Ok y’all, I know it isn’t Friday.  =)  But I didn’t have time this past Friday to write anything, so here I am on a Monday evening writing about a wonderful day I had with my kiddos.

Spring has been around the farm for a while, but it is finally LOOKING a LOT like spring, and the babies GALORE prove it.

Oh the beauty!  The grass is green, there is a nice breeze, the garden is GROWING, the chickens are happy, the dogs are laying, the sun is shining, and the kids picked up their wagons and toys so the yard is semi-clutter-free.  =)

the meat chickens in tractor coop, just before we moved them to a new area with fresh grass

These are our new baby chicks!  we have 3, but left one in the brooder with a fellow left over chick … there is a story here.

We ordered 60 meat chickens, they sent about 65 or so + one lone little “exotic” (they’re usually roosters).  So we have 55 or so meat chickens left, living out in the tractor coop so they can pasture.  But we had this one little chick who is much smaller than the Big old waddling meat chickens, and s/he needed another chick with it, (because they don’t do well alone).  Initially husband said no; after a trip to the farm store this weekend with the kids they came home with 3 silver laced wyandotte pullets.

So here are two of them.

What else …

The garden is coming along so great!  I really need to look up how to harvest lettuce.  I am most excited about what we planted this year.  We are doing a lot of plants we either haven’t done in years or have never done, including broccoli, okra, watermelon, cantaloupe, sugar snap peas, banana peppers, lettuces, and cabbage!  We also planted some daikon radishes from seed (hoping they come up), so I have everything for my fermented kraut except carrots (which aren’t worth the time they take to grow haha).

the compost bin (which we will soon be updating, somehow) and the Arkansas rose bush that we have literally moved all over this country)

I think these are the cabbages …

peas that will hopefully grow up the trellis

my little lettuces! I’m so excited about them

We’ve been enjoying lots of asparagus and eggs.

Oh!  EGGS!  Ya’ll! My mammy duck is broody!  One of the really dark campbell ducks (possibly a cayuga cross), spent a month laying eggs and getting her nest all … nest-ed.  About 8-10 days ago she started sitting!  I’ve only caught her off one time and it was too bright out to candle the eggs, so I still don’t know if they are any good.  Drake Campbells only have a 30% fertility rate, so unless some of those 18+ eggs are crossed with our pekin drakes, there probably aren’t many fertile eggs.

Anyway, I am excited!  Hopefully we will have ducklings in a few more weeks (or 3…).

And, speaking of baby things-this little one here is Heidi.  She is our 12 week old Great Pyrenees. (I think I mentioned in a previous post that Anne had a lot of genetic issues with her mouth and jaws so she was returned.  She should have never been sold to begin with … anyway).

Heidi is pretty dang cute, and feisty … and nothing like Huck!  haha  She has a lot to learn.  Like, a lot. But she will get there, just slower than Huck I think, mostly because she is truly puppy.  Huck has always been an old man.  He does a good job of keeping her in line and teaching her about pack manners and such.

Sometimes he literally just lays on her lead so she can’t keep pouncing off.  haha (see the 2nd picture below)

I can ask Huck, “Where’s your puppy?!” and he will almost always go right to her and just lay on her. =)  So far she is learning to do okay around the chickens.  She doesn’t chase or play when around them, but when in the pen part of the chicken run she will try to chase through the pen.  So that behavior has to stop.  I am working on it, and will let you know how that goes.

He most definitely interacts with Heidi differently than he did Anne, which is interesting to me.  He knows she is different in character and treats her as such.  They’re such awesome dogs.

Each of my babies and me today:

We spent the afternoon doing chores, loving on dogs, chicks, and cats, then rolled the ball back and forth.  Dinner was in the oven and everything was perfect … then the cows got out.  That was frustrating and exciting and exhausting.  But they’re back in now.  Stubborn hamburgers.  I love them dearly, and I will miss them after freezer camp, but am looking forward to a freezer full of grassfed, hormone free beef for my family.

he started acting all wild and barn-catty right after this … cause he’s a barn cat

dirty babies and chicks!