The 1st egg!!...and much more!

I know I haven't written in a few months...Summer happened! The kids being out of school takes up all my time. We've had a great summer! We've swam and swam, traveled to family reunions, gone to the river, attempted to camp in the backyard, 1 trip to the emergency room, stayed up late, slept in, laughed, watched movies, and just fully enjoyed our time together! Back to school day is fast approaching and it will be so bittersweet! I love the time with my kids but I like my quiet time too!

The chickens are all grown up! That is RockaDoodle such a handsome guy! His feathers are so grand! He has gotten quite cocky over the summer months puffin' himself up and chasing all the girls around the yard.

I started letting the chickens out in the backyard every morning and closing them up in the coop at night. They really like to free range eating bugs, grass and the scratch I spread out. They spend time under the trees and in the flower bed next to the back of the house during the hot parts of the day. Which here lately is most of the day! The girls on the ground are dust bathing! They love a good dust bath!

I'd been checking the nests everyday for the last few weeks looking for the first egg. They're almost 20 weeks old so I knew eggs should be coming soon. The morning of my 32nd birthday I woke up and went out to the coop to check for eggs AND there was a perfect little brown egg in the nest! A wonderful birthday gift! I couldn't have asked for a better gift! I was so excited I jumped around all day full of joy! I know God orchestrated this wonderful thing for me and I was so thrilled beyond words! I brought it in and Sherman cooked it for me for breakfast.

It was a small egg but it had a perfect yolk! It was just so pretty! The kids were excited to crack it and watch Daddy cook the first farm fresh egg that OUR chickens provided! So cool!



My wonderful husband fried me up a tasty egg for breakfast combined with a tortilla, fried potatoes, and chili con carne! Yummo!! :P

Now that someone layed an egg I need to change their feed from chick feed to layer feed. I've already been offering them crushed oyster shell along with the grit. That should give them calcium and make the shells on the eggs strong. I can't wait till I'm gathering a few dozen a week!

A sad thing happened this summer, we had to put our dog Blue down. You remember her from the last post "chicken dog". She had been sick for a long time. It was such a hard thing to do. I still miss her and sometimes I absentmindedly see her laying in her favorite spots or hear her coming down the hall. We added a new puppy to the mix a few weeks before Blue was put down. Sherman named her Pepper. She is Great Pyrenees and Lab ( we think!) She has been quite a handful! She has kept us VERY busy this summer!

Pepper is all puppy all the time! We took her to the river with us and she LOVED the water! She swam and chased the kids, it was so much fun. If you haven't seen the movie "Marley and Me" you must watch it! Not only is it a great movie it will give you insight into what we've been living with! Pepper is Marley...in fact after watching the movie I really debated on changing her name! She is really a mess!! But I think we'll keep her...for now anyway! haha!



It's 2 weeks till the kids go back to school so I'm confident I'll be able to post regularly again! Thanks for reading! Farm life is fun and there is always something going on each and every day! I look forward to sharing the stories and experiences with you!!