Thirteen

 We may be slightly crazy.

We like chickens.

They are fun to have around.

We decided to get thirteen chicks!

Our plan is to raise and butcher some.

We like the idea of knowing where our food comes from.

This is just an experiment.

We plan on keeping four of them.

And one of them is a rooster!

We've never had one before.

They're so cute when they're this size.

We usually put our chicks in a 20 gallon fish tank.

We had to use a large storage bin this time.

Way too many of them for the tank!

We got 4 different breeds:

3 Black Australorp (the black with white belly chicks)

3 Rhode Island Red (the brown ones)

3 Buff Orpington (the yellow ones)

and 4 Aracuana (brown/black stripes, one is a rooster)

This one is a Black Australorp.

These remind the boys of penguins.

They do silly things like run from one end of the box to the other at high speeds.

They may be very cute but they make big messes.

They all stopped and craned their necks when I was vacuuming.

They look like this when they sleep.

Sometimes they burrow into each other.

Sometimes they try to sleep standing up.

Sometimes they fall asleep leaning on their beak.

We're having so much fun watching them.

The Ten Year Old

I'm combining blog posts.

I don't have many Easter pictures.

We did a scavenger hunt with the boys this year.

We had a bible verse inside each egg.

Each bible verse needed to be looked up.

Their clue was in the bible verse.

The clue that led them to this spot was in Matthew 28:1 -

"Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week,

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave."

The clue was grave.

They ran to where our dogs are buried to find the next egg.

The final egg led them to where the treasure was.

A cache of candy and an Action Bible.

**********

It's hard to believe this little guy is ten.

He wanted a lemon trifle for his birthday cake.

Connor also won a coloring contest for his age group at the grocery store.

He won a $25 gift card.

And what does he want to get with his money?

"Pizzas!"

This year we got him a camera.

He's been taking pictures ever since.

I have no idea what this is.

It might be the inside of a scope on a toy gun.

The boys hid eggs for our dear friends while they visited.

You can see Connor's reflection in the egg.

One of the first pictures Connor took while he was outside was this one.

He said he had to get a "chicken selfie".

That's Connor in a nutshell.

The chicken whisperer.

Oh the Irony

This is Pepper sitting by a gate anxiously wanting to get to the other side.

We were trying to get her to jump through the hole.

Dwayne's grandpa made the hole for the dogs a long time ago.

It's been ages since a dog has jumped through.

It took a lot of coaxing but eventually she made the jump.

This was her first attempt.

I say attempt because she hit her head on the top bar.

She was OK and we figured she was done with the gate.

We kept encouraging her.

She decided to go for it and made it.

Once on the other side we went for a walk.

Nothing new except for abundant sunshine and warm temperatures.

She even jumped back through with no problems.

Way to go Pepper!

On a different note, we think Pepper has allergies.

We're suspecting food allergies.

The irony of having both a child and a dog with food allergies is not lost on us.

Someone has a birthday coming up very soon.