Hey everyone! Did you miss my rambling writing? Well I hope so because you are in for quite a update. Sorry for going missing for a few weeks there, life got crazy for a bit and I didn't have the energy at the end of the day to write. So here we are three weeks since the last blog so here is your chance to run to the bathroom or grab that drink before you settle in for this update. Let's begin with the Chickshaw.
The last blog had us with the Chickshaw being finished! It looks wonderful! However I am so far behind that not only have we got the chicks, but they have also officially moved into the chickshaw. The chicks arrived for pick up April 7th. They were day olds if any of you are curious. Let me tell you they were adorable and so small. We split the order of 25 with someone else who only wanted a few. We got 17!
I mean are they not the cutest and fluffiest! The kids were so excited. We spent a long time that night watching them and getting them set up in their bin, The kids couldn't wait the next day to get home from school to see them again. This is when tragedy struck. We had moved them into the office upstairs so Odin (our dog) couldn't get to them. When the kids went in to see them they closed the door like good kids but forgot to close it when they went to wash their hands.. Yep I bet you can guess where this is headed. Odin got in and as I noticed him, he took off through the house with a baby chick in his mouth. By the time we got it away from him it was dead. The kids learned the hard way we were serious when we said to make sure the door is always closed. We now had 16 and I am happy to report that despite another fetch the chicken from Odin incident ,I will get to that story yet, we still have 16! Before then enjoy a picture of them one week later. They had pretty well doubled in size and now have their wing feathers over half in. The chicks had gotten so used to me reaching in to the container that they started hopping onto my arms. The kids wanted to do it too, so I helped them. You can't see our daughters face but it looked very much like our son's!
Over the next week after this photo was taken they began escaping the container (which we had already needed to upgrade to a bigger one). We then had to place cardboard all around it to prevent this. The cardboard only worked for a few days before they confidently started perching on it and escaping again. Now here we are and they have survived to three weeks old! Here they are with most of their feathers in or started! (Four days before the move and 1 before the incident number 2)
(They also kept covering their food in wood chips)
This meant moving them outside to the chickshaw and creating a safe area for them to run in until they are a little bigger and where the next fetch the chicken from Odin incident occured. Before the big move we placed tested the little fence system we made for them pictured below.
(Made from recycled fence pieces from the garden)
If you look close at picture two you can see the two layers of wire fencing . This is because of incident 2. We had gotten the chicks into the area when one escaped through the slightly larger square wire fencing and well Odin took advantage when it was running away from us. Luckily miss chick was fine, just a little damp, bruised and terrified but alive and able to fly and move normally! We fixed that by attaching wire with even smaller holes and so far that has kept them contained.
Just this past Thursday we moved them into the chickshaw! Now to just get them trained to go in and out without having to physically move them since apparently using food is not enough of a lure, They go in the chickshaw at night and then into the fence above during the day, Once they are older we have a different lighter, electric type of fencing to go around the chickshaw. As of today, they are mostly moving into and from the chickshaw with a little herding, except for about 4 which never want to leave where they are. With this I believe you are all updated on our raising chickens to date.
During this time we had to start planning and prepping for Easter and our daughters birthday/party. I made invitations for her to take to school (took 5 hours). Then began the prep for Easter and the company that was coming. Cleaning, cleaning, so much cleaning. Then Easter arrived! I will post pictures of some of the events below all the details. My In-laws arrived Good Friday and stayed until Tuesday. Of course on Easter Sunday the Easter Bunny paid the kids a visit making a mess and giving the kids sugar and activities (mostly activities since the Bunny is aware of our son's difficulty with sugar). After they were revved to go for the day we headed into the city to go to the Zoo for their event! The kids had so much fun! Then it was our daughters birthday and we had extra friends come out to jump on the trampoline and eat pizza! Tuesday rolled around my In-laws headed out and I began the big clean for the next round of guests and my daughters birthday party. My brother, nephew and niece were able to come up for her party! My mom came as well! Our daughter ended up having 9 kids come out for her party! Which considering we live 30 minutes from town was very impressive! I never want to hold another party again..... But they had so much fun so I guess I will have to suck it up. We are still trying to catch up on all the laundry and cleaning. How is it I spent two weeks scrubbing the entire house in the prep of everything and still ended up this far behind?!?
And now for our daughters birthday cake. I wasn't able to convince her to let me order from a bakery. My brother did the crumb coat and the pink base icing so I could prep other party things and the different colours of icing for the decorating! She was very happy with her cake! It was my first time making vanilla cake by scratch since going gluten free and it turned out very well! I am still hoping that next year we can just order a cake since it would save me hours of work.
So of course instead of solely focusing on cleaning the house/laundry we decided to start ripping off a part of the deck. This includes the falling apart railing around the whole deck in preparation of having the siding done! We are waiting on one last quote from a company then we will be able to move forward with that, I guess at least it is part of the planned projects for this summer. This part I think will best be told in photos.
The final photo is James building a rail for the stairs. Not sure if it will stay looking like this but we were able to use the boards from the portion of deck that we removed! We are planning to use the remaining wood to create skirting (to replace the removed siding) on the deck if there is enough or reuse it for something else.
Speaking of the deck I also remembered another incident. On Tuesday this week just after the kids and I got home from our various places we let Odin out and I prepped to take him for a walk when he started high pitched barking in the bushes. When I went out to see what was going on he had a porcupine treed and quills in his chin. We tried to get them out ourselves as there wasn't many (to avoid a after hours call to the vet), this did not work of course, so to the vet he went. He now has medicine for the rest of the week. All this was for 6 quills (9 if you count the 3 we got out). Now you might be wondering what this has to do with the deck. We were going to keep him on a leash for walks and only let him out of the house into the dog run but it is attached to the deck so.... no more dog run currently.
I need to briefly break from the updates to complain about stupid pets. Our dog Odin a couple days ago chased a porcupine up a bush and got nine quills in his face. This ended up needing a after hours vet appointment to get them removed as we couldn't get him to stay still. Then yesterday I took him for a walk and he rolls on a dead porcupine! I believe it was dead since most of the quills were in his fur the wrong way. He had more than a hundred from one side of his body up over his back then down the other side. This is why I believe he rolled on it. Only 20 stuck into his skin and thankfully for our bank account I was able to get all of them out before we even got back to the house, I also then had to remove one from my own finger that got me when I was searching his fur for any I missed. DOGS! Back to updates about projects.
This portion of the update is about the seedlings we started from the last blog, plus the others we did a little over a week ago. They have sure grown. Almost all the tomato plants and pumpkins have come up. We got asparagus and a variety of other herbs and plants coming up.
As a refresher here was just after planting!
Today!
We also got the wood stove in the little cabin dismantled! We had to make sure it couldn't be used for insurance because when the previous owners put it in it wasn't installed to code. We were finally able to get to it this week since we have pulled out all the spring and summer stuff finally!
I think that is currently all the things we have gotten done. I am hoping this weekend to get some painting done as it is supposed to be cool and rainy but we will see. If it ends up being nice maybe we can do some garden prep instead. Though the goal is to do some of the prep during the week after work. The kids also start soccer this week!
Well be free to go about your day! Thanks for reading our posts, even though I never manage to get them out regularly. Talk to you all later!
Comments