the hatchery

After a few unsuccessful attempts at hatching eggs from our hens we finally stumbled upon something that works.  Our coop is out back on the hill housing a couple dozen hens.  They seem happy here enjoying an occasional afternoon on the lawn (until an unfortunate incident with a fox taking one lovely girl).  Hadley painted their coop to match the house… she is a nice daughter to do that.

We keep the rooster separate for a whole bunch of reasons but mostly because he’s an arrogant creep.  We created a love nest of sorts in the big barn.

Each day we take the egg from the love nest and write the date on it. Then we bring it up to the hillside coop and place it under a very generous broody hen.  She’s generous in that she gives up her days to lay on someone else's eggs.  She has no interest in laying on her own eggs as we tried that first.  Are you grasping how complicated this was for us?

With two broody hens we can keep a good amount of eggs underneath them.

The other hens sometimes cram themselves in their nesting boxes just to get some credit I suppose.  Even though everyone says chickens aren’t smart, I think they are. I love to sit outside and watch them.  They know what’s going on.

We found it’s best to be patient the 21 days it takes for an egg to hatch.  Let them do their thing, don’t try to move the eggs the last couple days under a heat lamp.  I love opening the nesting box and finding a chick.  After this batch we will pass the rooster on to our neighbor. 

The chicks are so sweet, I’m happy to be their mama.

* Post Script: while writing this post from the kitchen table my 14 year old son has been in and out of the kitchen helping himself to snacks. He’s been growing like crazy almost hitting the 6 ft mark.  I think he thinks I haven’t noticed that he has had all these left overs from the fridge (we had a weekend barbeque):

two chicken drumsticks (ironic on a chicken post)

a hot dog

potato salad

cole slaw

a large piece of watermelon

also two pieces of toast

and he already had dinner! 

a tradition for Father’s Day

Every year as a Father’s Day gift for my husband I try and take pictures of the children.  It’s harder than it sounds!

 

I love looking back through the years and seeing how much they have grown.

Happy Father’s Day to all the lovely Dad’s in your life!

Going Places with Little Bird

 

Springtime is always busy and this one has been no exception.  Each day is exponentially busier than the previous.  Mix all that with post pregnancy hormones and it ain’t such a pretty thing.  But I wake each day and tell myself to be the best I can and hopefully at the end of the day it measures to be good enough.

We added another name to the high school graduate list.  She made us proud being the new kid at school and still making the most of her senior year.  She works at the local ice cream stand and we love to go and harass her there.

Baby Maggie is no longer a baby!

My husband has been traveling, in preparation for the big one he is leaving for soon :(

While he was here we took the baby and escaped to Maine.  It was rainy and gray which turned out to be okay (do I sound like Pollyanna?).  Hadley is here from Texas and played mother to her siblings.  She even made pizza from scratch while having a dance party to the Grease soundtrack in the kitchen- so I hear from the littles. Hadley home + dance music = great fun.

We stopped in Arundel, a special place and Sawyer’s middle name.  It’s funny to me that as a family we have been all over the world but little Sawyer has only been here in New England.  His memories will be so different than that of his brothers and sisters. 

I hope you’re enjoying the onset of summer.  We are calling it the summer of 2o picnics as we made a list of fun places to have our lunch.  Have you got some fun stuff planned? I want to hear about it!

on mothering

Having a newborn to nurture is probably my favorite thing in the world.  I’m so grateful to have this beautiful child in our lives.  He has so much growing to do yet it feels like I have known him forever.

My pregnancy was full of whining.  Serious wah wah wah, pretty much everyday.  If only I’d known it was him in there!

Life is slowly getting back to normal- if there is such a thing. I went to Target yesterday only to forget my list at home and ended up running through the store at a runners pace as I was suddenly afraid the baby would cry his little newborn cry in the store.  I felt so on top of things when I drove there and once I arrived all I wanted to be was nestled in the pillows on my bed at home. 

Which is where I am now, and it’s very nice indeed.

G’nite!

very blessed

In the early hours of Sunday morning I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy.

 

Ken and I are so grateful and elated he is here.  It is humbling to love this precious new life. 

We named him Sawyer, he is so small and sweet!

We’re home now and the adventure is just beginning…

a variety of stuff

I’m tired of winter food.

I want the lighter fare of summer.

It’s been the kind of weather that if you find a sunny spot outside that is sheltered from any wind-no matter how gentle it may be- you can stay warm.  But in the house it feels cold.  Until you turn on the heat then it gets too warm and stale.  So you complain.

I’ll complain again around late August when I’m tired of heat and humidity and want to make beef stew and hear ducks overhead.

I finally have the go ahead to be a little more active.  It feels weird.

I can’t stop making baby stuff.

My husband had a big day at work last week, he gave a speech and I sat with my children and cried.  Partially out of love and partially out of hormones.

I also cried during an episode of Happy Days yesterday, so I’m not sure what that all means.

Sam doesn’t look like Sam in this picture, his sisters have already had a laugh over it but it is still my favorite.

This might have been the first big function our oldest didn’t attend- we missed you, Hadley.  Having grown up kids is hard.  You can’t help but be proud of their independence and their newly sprouted life skills but at the same time you want them home so you can pick out their clothes and they can ride in the minivan with the whole family.

That’s all.

 

A Really Dumb Thing

Sometimes I do some really dumb stuff, this is how I learn.  Looking back at the dumb stuff always make me shake my head in disbelief…really? I did that?

Add in pregnancy and a traveling husband.  My husband will deploy again shortly after this baby is born- his 7th deployment!  Until then he will be here and there and everywhere and hopefully in the delivery room when the time comes (When? When will the time come???)

I have a history of events that just happen whenever he is away.  Whether it’s the hot water heater flooding the house (1998 and 2007) or a raccoon that  breaks into your coop and removes the beaks from all but one hen (2000). Car accidents, broken bones, the dog dying.  If it seems like a weird, freak thing it will happen when he is away.

A couple weeks ago on a warm and sunny Sunday afternoon he drove out of the yard for a trip to Virginia.  I made the kids some lunch and as a treat set up a little picnic outside.  We were eating and saw little Sally O’Malley (the cat) in the kitchen window so I went inside and brought her out.  She doesn’t go outside.  She pranced and danced around the yard close by like a little ballerina.  It was the sweetest thing ever. 

Then I realized it wasn’t a brown leaf in the yard she was playing with…it was a brown bat.  A bat? Out in the day?  I know enough about bats and rabies to realize this was not a very good thing at all.  We put her in her cage and killed the bat- it was showing it’s fangs and acting quite scary.  I called an emergency vet that was nonchalant and hinted she should probably be put down as she hadn’t had her 12 week rabies shot yet.  So I called more vets and kept getting similar answers.  The state wouldn’t test the bat for rabies because there was no human contact or broken skin.  I couldn’t believe I would have to put our sweet little Sal down. Just because I brought her out for less than 30 minutes and she found a bat.

We kept her caged for a few days and I didn’t know what I was going to do. The last vet I had called ended up calling me back and found a woman willing to rescue her and keep her quarantined (the state says 6 months). 

This woman has rescued over 200 cats through the years from being put down.  She has little Sal in a sunny little bedroom with a big window all to herself.  No cage…it was breaking my heart to imagine her in a cage for 6 months. She sends me pictures and has marked Sept 19 on the calendar as the day we can have her back. She asked for no money or food.  I can visit her anytime.  Her selfless act of kindness has had me in awe. 

There are good people in the world, she has inspired me so much and I am so grateful.  Sally quickly became part of our family, I miss her so much!  I try and never spoil my kids but am just the opposite about our cat.  Cats should be spoiled and Sally was the perfect queen of our castle.

I feel lucky this has somewhat of a happy ending- I hope.  I feel confident she won’t come down with rabies, though with small kids and pregnancy the vet wouldn’t let us keep her as the risks are too great and I get that.  If you know Laura from Jaffrey hug her…she is an angel!