Thursday, August 13, 2009
Our First Egg!!!
Our hens were about this same size when we got them 20 weeks ago.
One second after this photo was taken, the egg LEAPED out of Nolan's hands and splattered onto my bedroom floor. Even though the egg is small, it had a nice big yolk inside.
As far as I know, the hens aren't supposed to be laying for two more weeks, so a tiny egg is a big deal at this point. I found this tiny gem out by my clothesline.
This is also an exciting day for us because we have lost so many hens. We started with 8 hens and bought an adult rooster shortly thereafter. Then we bought 5 more 24-hour-old hens and 5 more roosters (the roosters came free with a bag of feed, so we said "why not?" and raised them to butcher). Because of a hawk and the neighbors' four dogs and two of the hen babies growing up to be roosters, we are down to 2 hens. We're hoping that we will get 2 eggs per day, and that's two more homegrown healthy eggs per day than we were getting before. We are blessed.
This little egg, even though it was splattered before any of us could enjoy it, has given me motivation to raise another batch of chicks. So bring on the heat lamp and the constant cleaning of the cage and the fear that Ruby will squeeze, I mean, love them to death. Instead of taking another risk of accidentally getting males even though I paid extra for females the first time around, I'll be ordering my babies online. They are guaranteed to be gender specific.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Ruby's First Sentence
It's a sentence that totally fits her personality. She's always on the move and ready to go anywhere at any time. As soon as she walks out the door, she says "Let's go!" and heads straight for the blackberry bushes. She grabs the branches and pulls off the berries shoving them in her mouth before I can even get to her. She's completely unphased by the thorns. I don't know how she grabs a branch without crying in pain, but her love for the blackberries is more important.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Gettin' Big
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Happy Birthday, Lily!!!
Lily likes her bike so much that she brought it inside and wiped it down.
The cake got messed up in the car, but she still liked it.
She had no idea that she was getting a bike, even though she had asked for one.
Daddy surprised her when he brought up the bike.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Our First Drama Presentation
Easter Egg Hunt
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
We Have Chicks!!!
Even the dog looks after the "babies".
Emily's homemade car won 2nd place for best design at AWANA last week.
Lily can't keep her hands off of them.
The kids have been wanting to have chicks ever since their Aunt Maddie got chicks last year. I wanted chickens as part of my effort to buy all of our food locally, and at home is as local as you can get. I like to know exactly what is in my food, and these days you can never be too careful about what you're feeding your family.
The kids love the chicks. They are getting bigger every day. They have to live in the house under a heat lamp for one month so the girls get to look after their "babies" all the time. After dinner all of the kids go out to the yard and hunt for bugs to feed to the chicks who then fight like crazy over it.
So, now we are a family of 2 parents, 5 kids, 1 dog, 1 fish and 8 chicks all living inside the house for now. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up with everyone and still maintain my household.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Another Nolan Funny
Nolan: "I have a lot of verses in my Sunday School class."
(Paul & I are the teachers of Nolan's class every 4 weeks so we know what goes on in the 2 & 3 year old class)
Me: "Oh, really? Like what?
Nolan (with enthusiasm): Snacks!
Monday, February 23, 2009
Walking Ruby
We were moving the pails of wheat from the kitchen to another room when we noticed that Ruby was taking a couple of steps between the pails. We pretty much tricked her into walking. It's so sad that our baby is growing up, but I know that she loves doing big kid things.