Mary's little tree is finished

I worked on the tree on the left side of the sampler, and finally finished it.

It extends from the bottom all the way up to the strawberry border. I am glad I started at the bottom because there are exactly 2 threads separating the flower from the border!

Here is how the whole thing looks so far:

Next, I am on to stitch  a parrot that will be just to the right of the carnation. It is just as big as the sheep! Yikes! That is one big parrot!

On the home front, our new little chickies have just started laying. Four out of ten have started laying these little eggs.

Three out of the ten are laying green eggs!

In the beginning, the eggs are always very small. You can see how small they are compared to a regular sized egg. They will be big soon though!

Now, just a question to put out there -  Does anyone know why a perfectly good iron that has not been dropped, abused, or mis-handled in any way should start leaking? Aggh! For the past 20 odd years, I have been using Rowenta irons. They have always been very good. The last two however have not been so good! They have both leaked. Tricky business when you are ironing a sampler!
What kind of iron do you use? Are you happy with it?
I guess I need to buy another one.