The Joys of Having Children...and Chickens...

Background info:  We have free-range chickens, which means our chickens roam our yard.  With 19 hens and 3 roosters, we basically can't go outside without one of us stepping in a chicken 'land mine'.

The story:
On the eve of Blake's 7th birthday, I was in house thinking about what I'd say about Blake at this point in his life.  The word that came to mind to describe him was 'compassionate'.  As I'm thinking about all the ways Blake shows compassion, Morgan comes in from outside, very upset, and this is what followed:

Me: "What's wrong Morgan?"
Morgan: "Blake is MEAN. He stepped in chicken poo and tried to wipe it off on me."
Me: Grinning to myself at how ironic it was that my thoughts just totally contradicted Blake's current actions, I respond: "That is mean, Morgan...and gross!"

*Blake then makes his way into the house and sits on a step between the kitchen and the landing.  Morgan makes the same accusation again at his appearance...

Blake: Clearly upset that Morgan called him out. "I did not!  I was just wiping the chicken poop off my shoe!"
Morgan: Annoyed "On ME!"
Blake: No response, but I catch a grin just before he hides his face.


Blake is still my sweet, compassionate, 7 year-old little boy.  But he is also a little brother to a big sister and, at times, the sweetness has to go out the window for a good laugh. ;-)

Newest Additions to the Farm Family

The number of critters around here keeps growing!  While these are the newest additions, they've all been around for about a month now.  It's hard to believe it's been that long already!

 

These little chicks hatched on Father's Day and was a neat surprise for Rich when he went to the barn in the morning.  They hatched about a month later than we expected them to since the hen started nesting a long time before that.  Actually, a second hen started nesting in the time the first one was and I really don't know which of the two hatched them out since they both became their moms.

 

 Within about two days of them hatching, one of them didn't make it, but the other has been thriving with the help of the two hens.  It's been so neat watching them look after the one little chick.  I've seen them attack the cattle for getting too close.  I've seen them find a piece of food and call the chick over to eat it. And the neatest thing of all is how they roost at night together...see the white hen's wing over the other hen?  That picture was taken on one of the last nights that the three of them roosted in the straw together.  The chick is now old enough that it roosts on it's own.

 

Four days after the chicks hatched, two newborn TWIN calves came to live with us.  We don't typically take twins because they just don't usually do well and these calves were no exception to that!  (Cattle prices are super high right now and these two were much more reasonable...but we've paid for it in time spent on them!!)  We fought to keep the white one alive from the very beginning, but with several doses of antibiotics, vitamins and electrolytes I think we're finally on the right track with him.

 

Now, I'd say his brother was no trouble at all...but he has been the exact opposite from the white one and has been very annoying!  I think he took all the black from the white one and, while he was at it, stole all his energy too.  You can even tell from the picture he didn't even hold still long enough for me to get a decent shot!  LOL!

Despite the troubles each of them have given us, we have grown to really care for them.  I think they'll be the hardest, of all the cattle that we've had, to send to the meat processor in 18 (or so) months.

A Comical Conundrum

Tonight, while Morgan was at Girl Scouts and Rich was grabbing groceries after work, Blake and I went out to do chores.  We pretty much finished everything up and were just feeding the cats, then had to grab the eggs.  Well, only two of the three cats showed up to eat, which is unusual...especially for the cat that was missing, but I didn't think too much of it.  Then I went to grab the eggs from the nest in the straw and there was a hen!  It was late enough that most of the chickens were roosting and definitely NOT laying....so the hen must be nesting....meaning she is pretty much going to stay in the same spot for the next 21 days.  (She'll get up now and then to get something to eat or drink.)

 

 

Just after noticing the hen, I saw a small head behind the hen, desperately wanting out to eat!  He was tucked back in a hole in the straw and the only way out was to go by the hen.  The problem is the hen doesn't want him anywhere near her and PECKS his head if he tries to get out!  I could not help but laugh at the dilemma this cat is in!

 

For now the cat is stuck, but I'm guessing the hen will fall asleep and he'll be able to sneak out...if not he's stuck until the hen decides to get up...or until Rich rescues him....firefighters rescue cats all the time, right? ;-)

 

This picture is going to make me laugh for a long, long time!  Never a dull moment when you have animals! :-)

Wordless Wednesday: Can You See Me?

The chickens give me away, don't they?

 

For more Wordless Wednesday, visit Go Graham Go and the WW HQ.


Wordful Wednesday: A Whole Lot of New!

A new lawnmower...

...that came with new hats. 

 New valences for the kitchen...that were actually my parents' old ones.

 New hay...

 ...to go along with the new calves.

 And even MORE new chicks/chickens!

(These lost their home, or barn, to a fire.)

Side note: Could this post look any more 'country'?

For more Wordless Wednesday, visit Go Graham Go and the WW HQ.

Please be sure to enter my Current Giveaways. You can find the links in the sidebar! :-)

Wordful Wednesday: Summer Break So Far

The kids last day of school was last Thursday and this is what we've been up to since:

 

Kindergarten picnic on the last day of school.

 Last day of school gift of their favorite Avenger Velvet Posters to color. (50 cents each and they couldn't be happier!)

 Working up the garden.

 More chicks!

 More dancing...in the park during a craft fair.

Having friends over.

Cheerleading camp.

 Pickin' strawberries...

 ...and, of course, eatin' strawberries!

We've also had a couple cookouts with our Dads for Father's Day and went to see a little 6 year old friend play softball.  Morgan finally got to spend some of her winnings at Toys 'R Us too...still $75 left to spend, but I think her new Hello Kitty Radio Alarm Clock and Blake's Battleship game will keep them satisfied for a while :-)

(As you can see I switched to 'Wordful Wednesday' since I can never seem to keep it 'Wordless'!)

For more Wordless Wednesday, visit Go Graham Go and the WW HQ.

Please be sure to enter my Current Giveaways. You can find the links in the sidebar! :-)

New Friends for Our Flock

Quite a while ago my brother had asked me if he were to hatch out some chicks, for my nieces to experience, would we be willing to take them afterwards.  As you can see, I agreed!

These seven chicks came to us Saturday after the dance recital.  The yellow one, Peep, is the one my brother hatched.  The other six black ones he bought as pullets (female chicks) to be sure that there were at least some chicks if none happened to hatch....the other nine that hatched are coming this weekend.

I'm not sure where they're all going yet, but I'm sure we'll figure it all out when we need to. ;-)  Eventually all the hens will be in the barn and roaming around free-range with our other five though and the roosters will be fattened up for us to eat. :-)


(FYI: The corn by their feet came from the 'Layer' feed we had to give them the first night not having 'Starter' feed for them yet since the local feed store was closed...we got them the feed for their age early the next day.)

Our Memorial Day 2013

I hope everyone has enjoyed their Memorial Day weekend!  We were busy, but made sure to make it to our town's parade and Memorial Day ceremony first thing in the morning.  Both are always a really nice way to remember those who served, and gave their lives, for our freedom.

 

The kids were all ready for the parade, but we had a few minutes before it started so we ran down to the swinging bridge to check it out.  (They've been on it countless times, but it never gets old!)

Our way of enjoying the parades in town...by riding in the fire truck!  Since the fire trucks are always last, we still get a chance to watch the parade before we have to take off and be in it.

This is some of what we saw.

After the parade and ceremony, we went to the greenhouse to get our plants and seeds to plant our garden!  We always try to get it in Memorial Day weekend, but were unable to until Monday due to the threat of frost each night.

 

After Rich rotortilled a couple times, we worked to put up the chicken wire.  (Boy did that bum out the chickens!  LOL!)  And then I spent the next few hour putting in 9 tomato plants, 6 peppers, a row of onions, about 14 cabbages, a handful of peas (for Blake), 54 potatoes, 2 sweet potatoes, 3 zucchini, several butternut squash, 2 rows of popcorn...

 ... and 3 rows of sweet corn in our other little garden.  We're also expecting some voluntary pumpkins to pop up in this garden since there were all sorts of seeds in it already.  I still need to plant the green beans as well, but we didn't have the cattle panel for them to grow on until tonight to know how much to plant.  I should be able to get them in within the next couple days.

 

Now for the watering, weeding and waiting until the veggies start coming!

I'm very thankful for a beautiful day and for the men and women who have served to give me the freedom to enjoy this Memorial Day (and every day!)  :-)

A Noisy Visitor

We had a stray guinea fowl in our yard last week.  Boy are they noisy!

(Sorry for the blurry picture.  It kept running away and my phone camera doesn't zoom well.)

 Bear was quite intrigued by it...

...but the chickens thought it would be a good idea to hide! 

I had thought I wanted some guinea hens last year when I kept getting ticks on me since they're suppose to help take care of bugs in the yard.  After all the noise of just one, I'm glad I didn't get any!!  As far as the ticks, we're pretty sure they rode home on Rich from areas he'd been surveying.  If not, then the chickens are taking care them because I haven't seen any ticks since we put them out to free range last Spring.

Summer 2010 Update #1

I can't believe that it's been nearly a month since I've posted! I've been keeping so busy that I haven't been on the computer as much as I thought I'd be. Hopefully I'll get by to visit each of your blogs soon! :-) I've been able to some of the things that I was hoping to do this summer. I cleaned out both cattle pens. Just finished them yesterday while it was cool out and I can hardly move today! Good workout though ;-) I figured while I was having a hard time moving I'd catch you up on what we've been up to:

I've been watching my garden grow....

...and of course watering, weeding and cultivating with this thing that I got from my grandparents' house. (Sure beats hoeing the whole thing!)

Rich took up playing waterball with the fire department. First time playing and they took 1st place!

The kids went on their first boat ride at a friend of my mom's and loved it!

Rich got our hay off. (Morgan is riding with him here.)

I just love this sequence of pictures. Blake just couldn't wait until he could ride the tractor!!

We rode in the aerial in the Annual Michigan Firefighter Associations Conference parade. (Our county hosted it this year.) I took these of the kids while we were waiting.

After the parade, Rich and some fellow firefighter raised the flag on the ladder.

Then they had some fun and played more waterball :-)

The kids are loving climbing and playing in the freshly baled hay.

And just enjoying the sunny weather.

• I've been mowing lawn every week. I think Rich is missing it, but he's just way too busy. I have more respect for Rich taking the time to do it for all these years. It takes over 3 hours just to mow and trimming is a whole lot more!


• The kids and I have been helping with chores at night too. Morgan and Blake love it!! They especially love feeding the cat (which we have to wait until the chickens are roosting otherwise they'll scare the cat away and eat her food) and checking for eggs. (We somehow lost 1 more chicken and are now down to 3!)


• The kids also went to our town's fair with their grandparents and got to ride some rides, which was a first for them. (I'd share pics but they're on their grandma's phone.) Rich and I were collecting hay bales from the field, since we didn't have a wagon to stack on and missed going, but they brought us an elephant ear! Yum! ;-)


• I made it to visit a friend that I hadn't seen in over a year. (Yes-I'm loving having the truck!)


• Rich and I also made it to the drive-in and saw Shrek 4 and Ironman 2. Always love going to the drive-in!


• The kids, my parents and I went to our towns' pizza cook-off. Four businesses competed to be the best pizza in town. I of course quickly picked out the place we always go to and voted for them ;-) They also had games for the kids and it was a great time. And we made the paper:

• We went to the first music in the park for the season in the neighboring town and enjoyed some live music down by the lake. Always a nice time, though probably would have been better if the kids weren't tired and grouchy (long summer days lately!)

That's what's been going on here. Busy and loving it! I hope you are all enjoying your summer as well!! :-)

Our Holiday Weekend

Our weekend kind of started on Friday with the excitement of getting a new truck! It's a 2006 Ford F-150 and Rich couldn't be happier having a truck again! As Rich went to work at his Grandma's farm, working ground and planting, I had the luxury of having my own vehicle...or so I thought...

This isn't actually our truck, but it's almost the same. Ours doesn't have running boards, vent visors or fog lights, but has a bug deflector and a light on top for Rich to respond to fire calls.
I had all these plans to make a run to a nearby town to do some shopping before we went camping when I just happened to look out the kitchen window at the car and noticed something wrong with the front passenger side tire. When I checked it out, it was what I feared...a bulge! I ended up taking it in to the same place we had just picked our new truck up at, earlier that morning, to have a new/used tire put on. What were the chances that I finally get a vehicle of my own and there was something wrong with it?? LOL! I still made it shopping and all is good now ;-)

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I also mowed our lawn for the first time in 5 years! Rich has always mowed the lawn. It was HIS thing that he LOVED to do, so I never really thought any different. Well, I decided to offer to help this summer because he is so busy with everything that is going on and I did it! After not mowing for 5 years I was kinda nervous, but I didn't have any troubles (besides taking out a little hay, but no big deal-LOL!)

Speaking of doing things that I haven't done in 5 years, I also rode a bike again! My bike got ruined at the bike racks at college and I have never replaced it, but I actually got on my sister's bike while camping and it came right back to me! Yay! I kinda want to get a new one now! ;-)

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The big event of the weekend was our camping trip. We went up north to Otsego Lake State Park and camped Saturday through Monday. On the way up we met with some friends of Rich's had lunch and took them some beef they had bought. I couldn't believe we spent over 2 hours with them!

After what turned out to be a 6 hour trip, we got settled in and went to the beach to enjoy the warm water. Rich and I rolled up our pant legs so we could walk in, Morgan borrowed a swimsuit and a life vest from my brother and was having a blast in the water and Blake was sitting and playing in the sand. (He will NOT go in the water!)

Morgan and her cousins playing in the sand. (Morgan has green on.)

Blake not in the water...he wouldn't even put cooler clothes on because he thought that meant that he had to go in the water-LOL!

We couldn't have been at the beach for more than a couple minutes when Rich's cell phone rings and after a few choice words I find out that Rich's friend, who was taking care of our animals, had just shown up to our place with his 5 year old daughter and a couple dogs were killing the chickens! After many phone calls to the sheriff, relatives and animal control, the dogs were taken away, the chickens were cleaned up and we were left with 4 hens out of 6 hens and 2 roosters. As much as we liked our roosters and hens, I'll have to admit that I was relieved that the roosters are the ones they got, plus the hen that we always called "the ugly chicken" (poor thing). We'll still have some eggs, but not enough to share anymore. (We actually had 12 chicken a little while ago, but lost 4 to a raccoon.)

Rich on the phone during the chicken incident. Things were mostly under control at the time so he could smile ;-)

So, a little story to go along with the chickens. The 5 year old daughter that came with Rich's friend unfortunately witnessed the dogs with a chicken (from their truck) and said to her Daddy "Look! They're wrestling!" and after is was over "The chicken lost". Rich and I had felt terrible that she had to witness that, but knowing how innocently she viewed the whole thing made us feel a little better.

The rest of our camping trip was fairly uneventful. Here are a couple more things that happened:

*Morgan had the chance to ride her balance bike on pavement and got quite good! She still needs to learn that she cannot take her hand off the handlebar to wave....doing that leads to a pretty scraped up knee! (My niece also got her training wheels off while we were there, so it was a great biking weekend for all of us!)

*We made it to Jay's Sporting Goods in Gaylord and got Morgan her first bow and 6 arrows. I'm excited for her to learn, because it's something that Rich and I would enjoy doing more of. :-)

*The campgrounds were dirt....no grass whatsoever! That means 2 VERY dirty kids! LOL! Blake, especially, had a blast in the dirt-we never had to entertain him-he was busy the whole time! (And only 1 pee accident the WHOLE time...didn't even wet at night! Not doing as good now that we're home though-LOL!)

This picture needs no explanation.

Not happy that he had to stop playing to get a picture taken...and this wasn't his dirtiest!

*****

We made it home between 1:00 and 2:00 pm Monday, got unpacked, did some laundry and left by 4:00 to go to a Memorial Day get-together at Rich's grandma's. We would have been outside if it hadn't been raining, but it was still a really nice time and we didn't make it home until 9:30.

As fun as our weekend was, I'm glad to be home and settling back into things.....and catching up on some sleep! ;-)

The sunset over Otsego Lake.