Eggs, Eggs, and More Eggs

Dear chicken-crazy daughter got a surprise the other day: EGGS!

A couple of months ago, I sold some turkey eggs to a lovely lady from Lytton who got to chatting with my girl and discovered they have a mutual admiration for Salmon Faverolles.  "Tricia" promised to bring my girl some eggs next time she was through town.  Well.  I don't like it when adults promise kids things, as most adults do not respect the power of the promise to a child.

But this special lady does :)

She arrived with no less than 12 Salmon Faverolle eggs AND 6 Mille Fleur D'uccle eggs for us to hatch!!  Whoa Nellie!  Talk about sweet gifts!

Salmon Fav's are big and beautiful and gentle, and winter well.  Mille Fleur D'uccles are lovely hens... the jury is out on the roosters (I haven't heard good things).  So all these eggs went into the trusty incubator (I told you it was getting a work-out!  Add to those eggs, the couple of Easter Egger eggs from here, and we'll see what we get in a couple of weeks.  Needless to say, we'll be selling most of the chicks as we are bursting as I've mentioned.  And I thought I was done with chicks for this year!

Mrs. Broody-Pants

AGAIN, this was NOT the plan.  I like my plans.  But This One was not part of ANY plan for this summer, anyway.

We have this sweet, two-year old blue Ameraucana hen, whom we've had since she was a chick and she has never before wanted to be a mom.

"Misty" AKA "Mrs Broody-Pants" before motherhood

Until now.  We tried several times to discourage her, taking her eggs away, moving her, locking her completely away from where she thought would be a good place to brood.  No such luck.  We finally decided that we'd give her a chance to see what she could do.  We let her have 4 brown eggs (not her eggs, as the only active rooster we have right now is either her nephew or her son).  One of her coop mates decided to lay her eggs right beside her about a week after she starting setting, so Mrs Broody-Pants adopted these eggs too!  Problem is, I think, obvious.  The other 2 eggs would hatch 10 days after the first 4. 

This is where having an incubator comes in handy.  So, seeing how today is day 18 for the first 4 eggs, we candled all the eggs, figured out which ones would be the ones to hatch on Tuesday, and put the rest in the incubator to hatch with the Salmon Faverolle eggs and Mille Fleur D'uccle eggs already in there.  Oh, what? I haven't mentioned those?  They were a gift for my 4H daughter.  We couldn't really say "no", could we?  Even though I feel like we are totally bursting at the seams of our little place here.  Oh well.  We'll just have to get picky and sell some birds.  Or build another coop.  Ahem.

So Much to Say ...

So Few Pictures!

Like, none :(

Things are rolling right along on our little slice of land, I just haven't had time.  There's couple photos I have taken, and will share as soon as I can get them downloaded, but for now, you'll just have to be patient and enjoy the mental images.

The lambs are getting SO big!  It's getting hard to tell who are the mama ewes and who are the babies.  I'm letting the mamas wean the babies gradually, instead of seperating them as most shepherds do after about the 2 month-mark.  For a couple of reasons.  I think my sheep are happier all together and I'd rather not shock the mamas into mastitus or something of the sort. Plus, I really don't have a lot of extra space to seperate them completely, far enough away from each other, and provide adequate housing so that they are safe from predators at night.  So, I'm going with the gradual wean.  And it's interesting to watch.  Being a long-term breast-feeder of both my babes (we're talking over 5 years and almost 5 years, respectively), it's just easier on the moms and babes, physically and emotionally.  And I'm noticing that the mama ewes are letting the lambs nurse less and less, and for much shorter periods (like, seconds!). So ya, right or wrong, that's what I'm doing and it seems to be working for my girls.

The ducklings hatched last week -- I started with 4 eggs in the incubator, and got four ducklings!  I had to help the last 2 out.  I think they might have gotten a little shrink-wrapped when I opened the incubator to nab the first two.  You're not supposed to do that either - open the incubator when there are critters hatching -- but ducks are messy and I didn't want them pooping on the other duck eggs or disturbing the turkey eggs that still had a week to go.  Ya Ya, I know, you're not supposed to do That Either -- put land poultry in with waterfowl, but hey, I'm on a bit of a roll of doing things against the grain.  So far, it's working for me; hopefully that continues.  We'll see when the turkeys are due to hatch this week!

The turkey mamas are doing fantastically with their babies in the netted yard.  We had a couple of casualties in the first day, when the little tiny poults were finding their way out of the pen through little tiny cracks we didn't even know were there.  But since then, it's been all good.  Mamas are keeping them warm, the poults are eating well and growing strong.  I have someone coming for 8 little ones this week, which will leave mama Tasha with 3 to raise.  Mama Violet still has her 3 (she hatched 10, I sold 4 and some winged predator gobbled down 3 before we could blink).

The chicks we hatched out this spring are all doing well.  My 4H Daughter is slowly but surely selling off her extra roosters to people who want "Daddy Birds" as opposed to dinner, which makes her very happy, and at this time, supplies her with just enough extra cash to pay for their food.  Man, those large breeds can EAT!  She's got the Buff Orphingtons, which we affectionately call "The Monsters".  They are so big, but so gentle, and they way they walk is a sight to behold.  It kind of reminds me of Jurrassic Park - Thud Thud Thud as they cruise the pasture.  Too Funny.  The marans and my 2 sweet little wheaton ameraucanas are coming along too.  They are just 10 weeks old, but so sweet and colorful!  It seems that out of my ameraucana eggs that hatched, I have gotten the ultimate chicken wish: 1 rooster and 1 hen.  Rooster has been named Sting (we name all the roosters after singers), and the hen?  "Happy".  'Cuz that's what I am that she's a hen :)

Lastly, for now anyway, I was perusing the chicken classifieds and thinking "I am NEVER going to find any dark silkies this year"  and lo and behold, the next ad I saw was just that -- Three 12 week old black silkies!  Obviously I didn't hesitate.  I was hoping to get a hen, but now it seems I may have a little breeding pair!  Oh bliss!

I'll sound off for now -- and publish again -- with Pictures! -- very soon.

Take care, friends.

:: In Progress ::

Well.  My dance card has been FULL lately, let me tell you!

So, in short, here's what's in progress around here ...

:: First batch of Buff Orphingtons are now old enough (and Big Enough!) to be in with the main flock
:: Second round of orphingtons - 3 buffs and 6 isobels - are in the transition yard beside the main flock
:: My birthday presents, the marans and wheaton ameraucanas, are now by themselves in the chick yard, covered by netting to protect them from winged predators
:: First hatch of turkeys happened Today!  Mama Violet hatched 10/10 eggs and is now in the Turkey Nursery yard, which is also covered with netting for the same reason as above
:: Tasha the Turkey hen is sitting on a clutch of eggs, due sometime next week
:: The garlic is going Mental
:: I have volunteer potatoes and New Zealand spinach in the garden - boy is it nice when plants come up all by themselves!
:: It's looking like a good crop of strawberries and raspberries this year!
:: We gave away 1 drake (kept 1), and are hatching ducklings in the incubator next week
:: The lambs are now 10 weeks old, and the boys have all been castrated (!)
:: My "shalom" sweater is near completion!

We've plateau'ed for a bit now -- garden is mostly planted, the lambs don't need to be doted upon, the chicks are all outside and doing well, the turkey mamas and babes have protection.  It's all just basic management at this point.  The ducklings will stir things up a bit next week and will require a little extra attention, and I have turkey eggs in the incubator too and my fingers are crossed that all goes well there.  I've only ever had mama-hatched poults before and they do SO well with mama.  Why the incubator then?  I had turkeys laying eggs all over and no one sitting on them, and really, at $15 per poult, it's a bit of gold when they hatch.  All the money we get from selling baby turkeys goes to feeding the rest of the birds, and it would be so nice not to dip into our personal savings to feed everyone this winter.

Next update: ducklings!

See you soon....

I Won't Do THAT Again

What, you ask?  Loan out my incubator in the spring.  Stupid me!    A friend of my daughter's asked if, for her birthday, she could hatch a few chicks.  It was the beginning of March, and I think, sure why not.  Great experience for another home-schooled kid.  (Why should my kids get all the fun, eh?) So after I hatched out 16 of my Birthday presents, 

Blue & Birchen Marans chicks, 3 days old

I handed it over, no charge.  Am I crazy?  Yes!!  There's a guy locally who rents out his incubators to families, schools, libraries, etc for $100.  They hatch out 7 of his eggs, and return the chicks and all the equipment.  Basically charges $100 for the experience, and I'm giving it out for free.  Not to mention, the turkeys, ducks AND geese all decided to start laying and not setting about a week after the incubator settled in it's new (temporary) home.  Grrrr.  So I sold several dozen turkey and duck eggs as "fertile" eggs to try to save some of these eggs that could be turned into creatures.  I'm still waiting for the turkeys to start setting, and I'm collecting the goose eggs to incubate.  I get the incubator back next Friday, and I'm counting the days.  I sure hope these turkeys go broody soon!

Duck, Duck, Goose...

... Chicken, Beep.

Duck Egg, Duck Egg, Goose Egg, Chicken Egg, Beep Egg :)

Hee Hee!  We're up to our eyeballs in eggs over here - must be Spring!  The ducks have started laying and since we have 3 ducks and 2 drakes, we are getting a lot of duck eggs - fertile ones at that.  So while my incubator is on loan to a friend, I'm selling fertile duck eggs.  Not a bad interum gig.  The geese, Jordie and Lucy, are also wanting to start a family!  So I think we are going to let them do that; Lucy is just collecting her eggs at the moment.   Apparently, in her "other" life at the farm-before-ours, she often tried to set on a nest, but the ducks would bother her right off of it.  Not this time!  We'll make sure she has the privacy she needs.

And Mr. Raven paid us a call the other day, and because of him, we discovered the turkeys have started a clutch of eggs as well.  We moved the nest and showed the turkey hens where it was, and they seemed quite happy with the new location.  Not only was the old location in full view of passing crows and ravens, it was right beside the pond.  I could totally see unaware turkey babes plunging into the water and us finding the unlucky hatchlings floating... not to mention distraught mothers!  Ugh.  So move them we did and since they seem to be adding to the nest, me thinks they are pleased with our suggestion.

Spring Reading!

"Hatching and Brooding Your Own Chicks" by Gail Damerow.  Truly, if you're planning on hatching chicks this spring (or ducks, turkeys, geese, quail, or whatever), this book is super awesome, especially if you have kids that are interested in the process, as the photos are Amazing and very helpful!!  I bought it on a whim from amazon.ca and am not disappointed!  Gail Damerow is a noted "expert" on chickens and has written several books, including Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens, which is also very helpful, though I really enjoyed the photos in this book.  It even has real-life images of what a chick looks like in every day of development, which is great if you're like me and crack the unhatched eggs to find out why they didn't hatch. You can then figure on the approximate day the embryo died and possible reasons why.
I highly recommend this book to anyone planning on hatching birds this spring!

Jagger's Legacy

You remember Jagger?  He was my big, black, LOUD Ameraucana rooster.  Well.  I traded him in.  He was the brother to ALL my Ameraucana hens and so in-breeding was unavoidable if I wanted more chicks.  I did that a bit, last year.  This year, I decided I wanted some new blood, and my new friend at Tangible Farm needed a rooster.  I wanted some of her Buff Orpington/Lavender Orpington eggs.  So we swapped.

The Buff/Lavender X chicks hatched the other day, and MAN are they CUTE!  Apparently they are what's called "Isobel" in color, but we'll see what that looks like when they feather out in a few weeks.

We hatched out a couple more Buff Orpingtons with them.  They are totally unrelated, so perhaps we can breed a buff to a buff/lavender in the future.

Right now, we're just enjoying the cuteness!

Mail-Order Eggs

I got my birthday present early this year!  This arrived in the mail for me today:

This is absolutely a new venture for me, order eggs in the mail.  But, the small, family-run hatchery Briarwood Poultry on Vancouver Island comes highly recommended, and specializes in the 2 breeds I want to add to my flock: Marans and Ameraucanas.  I already have 5 ameraucana hens and HAD one rooster, my dear Jagger, but I traded Jagger for some other hatching eggs (more on this later), as he was the brother to my hens and I didn't want to inbreed my birds more than they (probably) already had been.  So.  Briarwood has beautiful Wheaton and Blue Wheaton Ameraucanas which I think will pair beautifully with my blue hens.

The Marans?  Well, they seem a little hard to get, and lay a gorgeous dark brown egg, as you can see by the photo:  

My thinking is two-fold.  Maybe I breed these Marans next year and make a little extra cash from the eggs or chicks.  And, I want a rainbow of eggs to sell:

Just because I think they are pretty and if I have enough of them, I'll do the farmer's market once in a while and have a little fun.

Hello March!

Well... Can I say it?  Spring has Sprung!

And with it, my dear sweet ewe's ever-widening bellies!

It's only the very beginning of March, but it truly felt like the end of April today.  We were outside all afternoon, digging in the garden, frolicking with chickens, and checking out the state of the very pregnant sheep.

Here's Sunny, who's not as far along as Dulcie...

And for those who haven't seen a pregnant sheep close up, and for my own records as I am totally new to this realm of sheep-keeping, here is Dulcie:

Dulcie from the front...

... and from the back.

 I am hoping that this time next year, I can look back on theses photos, and go, 'Oh, right, so they have x more days/weeks to go when they look like this."  Dulcie's and Moo's (they are sisters) udders are getting quite full and they have a waddle happening as they stroll across the yard.  They are moving none too fast these days.  We're all having a guess as who's carrying what.

For the record, we think that Dulcie and Moo, both quite wide, will birth first and have twins.  They themselves are from triplets.  Sunny and Stella will be a little later, a couple of weeks maybe, and birth singles.  This is what we're thinking anyway.

A Buff Update:
It was SO warm out today, 13C this afternoon, and plenty warmer in the (new!) greenhouse where these little ones were having a party!

Oh, the things to discover when you're new to the world outside!

And, in the garden, I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that I hadn't killed the rhubarb, and it's coming up!

And the garlic too!! Wow, must be spring!

The Buff Babies are Here!

We hatched some Buff Orpington chicks in our new Brinsea incubator last week...

These were all daughter's idea.  We had a beautiful Buff Orpington hen when she was about 4 years old; she had named it Lightening.  One morning, a couple of coyotes devastated our entire flock, and my little girl never forgot Lightning and has wanted Buff Orpingtons ever since.

So, when she was gifted a bunch of moolah for her birthday in January, she decided she wanted to buy chickens.  She paid for the eggs herself, contributed $50 to the cost of the new incubator, and is now caring for these 6 little cuties on her own.

Buff Orpingtons (or the Orpington breed in general) are a wonderful, beautiful golden dual-purpose bird that lays lovely brown eggs.  They have a gentle, laid-back personality and are described as being perfect for children.

We even grew some wheatgrass for them to peck at.

I know it's only February, but it feels like Spring!

And Now We Wait

I can't help it.  I love spring, and now, with Christmas, New Years and my dear daughter's birthday over and done, I'm now waiting for spring.

Truly, when the grey cloud of blah sits comfortably over our valley for days and weeks on end, and all we see of the sun is a brief gasp before he pulls his head back above the clouds, it's all we can do to cope.  We're not much for skiing and skating.  I think maybe we've spent too many winters in Mexico sunshine and we're now wimpy Canadians.

So, we wait.

And plan and dream of chicks and ducklings and goslings and baby turkeys and lambs!  If all went well with Mr. Man's visit, first possible lamb is due to show it's adorable face anytime after March 9.

And so, I wait.

And.

Wait.

How many more days?

Sigh.

Chicken in a Basket

A Beep update:  Beep is about 10 weeks old now and has the cheeky personality of her mama, Blackberry. Having been hatched in my bra (!), raised in the house and coddled by children, Beep has no fear when it comes to the whims of little boys.  This morning, little boy wanted to take Beep for a ride, so he and dad rigged up a little basket on the front of his bike, plopped Beep into it and pushed off.  Beep just got cozy and enjoyed the ride.

We still don't know if Beep is a rooster or a hen (gosh, I am sure hoping for a hen after all the roosters we hatched this year!), but we are reserving guesses for a later date.  Seeing as our precious "Princess Leia" turned out to be a prince and not a princess at all, and we didn't figure that out until he was probably 20 weeks old, we are going to wait, with fingers crossed.

Tomato Cages are Stupid

Seriously Stupid.  Tomato Cages are.  And the result of such stupidness is such an embarrassment I am not even going to post a photo.    Really now. These heritage variety tomatoes we planted this year were So Huge, the shear weight and size of them toppled the "cages" over weeks ago.  And here I am, attempting to harvest the last of summer goodness, by untangling the web of tomato vines from each other, sadly observing the sorry sight of the mound of forgotten tomatoes, lost and rotting, on the ground beneath said cages.

So, next year, I'm doing THIS.  Seriously, Sophia at the www.joyoffarming.blogspot.ca has it Going On.

Enough of the other nonsense.  Tomato Cages.  I fart in your general direction.

Oh, and by the way?  My List?  Not bad.  Passports applications are complete, awaiting pick up of photos. Garlic was totally planted, then we decided to pick up some Yugoslavian bulbs today to add to the German and Russian already in the ground.  The plum tree has been thoroughly raided and plums are frozen and/or dried.  "Beep" is being transitioned; in that she is starting to spend her nights in a slightly cooler room of the house, but is not yet outside.  Elderberry Syrup?  Check.  Roosters?  We are currently finishing them on organic boiled potatoes (I dunno, I read that somewhere), garden gleanings and black sunflower seeds (recommended by a friend).

Tomatoes?  Well... See Above.

Black Sheep

Maybe you have a cat that purposely knocks stuff off the counter when she's peeved with you.  Or a dog that will pee on your bed when you leave it alone too long.

We have 2 such critters: Blackberry, a chicken, and Stella, a sheep.

Blackberry is a very unassuming hen.  She's a consistent layer of large perfect brown eggs.  She is a Barred Rock X  (cross with what, I have no idea), and as such, very ordinary looking.  You can pick her up without a fuss and take an egg out from underneath her whilst she's still on the nest.

Don't let her fool you.  This chicken is an escape artist.  She can open unlatched gates without batting an eye.

After I let the sheep out into the pasture in the morning, I close their pasture gate and then open the gate between the chickens' yard and the sheep pen, so the chickens can effectively "clean up" after the sheep.  Works well... most of the time.

Last week, the sheep (mostly the aforementioned Stella) decided to loiter in their pen for a while before going into pasture.  Fine, I thought.  But I forgot that the latch on the gate between the chickens and the sheep is broken.  And I forgot about Blackberry.

I was greeted at the top pasture gate several hours later by Blackberry and her cronies, 3 other mixed breed hens and one adventurous "old lady."  (We have 2 "old ladies" -- Sex-a-link hens that have retired.  I.E. - don't lay anymore and on a "real farm" would have been chicken soup a long time ago.)

Caught in the act -- with accomplices!

Blackberry will poke her head through the holes in the gate's wire and push it open so she can escape.

And, she's Beep's mom.  (Beep is now a house chicken who perches on shoulders and listens to bed time stories.  Geesh.)

Bad Chicken.  Thankfully, she'll go in without fanfare if I have the feed bucket in hand.  I'm on to you, lady.

And then there's Stella.  She is, literally and figuratively, the Black Sheep.

Stella will linger in the sheep pen and refuse to go out to pasture.  She will refuse to come into the barn at night and lure the others back out of the barn.  When I want her to go up to the top pasture, she'll go down, and vs.  She head butts my son.  Or, tries to, anyway.  She'll be the one making noise if she's not happy with something while the other sheep just accept it.

B-b-baaaaaa-d sheep.  (Ouch. Lame Joke!)

She keeps me on my toes, this one.  It'll be interesting to see what her babies are like in the spring.

Triticale Update

I promised a triticale update, oh, I dunno... ages ago.  I was waiting to see if I would get around to the final thing on my triticale-to-do list -- making bread from the flour -- but, that adventure is no where in sight.  I,  currently, am up to my eyeballs in turkey babies (hatching and selling), apple-collecting, tomato-harvesting, and the end-of-season garden clean up (well, only in some areas), as well as entertaining a little fuzz ball named "Beep" who insists she's human.  Or at the very least, a very intelligent parrot.

So, I could go on and on about all those other things, but instead will just give you a glimpse of what this whole triticale experience has meant for me.

It started off as ground cover, to shade weeds and hopefully inhibit their growth.

It did a pretty good job of that, seeing as we had probably about 66% less weeds than last year, and that's only from planting the triticale and the vetch.  Good thing #1.

I have spent several hours among the stalks, cutting off the seed heads and storing them in various containers.  I have to hide and secure the containers, or the turkeys will find them and Eat Them All.

 Which is not a huge bad thing as the grain is high in protein (turkeys need a higher protein than chickens, especially in the first 6-8 weeks), and cheap free.  Free is good! (Good thing #2)  AND I've recently discovered that triticale is NOT on the GMO list, so all the seed heads that have fallen to the ground should germinate in the spring. Yay!  Plus it's nice to know that I'm not feeding adulterated food to my birds.  (Good thing #3)

Good thing #4 - I could be using the straw part of the plant as bedding for the animals, but honestly, I'm too full of other things to do right now... but I could  use it for that.

And then, of course, Good Thing #5 - it apparently makes great bread.  I would love to get a chance to try that, but that remains to be seen.

Oh, and Good Thing #6, predators can't see the sheep as the triticale blocks their view.  I think we would plant it again for this point only.

So, there you have it.  The Update.  Whew.

Absent...

My weekend reading post will be absent again.  I've had some trouble getting into a good book lately for a variety of reasons.  It's September.  (In case you were unaware.)  Septemberrrrrrr. We've actually been hitting near-frost temperatures around here the past several nights.  And with warm afternoons and chilly overnights, I've got my hands full.  We've been outside as much as possible, enjoying the afternoon warmth that may or may not be with us much longer.  And our early evenings are spent making sure the garden is well-tucked in -- and harvesting as much as possible --

-- and the littles are warm.  Mama turkey Violet still has her 2 (we sold the other 8), and the 4 chicks that are now 5 weeks old still need a bit of heat overnight, though they are spending their days outdoors.  Then there's Beep, who still seems happy in the incubator, between bouts of being toted around in some kind of kid-made contraption.  Beep will stay in there (I can gradually lower the temperature) until she really starts to feather-out, then weather-pending, she'll start spending days outside.  I think I will put together a little chicken tractor for the garden as things are finishing up, for the 4 older chicks and Beep to do their chicken thing.  Oh, and there's next week, when Tasha's littles are due to hatch. And she's sitting on 20 eggs.  Oh, my.

Then, the fact that it's September.  It kind of sneaked up on me.  I wasn't ready to go back to schedules, even though we are homeschooling this year, and more "unschooling" than anything.  We are at the dance studio 3 times/week, plus soccer practice and games, 4H every second week, and music for the little man.  I will breathe a little deeper once October is here and soccer is done and most of the harvesting is also done.  Most because I plan to grow stuff as long as possible, whether with cloches, under plastic, or with straw bales and old windows.  

Oh, and my little reading light died on me, which is where I do most of my reading, in bed, just before the heaviness of my eye lids overcomes me.  So, stay tuned; I have a mess of books on my nightstand and I will get back to those weekly reading posts.  Soon.

Beep.

Hi. Meet "Beep".  We're calling her that as that's the noise she seems to make.  (We're also calling it "she" because that's what we hope it is!  Call it wishful thinking.)  Beep was incubated under Violet the Turkey mama with her other 10 babes, but when Violet abandoned her nest after her 10 babes had hatched, this little one still had 2 days to go.  So I stuck her egg in my shirt for 2 days to see if it would hatch.  I actually thought it was dead, as I did a "float test" and came up with nothing.  Why I stuck her back in my shirt after a dud test, I'll never know.  Call it mother's intuition.  Beep is living in the incubator for a few more days until she has enough feathers to go out with the other chicks, who are now 4 weeks old.  Or she might just live in the house for a while.  She's a chatty little thing, loves being part of the action.  We often bring her out for cuddles, and she seems to love listening to bedtime stories and chatters along with the reader.

Welcome Beep!

 

Newly hatched

So these are the newest littles around here.  Violet hatched out 10 babes yesterday!  Wow.  So cute and So. Little.  We let her do her thing and wander around the yard yesterday and she successfully overnighted all 10.  But when a chilly wind struck up this afternoon, we decided we needed to step in.  As the 5 babies that were in the old dog run are now free ranging and perching at night where-ever they please, we set up the heat lamp again and some fresh straw, food and water (with ACV and molasses for an extra boost) and caught up Violet and all the babies and settled them in.  Surprisingly, Violet seemed Very Happy with the new digs.  Like she knew she could relax a little and her babies would be safe.

Now a side story to this is that we also had 2 chicken eggs underneath Violet which were due to hatch Thursday (tomorrow).  So when Violet left her nest with her hatchlings YESTERDAY with 2 days left to go on the chicken eggs, we started to fret, especially since 1 egg already had a crack in it.  What's a good farm mom to do?  Well, pop it into my bra, that's what.  Oh dear.  Through the crack in the shell, I could tell it was still alive, so I figured that as long as it's still alive, I'll do my best for it.  So I've kept it in my shirt since yesterday morning.  This morning, dear daughter bumped me with a chair and TOTALLY cracked the shell. I figured it was done for.  But no, still kicking.  So I wetted a wool coffee sleeve that I had knitted a while back, warmed up a heat pad and have continued to tote this little package around.  And now?  Now it's CHEEPING.

The Full-ness of Summer

"Do you have a sec for me?  Puhleeeese??"

Wow.  It's already August.  Where does the time go?  It seems we spend most of the year waiting for summer and then it goes by in a blink.  I truly wonder where my days go.  I have been working 3 mornings a week at our family business, but the rest of the time is relatively unaccounted for.  I have not enrolled the kids in any camps, other than 1-3hr art camp, and the boy in a 2 hr/day music camp - but that hasn't even happened yet. 

My days are FULL.  With what?  Ummm.... there's been more than a few birthday parties for kids' friends lately.  Not very much beach time at all.  The harvesting of various veggies and berries and the resulting canning or processing of such foods. Knitting where I can, even just for a few stitches.

And my "rounds" as I like to call them.

All of which can be interrupted at a moment's notice by one of the children, usually the boy, hollering about something from the deck as they can't be bothered to come and find me.  (Our place isn't THAT big.)  More often than not, the boy needs me to watch him go to the bathroom.  He's 5.  And on the precipice of becoming a musician.  Me thinks he's just getting used to having an audience.  I half expect him to bow after he's done his business.  Anyway, I digress.

About 3 times a day, I start in the backyard with the turkey babes, watering, feeding, checking the heat and watching for anything out of the ordinary.  Then to the adult birds, ducks and geese included.  Then to the "nursery" yard, where the several of this year's chicks (not so much chicks anymore) are foraging and learning about life as a chicken.  I usually cuddle one or 2 of the little ladies (Princess Leia being a favourite -- she's a pure white Easter Egger).

Wondering to myself when I'm going to get to repairing the little coop in the chicken garden adjacent to the main chicken yard so that I can move these lovelies so as to become aquainted with the main flock through the fence.  Gotta do that SOON.  Then, leaving them, through the garden to be sure everything is going as it should be, stopping to munch on something yummy, or yank out a few weeds.  Then to the sheep yard, a chat & a scratch with the girls there, checking on water, and enjoying the simpleness that is sheep.  Watching them for a while, where they are hanging out at various times of the day, what they are eating and when.

Making mental notes to self about all that and thinking about how we are going to pen them with their newborn lambs next spring.   Lastly, to the main chicken yard to watch the grown up birds getting lost in the tall tall grass there, clucking happily to themselves as they find another tasty morsel.  Watching them for a bit.  And lastly into the coop itself to collect whatever gold lies there (in the way of fresh eggs, of course).  And winding my way back up to the house, wash off the eggs and any other goodies from the garden.

All the while, thinking about all these critters that have found their way to us, what they mean to us, how they enrich our lives in so many ways.  And loving them all, even the ones that will eventally be in the freezer, and thanking my lucky stars that I can do this.