School Pictures

I figured since I had the camera out, I should probably take some pictures of the girls. Alright, I know, I don't need a lot of convincing to take pictures of them. They are just so darn cute. Recently the addition of feathers in various places has really started to make them look grown-up. I feel like I have middle school chickens right now, as they are right in that awkward stage. They are between being young and being an adult and have the weird looks and bodies to prove it....just like middle schoolers. Here are some of my favorites from their "school" pictures today. Hopefully they won't come to dread looking back on these pictures like I do looking at my middle school pictures.

Girl # 1 (she is the runt of our batch)
Girl #2 Check out those new red feathers coming in...

Girl #3

Girl #4

Girl #5

Girl #6

The View

I thought maybe it would be helpful for people to see what our backyard actually looks like. So I went outside after work today and took a few pictures. Needless to say I am not a wonderful photographer, but hopefully you can see what our yard looks like covered in 6 inches of snow. If you look carefully towards the back of our yard you can see a few things of note. 1) the brush/burn pile (now, i know, we are trying to be as environmentally friendly as possible, and this is not one of things! we are working on it though.) I point this out so you can see where the middle of our backyard is and past this burn pile is where our glorious garden will someday be. You might also be able to catch a glimpse of our Christmas tree. 2) on the left and just past the burn pile is our compost bins. Bill and I are very excited about trying to compost and reduce the amount of garbage we put curbside each week. Its amazing how many food scraps two people can have at the end of a meal. Also, this is my least favorite job about owning the house so far--walking the smelly garbage out there in the freezing cold. Luckily my loving husband pretty much always does this task. And perhaps then he can catch a glimpse of the apparent small animal/rodent living in the compost pile. What kind of animal is it? We have no idea. I personally could care less if I ever find out!! 3) for those of you that are in to this kind of thing, the raised area in the front of the picture is our septic drain field...ooh lah lah!



This little delight of a building is what will hopefully someday be our chicken coop. Yes, currently it looks like an abandoned shed. I guess it doesn't look like one, it is one. We will hopefully be tearing down/rebuilding or reconditioning this shed into a coop in the next few months.

Obsessed with the girls

I must say we are having quite the time with the girls lately. For example, we have started talking to them more often than is probably healthy. And, call us crazy, but we refer to ourselves as mom and dad to them. I think we have officially lost it! (I like to think that we are just practicing for what someday will hopefully be a time when we are a mom and a dad to something more along the lines of a human!) Another example that we are crazy about the girls is that I woke up the other day and found that they no longer lived in one box, but a two box "condo" if you will (hhhmm, I wonder what my husband was doing last night?!). This is quite palatial compared to what they used to live in and it gives them a lot more room to roam and get out of the heat if need be.

The newest thing that the girls like to do is fly. Now, one might ask, fly? at a week old? and I am here to tell you yes. They like to practice flying across the box, up a few inches in the air, and on top of various things in their condo. Pretty soon we are going to need something over top over their condo to keep them from flying right out of there! If you don't believe me, here are two examples:


Also noteworthy is the amount of feathers they have gained in a weeks time. They have many feathers on their wings and are gaining them in the hind end as well. It truly is amazing to watch these tiny things grow up. I am continually reminded of how amazing God's creation is; and the creativity that God put into even the smallest things, like chickens, and into the details, like chicks going from fluff to feathers.

It would help if I actually added the pictures!

Here are the chicks in their new home, a large cardboard box. They were a little quiet and scared at first. They were used to being with 70 other chickens!


Here are the girls in their new home!

Up close and personal...



And the birthday boy, hanging out with his birthday present...

The adventure begins...

Well, the adventure has begun. We picked up our baby chicks yesterday and thus we have started into one of the many undertakings for the backyard. I guess it really isn't a backyard thing quite yet as the chicks are technically in our living room! They won't be in the backyard for a few more months.

We are super excited to have the babies with us and they are growing so fast already. The chicks were born on Monday, shipped on Tuesday to our friend's house, and we took our 6 off their hands on Saturday morning. So far they seem to be doing alright and they have survived their first party with full DJ at our house already. If they can make it through that, they should be able to make it through anything!!

We are learning a lot about this whole chicken raising thing already. Like all they do is eat, sleep, and poop. Although today one of the girls (as I like to call them) has decided it would be fun to test out her wings and flew on top of the feeders. Now mind you if she did this again from that point, she could fly right out the box. It looks like I am going to have to keep a close eye on that one. Now, if I could only tell them apart so I knew which one to watch!

These pictures are from our first morning with the girls and also a picture of the birthday boy!