Yuck and Other Things

I am so done with having chickens and ducks inside the house. They are still incredibly cute, fuzzy, and chirp-y BUT they are also poopers and stinkers and the warm weather has really amplified these abilities. ESPECIALLY THE DUCKS.

This week has been interesting. Lil'Bug and I installed chicken wire around the corn crib and the first 10 chicks went outside. Oh for the day when all the little future pot pies move out there with them. (We watched Chicken Run with new perspective this week.....)

We also planted more: onions and broccoli. Cabbage goes out today I hope. 

We welcomed home our new used tractor. It is beautiful. I named it MacBook Pro, Mac for short. I know that the tractor will earn its keep well before a new computer would, but still. It is my way of keeping my humor about. Sometimes I still want to name our farm Wits' End, you know? 

The porch is jacked and ready for operation bee relocation. Hopefully the weather will cooperate. 

I finally ordered soap from the local ladies, Prairieland Herbs,  (still incredibly sad about Foil Hat though, her Tupelo Honey bar was like bathing in sunshine.....) and it is really good soap. Actually I bought the Bug Off shampoo and body bar in my panic freak out about the ticks that turned on ME. I mean, I love Hobbit, but once the jumped off him and went for me, it meant WAR. It's not like anyone makes Frontline for people. Well, actually, the Bug Off soap is pretty darn close. Not a single tick since using it on me or Lil'Bug, which is something. 

I'll post pictures later, but that's the short of it so far today!

Easter, Belated Photos

Easter at our house involves sword play.

Blueberry girl got a copy of Blueberry Girl. An amazing story. She was feeling a little clingy so she stayed strapped on almost until dinner. Pawpaw and Nana played with her for a bit and she napped, mostly she watched her sister go nuts over the eggs and cry about her puppy. It was a really hard weekend. 

Lil'Bug loves eggs. LOVES eggs. She still has and plays with all 40 of the plastic eggs she got last year, plus about 8 wooden ones. Easter is her day.

Dinner was lovely.  Blueberry thinks feeding Hobbit is hilarious. The more frustrated I get, the funnier she thinks it is. Luckily, nothing she eats (yet) will actually hurt him.

How can I be mad. She has carrot and beans in her hair!

Easter ended with my homemade apple pie. Lard (in the crust) from local pig, apples handpicked and stored in freezer. 

All and all Easter was just family. A lovely low key day.

Chick-a-Boom Boom

The first batch of ordered day old chicks (brown egg layers) arrived on Saturday, a full two days before we expected. We drove to Des Moines to pick them up from the "big" post office. The are the size of eggs. So incredibly cute and little and fuzzy. 

We set them up in a stock tank on the back porch. So far so good. Our first 10 blue egg layers are outside in the palace already, but still in a stock tank too, though not heated. 

The next batch will arrive in a few weeks, a mix of meat and egg layers. When its all said and done we'll have 70 chickens and 4 ducks PLUS 30 Guinea fowl arriving in August. Those last birds eat ticks. Yay for eating ticks! 

Anyway, that's the farm update!

The Snake

So Lil'Bug and I decided to tromp down to the frog pond. We squeak around in the mud for a while, poke sticks in the water and generally explore the shore. I spot a pretty snail shell and ask Lil'Bug to reach down the hole and get it for me, then I spot this little critter.

Um. We back away and go get Daddy. I could not believe I had just asked my four year old to stick her hand down there. Then her face. What was I thinking?! Our county has something like 4 of the 5 poisonous snakes in Iowa and our property has all of the habitats. 

We hike back to the house quickly. 

Of course Dearest gets excited. I panicked a bit and might have blurted out that it could be a hibernaculum. Fine. I use big words when I get freaked out. I grab the camera, because this was an event I was going to blog, Dearest sticking his hand into a pit of snakes. Even just the one was scary enough.

And then......well, the peels of laughter rang far and wide. My snake.....

.....has legs. Meet the big, scary snake. A leopard frrrrrroooooogggggg. I am never going to live this down. 

Never.

Nope. Never.

Of course she had to kiss him to make sure he wasn't a prince.

He wasn't. But he has a cute belly.

Then she found a leech. Yuck. She had to hold that too. Fascinating creature. Lil'Bug that is.