EGGS

Yesterday we had our first egg! One of our NH Reds was the hen. Of course the grandkids were called and they came up. Mandy and I also needed to can more apple sauce. Reed and Emmy were happy to pose with the egg and play with the new baby chicks. The chicks are doing fantastic...no deaths!

Reed helped us prepare the apples by turning the peeler/slicer/corer. Since we had softer apples I peeled them first then just cored and sliced them ala Reed.

Sunday afternoon (today) the same hen was acting crazy again so we put her in the coop and into a nesting box. Yesterday she had layed her egg in the foyer of the coop. Once again she layed...in fact the grandkids and I were on our way out to check on her in the box when she started squawking and carring on. Reed ran back for the camera and by the time we got in the coop she had hopped out of the box and there was another egg.

Matt came up for Sunday dinner and he and Abby went down to the garage to check out the chicks.

New Chicks

I waited until 9:00am yesterday to here from the post office, but when I didn't get the call I left for town to meet up with Mandy and go to a sewing class. Of course, while I was getting out to get a donut Steve called with the news the chicks were in (his mom heard the message the post office has left at 9:05). So I zipped up to Holt and retrived the chicks. They look great, not at all like the last mail batch. All of them have a lot of energy and have taken to their new home without any problems.

Abby came up after the sewing class. Kate had mentioned something about the chicks stepping in water so Abby had to check out the bottoms of their feet.

All Quiet

Its all quiet on all fronts as all the roosters are gone. Lee from Craig's List picked up the 9 banties, including 5 roosters. It was quite an undertaking to capture all of them even though they were all inclosed in the coop. But ahhh... the peace and quiet. And $25 to buy more chicken feed. The 5 new chicks are doing great and we are anxiously waiting for the 15 mail chicks to arrive.

Mom and Dad Williams came to visit and got to know Thanksgiving, our turkey.

Typical Saturday?

I started out the day getting a mattress from a garage sale for Mandy. Of course I had to then go garage saling for a bit. On my way home I stopped at Orschlen's to get started feed and pine shavings since my new chicks are to arrive anytime starting Monday. (By the way, I put the 'fancy' chicks on Craig's List and they sold in a couple of hours. The lady is picking them up on Monday. YEA!! No more crowing.) While I was there I noticed that all their remaining chicks were 75 cents each. I called Steve and told him to call Ken (chicken man from church to let him know) Steve convinced me we needed chicks at this great price. I reminded him that 15 chicks were soon arriving, but he still wanted cheap chicks. So I picked up 5. Getting home I had to section off an area in the coop for the new 5 (they would be too big to put with the upcoming 15).

Of course the grandkids had to come up to see the new chicks, but especially to see Grandpa's new toy. Emmy was more into drawing chicken pictures, while Reed enjoyed the 4-wheeler as much as possible. Although I did notice that Grandpa and Trevor had to 'show' Reed how to ride the 4-wheeler for a rather long time.

Canning Apples

For a few weeks I have noticed that my neighbor's apples trees were full. In fact, one tree had dropped its apples and there were hundreds of them. They let them lay there and I thought about asking if I could have them, but how to beg? Then I saw them picking them up with their kids and grandkids and thought, oh well. Searching for chickens I noticed they had dumped all the apples into the field behind their fence and the bunch was just rotting away. There were still plenty left on the ground so I decided I needed to ask about them. Steve was over talking to them and they gave him a sack with 'good' apples and pears which he brought in to give me. Of course I scampered out ... they were still in their back yard...and thanked them for the bag and asked what they were going to do with the rest of the apples on the ground. They just hadn't got to them to throw them over the fence, so I asked if I could get them. YES!!!! So after dinner Mandy, Reed, Emmy, Abby and I went over and picked up the apples. There are still 1/4 left in the top of the one tree and a second tree loaded - these apples will be ready at the end of September. We got the ground apples and a promise of calling when the others are ready

so we can have them. WaaHu!!

Mandy and I spent the next day peeling, cutting, and cooking apples to can apple pie filling (or apple sauce). It took the whole day. Well, we did have to go buy jars first and since we were out go to the post office, the bank, and a garage sale we spotted.

We ended up with 21 quarts ready for food storage. Mmmmm pies.

Steve has his hydrogen booster hooked up and actually running. It needs a little tweeking, but its predicted to add 10 mpg to our current mpg. He put it on a Suburban, so we will be getting 25+ mpg in a Suburban. Now thats what I'm talking about.

Chicks lost...found

Last night when we got home from youth night I went to close the coop. Missing were the turkey and 4 chicks. I notified Steve, we got flashlights and went looking. Steve found the turkey behind the shop hunkered down and sleeping, so he moved him into the coop. We searched and searched but couldn't find the 4 chicks (a Wyandotte, New Hampshire Red, female bantam; black and white, and Silkie). Steve got in the Rover and started driving over the pasture. He found the Wyandotte hunkered down and tried to get it to go to the coop, but I ended up carry her in (chickens asleep in the dark don't rouse easily). He next found the Silkie which I then carried to the coop. I got in the Rover with him as we searched for the last two chicks. It was much like the nature shows where they are tracting lions at night. We never spotted the last two so we gave up. The only thing we could figure was that a rain storm must have caught the chicks in the open and these ones didn't run for the coop but squatted instead and then fell asleep.
This morning when Steve was leaving for work the remaining two chicks were under the Rover just waiting for the others to show up. So all are safe and somewhat sound.
I have ordered 15 more chicks which are due to arrive the week of the 22nd. Supposedly they will all be female.