My hens have started laying eggs!
Just thought I'd share my lovely first 1/2 dozen eggs from the chickens I bought at the end of April!
Waaahooo!

I am so over grocery store eggs, they just aren't the same. I know, I know, they all come from chickens (or ducks) but farm fresh eggs are just, better! I especially LOVE baking with duck eggs, everything is SUPER moist! I can't wait until my duckies start laying, right now I have 3 female ducks!

Any one else as excited as I am to find eggs in the coop? Its like hidden treasure!

Have a nice night dear followers!

Bantams - 4 Silver Laced & 2 Gold Laced Wyandottes and 2 Arucana

Okay somebody shake me! My crazy poultry obsession strikes again. Spring is a very hard time of year for me. Why? Because all of the farm stores have tubs of cute chicks and ducklings and such for sale. I've purposely tried to avoid going into these stores but have failed. I originally went in to see if they had ducklings. I've lost all my ducks and REALLY miss using duck eggs. Well, I ended up with 8 chicks, but I still wanted ducks so I decided to check another store. I think I should enter some kind of support group... PAA, Poultry Addicts Anonymous... By the time I got home, I had acquired a total of 18 chicks, 4 geese and 9 ducklings. Somebody shake me!

2 Rouen, 3 Pekin, 3 Khaki, & a mystery duckling 2 African Geese, and 2 Toulouse Geese

Here is the BEST part, we are in the process of moving (same property, just different part of the farm) AND I have no where built at the new place to house my new charges. Currently, they are living in large troughs on my covered porch and go outside in exercise pens during the day. I also have a kiddie swimming pool that I put the geese and ducklings in so that they get some swim time in every day. So, I am making it work and it's working well right now since they are small. I just have to plan and figure out my new Poultry pens at the new place before they outgrow the troughs.

Big Sister holding a Toulouse Gosling!

Like I said, somebody shake me. My CRAZY POULTRY OBSESSION STRIKES AGAIN!


Have a GREAT Day dear followers!

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Well, I just can't take it anymore! My digital camera is dead! The flash went out a couple months ago and I've resorted to either using my cell phone which doesn't take very high quality photos and produces mostly blurry pictures of my babies because they move around so much OR borrowing my mother in laws camera, which she uses on a regular basis so that is problematic in itself. I haven't been in the market for one for a while and I've never really researched digital cameras very much. Here is what I need in a digital camera:

1) The ability to take good quality photos indoors and outdoors.
2) The ability to take photos of moving objects (my kids) without parts of the photo coming in blurry.
3) The ability to take good quality videos with sound.
4) A camera that isn't going to break my pocketbook, has to be reasonably priced.

Anyone out there have any suggestions? I'm getting desperate! Little Sister is already 4 months old and I don't think I have even 1/3 of the amount of photos of her as I did Big Sister! There are so many moments I want to capture and right now I'm just SO limited! Please give me ideas!

Or if you are from a digital camera company or sell digital camera and need a reviewer I would be MORE than happy to test one out! PLEASE help me!

On a totally unrelated note, something has been killing my birds! I've lost all but 2 hens, a rooster, a Peacock, a Royal Palm Turkey, an African Goose, a Pekin Drake, and a Rouin Duck.  This is So not fair! I need to build again and make them varmint proof somehow! Ugh, this has been a rough Spring/Summer for my birds! To top it off, my Swedish Duck was laying on 11 eggs, they are all "half baked" and I put them in with my Goose hoping she will adopt them, but we will see. I'll keep you posted. After we lost our farm dog Joey, it seems like my birds are just not safe anymore! Good farm dogs are hard to find and hard to replace! RIP Joey we miss you!

Thanks for the help dear followers and have a GREAT weekend!
Kelsey

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So, March 21st I did some "Spring Cleaning" out in our barn. I hadn't been out there so quite a while, since before sometime in October I believe. My dear sweet husband has been taking care of the animals while I've been out of commission. While I was still taking care of them myself I had started letting my chickens free range outside of their coop and run, but I would pen them up over night. Well, my dear sweet husband just let them run loose ALL winter. They seem to have tried roosting in EVERY possible spot in the barn, leaving a nice big mess EVERYWHERE, but I can't blame him he  a great job keeping them fed and watered all winter. Since we've been having warm days I been itching to clean up around the barn. I've been taking Big Sister for walks and recently decided to do a little cleaning here and there when I could find time to get out there on my own.

On the 21st I was able to get out for a long period of time. I bathed our pony, both miniature horses, fixed one of the auto waterers so that it wouldn't leak everywhere, distributed salt and mineral blocks, cleaned up the duck area and filled up their kiddie pool. I'm not sure why but I have an obsession with poultry and ducks/waterfowl are my favorite! Unfortunately, the other day I lost my Pekin Duck, however I still have the Pekin Drake, a Black Swedish Duck, and a Rouen Duck. I know this is probably going to sound odd, however, my African Goose and my Royal Palm turkey tom also live with the Ducks.

After I finished filling up the kiddie pool the ducks and the goose were extremely excited and jumped right in. Normally, I empty the kiddie pool before winter so the bird don't get stuck in the pool and free to death. So, it was like I had given a child chocolate after not having it for a long time. Here are several photos of the goose that I took with my cell phone!

3/21/11

3/21/11 - Female African Goose

3/21/11

I just love watching them play in the water!
Hope you enjoyed the photos dear followers!
Kelsey

On another note, Project Pete is doing great. Every day he seems to have more and more personality. He went from just existing to living with purpose. Tonight he was even pawing the ground while I was putting his hay in the hay net (I had to start using one because he was spreading it all over his stall and pooping on it). The hay net is working out great and he isn't wasting the hay anymore.

Went to the office at the big barn today and bathed some horses, what an adventure. Ponies are not my thing normally. Miniatures, I love, Mustangs, I love, Regular Horses, I love, Ponies, not so much. They just seem to want to give you a hard time on purpose. The all seem to have bred to be mischievous! Anyways there were ten to bathed and move and ten were bathed and moved.

Well, last night I was really bummed. I had REALLY wanted to join the Twitter Party #GetRealDiapers hosted by @EcoMomMedia and several others. I was hoping to win some cool prizes or at least learn something new about cloth diapers. Well, I get everything set up and and ready. I figured out the Twitter Grid and everything was great. THEN the internet decided to hate me. For whatever reason it started bouncing from connection to no connection. I tried for over an hour to get connected to the Twitter Grid. Finally I gave up and went to bed... but it was SO disappointing! So, I'm hoping to be able to at least do the next Twitter Party... we'll see...

Today is my Wedding Anniversary. So far its been, well, pretty good... I can't complain. I feel good, I feel right where I'm supposed to be with the man I love and our perfect little baby girl! Life is Good! Life is Great! Thanks be to God! ;o)

On that note, I'm going to head to bed, its been a    l    o    n   g    day dear followers!

I am so tired tonight. I feel like I worked hard today, but all I did was talk a lot... Trying to make some changes and get the horses evaluated this spring. Within the next couple weeks I think I'll have everything sorted out pretty good, but trying to find somewhere to start is hard. I just gotta take one project at a time and work the projects.

Project Pete had a rough day today. It started out well, I went out to feed him in the morning, again he was waiting for me and nickered. At lunch I let him out to graze for a bit while I fed the crew, nothing much happened. Well between lunch and dinner he got himself cast in his stall.... for those that don't know what cast means, it just means that he laied down, rolled and got his legs stuck against the wall and couldn't get up. Well luckily I had asked our farmhand to take some sawdust down to the barn for him and he saw Pete stuck in his stall and got him up. He was a little weak but ok. When he came back to the office and told me I went to the barn to check him over. He was ok no sign of injuries, but I gave him some Banamine just in case he was having some colic issues or if he was sore from trying to get up. Its a good thing he was down at the barn because somehow all the miniatures got out and were running around the barn too, little boogers, they figured out how to undo the chain on their gate. So, now I have to figure out what to do with that... Tonight at dinner Pete was waiting for me again, ears perked and awaiting his dinner. He was acting fine and didn't seem to be phased by being cast earlier today. I think I'm going to start adding oats to his grain to help with any gas so that he doesn't get colicy and try to roll in his stall again.

Okay, so I record American Idol... not sure why but I like the show... Well tonight they were doing their "Idol Gives Back" Episode and I was slightly disappointed in the Black Eyed Pease and Alicia Keys. Not sure if they were having technical difficulties or not but their performances kind of, well, weren't good at all. Carry Underwood was good, she seemed to sing well, but the others, they were really disappointing.

Erg, I think that I have poison oak or poison ivy or something, icky. My right arm itches and I have some red raised bumps. That's what I get for working out in the woods picking up landscape timbers. Oh well, its for my birds, hopefully I can get a new area built for my peacocks. Oh that reminds me, I lost one of my Pekin Ducks today, not sure where she is... yesterday she was in te pen and today she was gone. I have a feeling she got out and something got he because when I let our farm dog out this morning he went right over to the woods by the duck pen and starting sniffing around and howling... so I think maybe the coyotes got her, bummer... guess I'll just have to find me a couple more female ducks... I'm totally bummed, she was such a pretty white girl and gave me nice Extra Large eggs, bummer.

On a good note, my baby girl seems to be doing better, thank goodness. Her cough is finally starting to go away, YES! And the congestion is almost gone too! God works wonders, its amazing what a little prayer will do! God is Great! .... "Honey, God don't care which church you go to as long as you show up." Dolly Parton from Steel Magnolias. Isn't that ironic (or maybe its "A God thing"), just as I was writing this paragraph I turned to Steel Magnolias and started watching it, well that line just came on the screen and I was driven to add it to this blog! You know what gets me... I don't know, I guess it is obvious to me since I believe in God, but sometimes I wonder why it is people don't believe in God. I mean seriously, there is nothing bad that can come from believing in God, there are no drawbacks, nothing bad that can happen. Can you imagine a world where everyone believed in God and lived by the Bible? Everyone would be nice to each other, there would be no crime, no greed, and we would all have everything we need in life to live healthy and happy. The greatest lessons in the Bible talk about LOVE. If you love someone and care about them you try to help them and are concerned as to what goes on in their lives. How can believing in God be a bad thing and why would people want to be against God, I just don't understand it. I will be the first one to tell you that I don't always live by the Bible, even though I know I should, I'm a work in progress, but at least I'm trying and making an effort towards becoming a better Christian, Wife, Mother, Friend, ect. by strengthening my relationship with God. I want my daughter to grow up always knowing God, why wouldn't that be every parent's hope? I know our society isn't doing so well, but why not change that? It got the way it is by change, why not change it back?

Oh well, I'm getting tired, I hope my "Midnight Messages" about God make sense... they make sense in my head hopefully they make sense to you or at least make you curious about God if you haven't had a relationship with God before. He's there, listening, waiting, all you have to do it talk to Him! Oh, Small note, if you are going to read the Bible for the first time, don't start at the beginning, skip to John, he makes everything make better sense. The Old Testament is more of a History Lesson and the New Testament is what you live by today ;o)

Have a wonderful evening and good night dear followers!