild hair, that I should dunk the grey sweatshirt fabric into my indigo bucket. I’ve been playing with Indigo from Dharma Trading. It’s just the kit they sell, but I’m already so hooked, it’s not funny; not as hooked as my niece, who just extracted her own indigo from plants that she grew. Amazing!

I skipped putting on the cuffs, and finished the construction, including the hood; I had some beautiful navy and white knit from a t-shirt that I made, which I used to line the hood. I zigzagged the raw edges of the sleeves to keep them neat, and dunked the whole thing in my indigo bucket. That was a good call. My dyeing experience is very, very amateur and can be generally summed up with this phrase, “let’s see what happens.” I really wasn’t worried about the possibility of it ending up uneven, since I like the distressed sweatshirt look.

After I dyed, washed, and dried it, I put the cuffs on and it was finished. And, I am smitten! I love the waist detail and it’s so comfy not having a waistband to keep adjusting, since it hangs loosely. The sleeves are a more modern cut, so if I want it to be roomier next time, for more layering, I will have to alter the sleeve and add some more ease in. I did choose a size 12, so I would have more room, and it’s really not too baggy at all, even a couple sizes bigger than I would choose if I were making a t-shirt.

You can see the pictures here until I have time to upload them!

Next up, a jacket I’ve been crazy about since I first saw it, the Wiksten Haori kimono style jacket.

Have a beautiful day. A severe thunderstorm rolled through at 4:30am, and ordinarily, I would just sleep through it, but it must have caught me during a light sleep. So, I got up, and cut out the lining to the jacket. I’ll really try to take pictures, but when I start to sew, I like to sew…not just write about sewing!

Anne - The Fit Quilter

Time for another Facebook break!

In April, I decided to give myself the gift of no posting on my Facebook personal profile for 30 days. And it turned out to be a splendid gift to myself. But, I have business on Facebook, so over time, I started scrolling and commenting and went back to posting on my profile. In the last couple of weeks, I shared some deeper thoughts, and got many positive comments back. It seemed like everyone was a friend. Then, one day, I posted a campaign video, because I thought what was said, was valid. Crickets. And not just crickets, but ghosting.

Now, I’m a big girl, I can handle it. But, it made me think a lot about how we are fooled into thinking we have real connection on social media. I’ve met people, and built connection from Facebook, but do you really have connection ON Facebook?

Another thing that happens often on Facebook, is the random stranger, you’ve never ever heard from, will comment, but most often, only to tell you how wrong you are. Friends just don’t comment. The mask debate; who could have predicted how mean people could get if you didn’t agree with their mask philosophy? I didn’t predict it, but after a conversation in late March with someone, I did tell my best friend, this is going to divide churches, businesses and damage friendships. And, sadly, it is doing that and has done that.

But, I’m not here to talk about masks. Heavens…are we sick of that topic yet? I still make a few custom masks for people, but thankfully, cheap, mass-produced masks are in all the box stores now. That takes the pressure off!

So, why am I back to my blog? The toxicity level on Facebook is at an all time high. And, I like my life too much to be drowning in the epic fear mongering so prevalent on Facebook. I very much doubt that Zuckerberg and his employees have even close to the same beliefs, ideals, politics, faith as I do. But, they are pulling the strings, and I am not going to play that game on my personal page. So, I’m going to just let it be and post on my business page, and who knows…I may leave it that way.

So, let’s get at this blog thing. I have elderberries to harvest, sourdough to make, quilts and rope bowls to make and a blog to share it on.

Anne Dovel - The Fit Quilter

France mission work week 2021

Our church has been assisting missionaries, Craig and Katie Young in Marseille, since 2015. They have spent their adult lives doing mission work in France, have raised their daughters there and are working with a committed team of other missionaries in training local French speaking people. They are impacting their community in what is a predominantly atheistic, agnostic and Muslim city.

In the mountains, about 3 hours from Marseille, is a tract of land with a lodge that the Christians in France purchased in 2005. It’s an amazing story of God at work. They got a tremendous deal on the land and the lodge/chalet, which will sleep 200 campers and staff.

Another church from New Jersey has been going and assisting in the upkeep of the camp, every other year, since 2007. A team from our church joined them first in 2015. We were so impressed with their hearts, hard work, and their longterm commitment to establish indigenous congregations, that we have taken a team of 12-16 three times and are preparing for a fourth.

The small number of Christians in France cannot yet maintain and make necessary improvements to the camp to put it into shape for the year around activities without assistance. In addition to getting the camp into tip-top shape for the children’s camp each summer, we take on major projects each summer to put the camp into better shape than it has ever been in before. Because the property had been both vandalized and neglected for several years before they bought it, the list of needed repairs is still long, but it is growing shorter every year! We’ve made huge strides of progress, but we still have significant work that needs to be completed in 2021. In 2009 we started the annex plumbing, septic, electrical, insulation, sheet rock, tile and ceiling work, but we have still not been able to completely finish the work needed in the annex. We hope to finish that work next summer, as well as doing significant repair work on the soccer field, and the typical cleaning, organizing, carpentry and painting.

Dave and I are leading another team to work on the camp next summer. We deeply appreciate the generous help of our community in past years. We hope and pray you can help financially, but please do not take any money away from your existing church commitments. But, over the next 2 months, if you have anything extra that you might want to help the young people of France to enjoy a Christian camping experience, I’d love it if you remember our efforts to evangelize in France.

Dave and I are primarily self-supporting, but we continue to raise extra funds to help others close the gap in fundraising. It takes about $2200 per person. That money goes to airfare, ground transportation, food and supplies for camp. We are hoping to have our funds early so we can book cheaper tickets and give more for supplies.

If you can help, tap the button above, and I will mail this letter to you or email it, with the link to mail a check or deposit online. Continue to pray for our trip as we make preparations. Leading a large group of workers on an international trip is daunting!

Feel free to message me on Instagram, if that’s where we met! Or, click the button and send me an email if you would like to know more.

Your friend,

Anne Dovel - The Fit Quilter

Affiliate links on Recipes

Dear fellow blogger with affiliate links on recipe sites.

I am not an affiliate link expert, nor a marketing expert, in the traditional sense of the word. However, I’m pretty good at online searches, and ordering online. I also search for recipes all the time. And this is one reason, so many blogs with affiliate links are recipe based or have a large recipe database.

As your friend and consumer, I wanted to share this for consideration. I may be completely different than everyone else, so take this with a grain of salt.

There are a couple of things that will make me backspace and go to the next search result.

1. If I get on a recipe page, and I have to scroll past a journal, more than a couple swipes, I look for another recipe. As an experienced cook, I just want to get to the recipe. Stories and tips are great, if it’s something brand new, but I like that after the recipe.

2. If more than 1 pop-up ad interrupts my viewing of the recipe, I go back to my search results.

3. If instead of saying, “Use a 9” standard pie pan,” you say, “use a large pie pan” and make me look for what large means to you, and it’s a link to an Amazon affiliate store, instead of just to the pie pan, I move on. That happened today. A recipe for crustless rhubarb pie looked really good. Recipe said, use large pie pan. Large pie pan is pretty subjective, so I looked back in the journal before the recipe and finally found an affiliate link to an Amazon store, and I scrolled through all this kitchen stuff, and never did find the specific pie pan, because I gave up and found a new recipe.

   So, there are a couple of things that will keep me on your site longer, to check out the recipe.

   1. So, you want to tell the story around a specific recipe. Put a link at the top that lets me jump right to the recipe. I’m not against stories. I love telling stories, but as I mentioned before, when I search for a recipe, I’m not searching for a story. I usually want to find it, and start cooking. Then, if I’m curious, I might go back and read the story.

   2. Make the recipe printable, if you are in the recipe business. If you are a blogger who occasionally shares a recipe you just made, then this probably doesn’t apply.

   3. Make sure you include pan sizes. Large pie pan, might cut it. But, I have 4 sizes of pie pans. Should I use the largest one or the kind of large one? Deep dish or shallow?

      
      Now, I can’t figure out how to stop continuing the indentation! Anyone want to help me with that?
      I hope this helps a little bit. Again, I’m not an expert on this topic. But, most recipes are not unique. Even if you think you were the first one to figure it out, your grandma’s best friend across the street probably did it before there was internet, figuratively speaking. And, if you annoy your viewer who found your site for a recipe, and they happen to be like me, they will search elsewhere.

      Your friend,

      Anne Dovel - The Fit Quilter