CHICKENS!!

Well, I have gotten a few questions about the chickens we have here so I decided to do a post of its own. First off, these are not my chickens. They are my parents, I am currently staying with them for a while. But I do get to help feed, water, clean up after, and all that other dirty gross stuff. A lot of the time not very fun. But I do think its fun to have chickens. Make for a great learning experience for my kids. So I have tried to label the pictures as best I knew how. So here goes.

I will start with the Fryers. They actually have a mixed breed name but we generally call them Fryers. We have these fryers in 3 different ages right now. We have the 5 Big Fryers, 3 Teenage Fryers, and 25 Little Fryers. Here we really refer to them as far as what their location is because they are currently in 2 different places. Now one might ask why we have so many fryers and at different ages. Well, it is because of this. My sister is bringing her 5 younger kids to visit and they have never lived in the country. As a matter of fact this will be the kids first time coming here to visit. So the kids want to experience "farm" life while they are here. So we got some fry babies from the farm store here so we would have some ready to butcher when the kids are here. At the same time she got the babies she also purchased 3 other babies (we will get to those later) for my kids. Then a couple weeks later she saw 2 other chicks that she thought were cute and going to be different from the other chickens she has and wanted to get them. But by then the store made a policy that you had to get a minimum of 5 chicks to purchase them. So she got 3 more fry babies. It gets better now. So now we have plenty of "farm" experience ready for the kids. But that is not all the fryers my parents wanted overall. They already had 25 fry babies ordered that would not get here till mid April and those would not be ready by the time the kids got here. The fryer groups are in 2 different locations. The older group is outside in a small(er) coop and chicken run. The fry babies are in my Dad's workshop in a trailer bed that he built a cover for so the don't escape. And believe me, the do try!

Original 5

Now I will tell you about the Layers- chickens that lay eggs. My Mom was looking for already laying chickens because last late Fall her 8 or so chickens were only coming up with 1 egg a day. How can you have 8 chickens and only get one egg a day? So we killed those so we were not taking care of the chickens all winter just for one egg. So she found a guy on craigslist that had plenty of chickens he was trying to clear out for some reason I never paid attention to. So Mom got 10 egg layers (one had died for some unknown reason so now there are 9), that were not currently laying eggs because egg laying is determined by how much day time the chickens have and they had basically been pinned up in a dark barn. So we had to wait a week or so before we started getting eggs. In the mean time my Mom had to make a run to the farm supply store for chicken feed and saw that it was "chick days" at the store. She came home and said how great it would be to get chicks for my kids to take care of and then butcher them when my sister comes (reference above.) I said no way will you get my kids a pet only to kill them a couple months later! If you want to get them chicks then by all means you may but they should be layers that you will keep around. So she took the kids to pick out their chicks. Leo and Simon got black chicks and Katie got a brownish red chick. Couple weeks later (reference above) we are picking up feed.... again. And lo and behold Mom sees 2 layer chicks that just look different. One we could already tell was going to be white with black specks and the other chick was yellow with a grey tint on its back. As said before the store had changed policy and we had to buy a minimum of 5 chicks to get them. So we did. So I introduce to you the layers!

I think I mislabeled Leo's chick. That one is Simon's and the other like it is Leo's.

These would be the 3 chicks my kids picked out.

And here they are now!

Leo's and Simon's look alike but Simon's is darker than Leo's

The 2 chicks my Mom liked (obviously older than little chicks now.

So now aside from chickens we got another delivery in the mail. Can you guess?? I won't make you. We got turkeys! They are so cute! Half went to a friend and we kept 7. One or two will go to another friend, one will be Thanksgiving dinner and hopefully one will be a tom (male) that my Dad will keep with 2 hens to hatch his own turkey next year.

Now my Dad is working on getting coop built that we will move the 25 fryers into and later after they are butchered the Turkeys will go in.

And that is life currently on the farm.

Oops! I forgot Waldo! But you already know about him.

Remember that cute chick?

Waldo

This picture was taken at 4 1/2 weeks!

Where's Waldo?

Meet Waldo.

He came in this box.

Along with 26 of his other friends.
So. Where's Waldo? He is in every one of the pictures.

He... or She, not sure... Is a White Crested Black Polish Chick.

One of the coolest looking chicks I have seen!

In about 2 or 3 weeks he.. or she... will be SOOOOO ugly! I'll post pictures then.

The rest of the chickens will become food in about 6-8 weeks. But they are so cute now! Too bad in a week or so they will be ugly too.

Drum Roll Please!!

What you all have been waiting for... or at least what I have been promising. My dear Husbands quilt I have been telling you about. You know the tutorial I was going to show you? Well its done. The tutorial I mean. The quilt has been done for a while. I finally got all the pictures uploaded and wrote out all I thought I should to explain how to do it. Just follow this link to see it. I do not think I will have another post as long as that one. I wanted to cover as many basics as I could in that first post so I didn't forget to tell you something later in a different post. So there it is, in all its glory! I am glad it is done. So while you are there, don't forget to pick up a button to my new quilting blog... its free! (He he.)

Happy blogging!

Today I am....

Canning beans for future "Re-fried" Beans. However I do not fry my beans at all.

"Surrender!" Is what Leo was saying when I walked into my room this morning.

And I have a new button for my new blog for quilting. So click on it, go there, and get a button of your own!

SORRY!

I know I have promised a quilt tutorial. And its not here yet. I do promise eventually it will make it on here. I have a huge amount of pictures I took for it I just have to pick out the best ones (I'm no professional that for sure) and get them up loaded on here. I do hope when it gets put on if you have never tried to quilt because it looks scary then you have got to try this one. Maybe on a smaller scale. The one I made is HUGE!!! Hubby and I are not much of blanket sharers. We both hog and curl into our blankies its not even funny. Well with the one I made it fits our king size mattress and the corners at the end of the bed even touch the floor after making it in the morning. I can't even tell I am sharing a blanket! So I promise it will come soon.

In the mean time I have been busy trying to figure out what I want to do for my next quilt. I picked one out and then had to figure out all the measurements for all the pieces. Next step will be picking out the material I want for it. I plan to try and sell this next one but I am just not sure how much I will be selling it for. But hopefully I will have success. I would like to make a bit of a profit from making quilts. That's about all that's been going on with me.

Good Idea Bad Idea (you know from Animaniacs)

Good Idea: Putting your eggs on the front seat after grocery shopping so the other stuff doesn't smash them.


Bad Idea: Slamming on your breaks on the Highway (no one was behind me) to see an eagle perched in your tree.

I did end up having 6 cracked eggs. I was going to using them anyway so it was ok.

So there s/he sits without a care in the world. We see the eagles around here all the time. It is really cool! I was seeing them almost daily when I took the kids to school in the morning.