Kickin it on the deck!

We can finally see our grass around our house. What a great day just enjoying the sun on our back deck and playing with the baby chicks. Couldn't hurt to try to find a few bugs too.

more baby chicks.

Spring must be getting closer because the chicks are everywhere. The kids have talked me into letting them each get a new baby chick and they even managed to get a fourth for the whole family. They're pretty convincing. Of course they had to hold them on the way home.

Cambrie named hers Casafras. (I had a hamster named Sasafras when I was younger for my initials SAS, so she changed it to her initials CAS.)

Jake named his Jazz or Ironhide, it changes between the two from day to day.  Obviously a nod to Transformers.

Tatum named her chick Crystal and the family chick is named Butterscotch.

Tatum wanted to take them to school for Sharing Time, but instead we decided to just take a picture that she could share.

Cleaning the Coop!

Jake and I have been enjoying our time at home during the days with just the two of us. Friday we cleaned out the chicken coop. Actually, Jake more or less cleaned it out. He informed me that I was using his shovel and that he wanted to get all the poop himself.
How long will this last for?

Eggs, Eggs, Eggs!

We really don't know for sure, but we think that at least one of our ducks is laying now. Cambrie found this HuGe egg and had to document it. She took all the pictures herself, then wanted to cook it up and was so excited because it was a 'double yolker' as she calls it.

Most of our hens lay brown eggs, but recently we've been getting some white eggs, most likely from Rose, our newest hen.
This was the big egg in Cambrie's hand.

All of them together. She's quite proud of her eggs.

One Spoiled Rooster.

Here is Roady! This is Cambrie's rooster that she was going to show for 4H. She spent a lot of time this summer holding and playing with him so that he would be tame when it came time for the fair. Well, now he's all grownup!

Teton County Fair

This year was our first Fair Experience. Cambrie was in Poultry 4H and was so excited to show her new rooster Roady for the fair. We even made sure we scheduled our summer trips around fair week. Well, after spending 2 weeks in California, we arrived home to find an unopened letter from the 4H office. Unbeknownst to us, you have to register to enter the fair. The letter had come just after we left, and the deadline had past before we arrived home. I was tempted to call and see if they would work her in, but the BIG, BOLD type that said NO EXCEPTIONS deterred me. Fortunately Cambrie took it very well. When I told her I didn't think she would be able to enter Roady in the fair, she just said, "That's OK, I still get to keep my chicken." As always, Cambrie is forever our optimist. So grateful for that.
Luckily our 4H leader told Cambrie that she could still enter some of her eggs in the fair. (Again, being new to the whole fair thing, I did not know this, but apparently anyone can enter whatever they want to be judged.) Well, she picked out some eggs and we took them in. She was so happy to be able to still be in the fair. As a bonus, she was awarded Grand Reserve and won a hug red ribbon. All in all, it was a great learning experience in more ways than one. Cambrie learned so much about our chickens while doing 4H and thoroughly enjoys telling anyone that will listen about every last part of a chicken egg.

Eggcellent!!

The first eggs arrived on Jake's birthday. We weren't expecting eggs for a couple more months (because we know absolutely zero when it comes to chickens), but luckily Aunt Monica was checking on them while she was visiting because lo and behold, we had 2 eggs. They start small and lighter in color but as the hens mature the eggs will get larger and darker.

Summer Chores . . .

Harvesting veggies from the garden (even though they rarely made it in the house) was a regular summer chore. I'm trying to convince Jason that each of the kids needs their own garden next year. When friends came over, they would pick carrots and peas and sit out on the deck eating them. It's so amazing how much better home grown veggies taste.

Taking care of the chickens. Violet is surprisingly tame and lets nearly anyone hold her. Here is Tatum, munching on her carrot and holding her chicken.

Cambrie with Lightning McQueen~

Jake with Violet~

More fun with great friends. . .

It was such a great weekend. All the kids got along so well. Here they are in the tub . . . Jake and his buddy Mason ~ Jason gave them matching haircuts, so just like that, the mohawk was gone. We took a long trail ride on the Rhino and 4-wheelers. Jason and Katie were brave enough to take most of the group.

Quite the load . . . you can even see Hershey's head peeking out.
Mariah, Matthew and Jake had a lot of fun playing together too. Here they are dressing up our chicken Violet~every chicken needs a scrunchie don't they?!

Feeding Time!

Here are the chickens . . . Already getting so BIG!

And very hungry!

Introducing the chicks!

Well, hopefully they are chicks. We still won't know for a bit if we have hens or roosters, but here are a few of them. We had to take a mugshot of each one and hang the picture along with their name in the chicken coop (Cambrie's idea). The kids love having them. They are up at the crack of dawn checking on them. We have 11 total, but I'll spare you all the pictures. Here are just a few of them.


Lily

Greta {the only grey one}

Lightning McQueen {this would be Jake's}

You might be a redneck if . . .

. . . you're married to the guy driving this truck.

. . . this is your dog on said truck.

. . . these are your kids with their new pets

. . . the new pets are chickens!

Getting ready for the chicks!

Jason's been working hard building a coop for the chicks we are soon getting, so we thought we would pitch in by decorating the inside.