March 18th - April 14th in Pictures

Wow, I'm behind! This should be a month worth of pictures but I forgot to take pictures about 10 of those days. Oops!! Some of the days will just be teaser pictures b/c I took a lot of pictures that day. Be on the look out for posts about Maddy's 4th birthday, Sean starting soccer and our eggs hatching. Hopefully it won't take me long to finish those posts.

Now, on with the show!

March 18th

Someone found a lost marker...

March 19th

First time doing a word search

March 21st

Homeschooling/homework/drawing

March 24th

We live near train tracks but it's very rare for a steam engine to go by so we went to watch.

March 26th

Sleepy baby

March 27th

Sean's first time at soccer!

March 30th

First butterfly sighting of the year!!

April 1st

First over wintered butterfly to be released.

Lunch on the porch on a beautiful day!

April 4th

More soccer

April 6th

Birthday party teaser

April 7th

It's not child labor when they want to do it, right?

April 8th

Loving the beautiful weather we're having!

April 9th

A surprise litter. Cottontail turned out to be Mopsy's brother, not sister. She had 9 kits. None made it. We'll try again soon...except Peter will be the daddy.

April 10th

It's too nice out to do school inside.

April 11th

Day 20: first pip (there will be more in a later post)

April 12th

Day 21: another pip (there will be more in a later post)

April 13th

Up to 5 chicks!

April 14th

Our last chick to hatch. It had a splayed leg. This picture is after a day of having it braced to the other leg. It still needs to be braced but the fact that it's standing on it's own is a big improvement.

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Growing our flock: Hatching Eggs

About a week and a half we got a borrowed incubator from a friend. We got it all set up and let it run for a day to make sure it was in good working order. The plan was for this to be a homeschooling project along with growing our flock. However I might just be having more fun than the kids. ;) My friend Andrea, from Cluck Dynasty, gave us a dozen hatching eggs. Before introducing you to the eggs, I'd like to introduce the parents.

The mothers:

Rosie: not sure what her lineage is, Rhode Island Red cross??

Buffy: Red Star crossed with Ameraucana??

Midnight: Black Australorp/Ameraucana cross

The father:

Westly: Black Copper Maran

They have another rooster but there's hardly a chance he's the father of any. Too bad though b/c he's adorable!!

Cotton: Bantam Cochin Frizzle

The eggs:

Before setting the eggs I candled and marked the air cells. I also marked an X on one side of each egg and another letter for identification on the other side. 

The brown eggs are Rosie's, the grey-blue ones on the left are Midnight's and the blue ones on the right are Buffy.

At the end of day 2, I candled all the eggs again. Rosie's eggs are hard to see in but all the rest had this circle in the middle of the yolk. By then the eyes,head, ears and heart already started developing.

I candled the eggs again on day 4. Every one of them had veins!! It was difficult to photograph but so exciting to see! By then their noses, tongues, legs and wings all developed.

Today is day 9. By now, their genders have been determined. Their beaks and feathers have begun to form. And the digits on their legs and wings have become visible. As of today, the embryo has begun to look like a bird. Last night I candled all the eggs once again and marked the growth of the air sac. All air sacs are growing nicely. Some of the embryos were hard to see but the lighter eggs showed me something very exciting; movement!! I watched several little tiny embryos swimming around in their eggs.

12 (+/-) days until hatching! I'll update again before then.

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Suburban Homesteading - March 2013

Spring is here and our new little suburban homestead is coming together nicely. Recently I was reading a local urban homesteader's blog and was inspired. Lanette at Homesteading on the Home Front has a series called A Walk Around the Homestead. That was where the idea for this post came from.

Betsy says "Whatcha waiting for!? Let's go!" 

The girls: Cottontail and Mopsy

The rabbits have done some growing!! Hubby needs to get working on adding the extra cages to the hutch. The girls are close to old enough for breeding so they will need to be separated. We'll have baby bunnies before we know it. I'm beginning to think we may end up having someone else process them once they are old enough. I have no problem with them going from our backyard to our freezer, I just don't know if I'll be able to do it myself. But we have quite awhile before we need to worry about that. The rabbits have another job and that is to help fill the compost bin under their cages. It is coming along very nicely. It's almost deep enough to add the worms. I'm looking forward to some amazing compost for next year's garden!

Speaking of gardens; we've rethought the garden for this year. This year we're giving square foot gardening a try.The bed is all ready and the strawberries are planted. We have more strawberry plants than we originally planned. The 6 plants we bought last year turned into 82 plants this year. We've given a lot away and still have 8 squares of strawberry plants! The rest of the garden will be planted soon. There will be tomatoes, peas, carrots, spaghetti squash and cucumbers.


Last, but not least, the chickens! The chicken coop and run was finished a couple weeks ago and the girls are loving it! We had a very windy storm their first week out and it all stood up well to the test. The girls haven't needed any help in learning to go into the coop at night but still haven't been roosting. I think it's the round roost that's the problem so we'll have to change that out. Their personalities are really coming out now. Betsy, our Buff Orpington, is our tame one that likes to be held and petted. She's the first out of the coop in the morning and the first to greet me when I bring their daily treats. Amelia, our Black Australorp, is the next tamest. She likes to be petted but not really held. The other night when I peaked into the coop (through the nest box) before closing it up for the night, she jumped into the nest box to be petted. Henrietta, our Easter Egger, tolerates being petted but doesn't love it and doesn't like to be picked up. She, however, is the one that will chase a dog and jump for treats. It's so much fun to watch her. Our flock is not complete yet. The city allows us to have 6. We have the room for 6. So we'll have 6. We're not ordering chicks this time though. We're hatching eggs! Soon we will be getting a dozen eggs from a friend and setting them into a borrowed incubator. The kids and I are so excited!

I plan to do more of these post throughout the year so be on the lookout. Until then, here's a few more pictures:

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