Overextended

The past two weeks or so at our house has been hectic.  It's a manageable hectic and it's one that we've learned to expect each year as the looming tax deadline approaches but it's not a time we look forward to. I've spend more evenings than I'd like at work the last two weeks and Mike has spent a little too much time playing  the role of a single (soon to be) step-parent.  Although I probably don't articulate it enough to him, he really does a great job getting dinner on the table, homework done and wrangling the dogs and chickens when I need to stay late.  And he does this without complaining.  (Okay, without complaining too much.)  Things in our house are not running as smoothly or with the usual routines but we are getting by.  The necessary things are getting done, everyone is fed and healthy and even managing to get to lacrosse practice two nights a week (seriously, what was I thinking).  I'm trying to remind myself that sometimes just getting by is okay and I'm trying to let go of all the things that I just don't have time to worry about, like cleaning and healthy meals 5 nights a week.

A few pictures from the week.

Fail

I came home to chickens enjoying themselves in the backyard.  Chickens who were supposed to be in their run.  We were bad chicken owners this past week.  Friday I took the dogs out when I got home from work to find the door to the run open.   Another evening last week, Mike was so busy doing all the things I praised him for earlier, that he forgot to close the chickens back up.  I came out the next morning and almost jumped out of my skin when one of our Barred Rocks jumped out of a bush next to the coop.  It looks like the coop door blew shut before she was able to out herself away. She was not very happy with us.  I'm just thankful she was smart enough to hide in the bush.

Fail

It's hard to tell in this picture but Twig decided the house was such a mess that the best option for a place to lay was on top of a pillow that was quite literally hanging off the table.

Since clearly we are taking stellar care of our current pets, we decided to pick up a few chicks at the feed store this weekend.  I'm reasoning with myself that they don't take that much work and that the stress relieving ability of chicks offsets the work.

Thankful Thursday

Being present is something I've always struggled with. This is an exercise for me in taking the time to notice the things throughout the week that I am thankful for. Not the big things like my family but the little things it's easy to miss in the hustle and bustle that is life. Please join along if you'd like and leave a link in the comments.

Today I am thankful for a random snow day.  It was a pretty sorry excuse for a snow day, in our area we got mostly just rain and the little snow we got didn't even stick to the ground.  We were promised 8/12 inches so Garrett was pretty disappointed.  But we did some baking, and lots of reading and knitting by the fire place.

And completely random but I had to share this.  These crazy chickens of our love one nesting box in the coop.  Apparently Blanche was taking too long and Rose decided to stand over her and wait.  There are two empty nesting boxes to the left but I guess they just aren't as cozy.  They will seriously lay eggs under the favorite nesting box before they will resort to using another box.

It take a village....

It takes a village to build a chicken coop, apparently.  I realize that I'm rapidly approaching the limit of chicken themed blog posts for the month.....

Lucky for me May is almost over!

We've wanted to tear that shed down since we moved in, the floor is falling apart, it's open to the elements and Mike almost fell through the roof retrieving one of Garrett's balls.  Originally we planned to buy a local amish built coop for the chickens but every time we thought one might work, I decided it needed to be a little bigger (room to grow of course).  The price tag on coops the size I was looking for were far out of our budget and what better way to live the "recycle, reuse, reduce" mantra?

It's going to be a lot of work. Probably more work then if we were starting from scratch because we didn't really know what we were working with until we got in there. But we are getting there. The chicks are really too big to be in the tub at this point. Not to mention the entire bathroom smells like, well, it smells like there are 6 chickens living in the bathtub. So we took our to-do list and prioritize what we needed to get done before it was safe enough for them to move in.

We removed broken windows, tore out the drywall, ripped up the flooring and put corrugated metal roofing down on top of the existing roof. Garrett really got a kick out of helping with tearing the drywall down. It's not everyday you get to bang a hammer into the wall.

I helped with all of the demo but Mike's brother showed up just in time to allow me to bow out for the reconstructing piece of things.  They installed plywood flooring and installed the roof.  Some lovely neighbors came over Sunday morning and helped Mike build the doors and cover the window holes with hardware cloth.  We installed the doors Sunday evening and the only thing left to do before the ladies move in is to seal the floor and install a few roosts.  The list of things to do after they get in is long.  Very, very long but consists of mostly winterizing and cosmetic things that can wait until we recover from this weekend.

5 Chicks.... and a suspected rooster

We have had the chicks for a little over 4 weeks now which makes them all between 5-7 weeks old and quickly outgrowing the bathtub.  Thankfully Mike spent the better part of the weekend working on the coop. 

Before we made the plunge we did all of our research and read a great book so that we could make an informed decision about where to get our chicks and how to raise them.  We decided for multiple reasons that a hatchery didn't feel right to us so we found the breeds we were looking for with small local farmers.

Because of our decision to not go with a hatchery, we knew that there was a chance we would end up with a rooster.  It's been a lot of fun these past few weeks watching the birds get bigger and watching for those tell tale signs that one (or all!) of our girls is actually a boy.  It's still too early to tell for sure but I am fairly certain that Blanche is in fact a rooster.

 
 Notice how much bigger and red her comb is?  I'm slightly devastated because while we are spending a lot of time trying to socialize the chicks and get them to like us, Blanche is one of the few who "likes" us at this point. Mike is optimistic and thinks her friendliness is a sure sign she's not a rooster.  I heard a suspicious noice when we had them out back this weekend but Mike is still holding out hope (read: in denial). 

We haven't decided for sure what we're going to do with her, err him, if my suspicion is right.  We're actually able to have a rooster but we don't want to be the neighbor with the annoying rooster.  Maybe we'll get lucky and have a mute rooster?

Crazy Chicken Lady

Mike and I have been discussing getting backyard chickens since late last spring.  It started almost as a joke because I never thought he would really go for it.

My decision to start eating more "whole" foods and treat mother nature a little nicer began when Garrett was born.  With each year that passed, I slowly started making more decisions that felt right for my small family of two.  When Mike came into the picture 4 years later, we weren't exactly on the same page when it came to the way we ate or my interest in going back to the basics.  One of the things that I loved so much about him from the very beginning was the way he embrassed these things that were so important to me.  He started recyling more at his house, bringing over less processed snacks or picking up the latest green gadget he stumbled on at the store.  I have no doubt that those first few months it was more about trying to impress me (which clearly worked) but over time some of these things have become important to him as well.  But there are times when he looks at me and I honestly think he thinks I'm slightly crazy.  And I was sure when I called him up at work and said "what do you think about getting some chickens?" a part of him wished he had ran for the hills when he had the chance. But here we are a year later, chicken owners.

We did our research and decided on 2 Buff Orphingtons (yellow, 2 Barred Rocks (black), and 2 Arucaunas (brown).  This picture was taken when we first picked them up about 2 1/2 weeks ago.  They are almost double the size at this point and are anxiously awaiting their new home outside as they are quickly outgrowing our bathtub.  We couldn't be happier and are really looking forward to eggs in a few months.