Some new friends and a finished knit

Last Wednesday we went to Honeybourne (the Domestic Fowl Trust) to see about finding some new friends for Ethel and Attila. Two adorable little chooks came home with us.

This is Elsie (the Welsie, or Welsummer) and Nugget. Nugget is not a scottish chicken, so will not be answering to 'McNugget'. They're starting to settle in, though there have been a few little scuffles to establish the pecking order. No real trouble or nastiness, though. They are both still quite timid around Ethel and Attila and run away when they approach but they are gradually becoming less nervous around us, and I can already pick Nugget up quite easily without frightening her. Corn is a useful bribe for taming chickens, and we've got through a fair bit this week.
We got a little taste of the Summer that seems to be eluding the British Isles this afternoon, and I spent half an hour out in the garden with the chooks, looking at how everything is growing. I had to get photographic proof of this sunflower so that I can gloat to my mother that I've grown the tallest one. Isn't it gorgeous? It doesn't look that tall here, until you put it in perspective... For the record, I'm 5'8", and not crouching. That's a big sunflower! Incidentally, this is my latest finished knit: a fitted cardi knitted in Kauni yarn in the round and steeked, to my own pattern made up as I went along with no records kept. Knowing the way the knitting goddess likes to punish us for wild knitting like this, (cf. the published works of the Yarn Harlot), I'm astounded that it succeeded, but so thrilled with the way it came out!
Rainbow!! I especially love the sleeves, with the longer colour sequences, and the fact that they are knitted going different directions through the colours, from different points, but co-ordinate really nicely at the cuffs. If I cross my arms, the colours on my forearms line up. That is very cool and totally accidental!
Cute kitty photo; totally unposed by me... What can I say, if you leave knitting lying around, even in a basket, Willow will find it and sleep on it. Looking as cute as possible. so that you can hardly bear to move her, even if it was what you were trying to work on just at that moment.
And the new knitting on the needles? (Along with the rest of the WIPs) - Cleite, by Miriam Felton, from the premiere issue of Twist Collective. This is about halfway through the first repeat of chart 2. So far, it's sucking in all of my concentration when I'm knitting it, so I lose whole chunks of whatever I'm watching on TV and am doing that annoying thing of asking 'What just happened?' 'Who's he?' every 5 minutes, but fortunately my hubby is very understanding and I love how it's turning out so far. You never know, I may even manage to memorise the pattern eventually.