Where We Are

We are in a good place right now. Daddy will be home in the morning, after three and a half long weeks in North Dakota. The house is clean. Bread is rising. AJ's sweater is near halfway done. Everyone is healthy (not something we could have said a short while ago...). The chickens are laying more eggs, thanks to Charlie the rooster - I know that is not supposed to be true, but you could fool me! - and days getting ever so slightly longer. And, not least of all, I am ready to go to bed early for once! Oh so much to be thankful for.

Busyness and Broodiness

We have been doing our best to keep busy lately and it hasn't been too hard. Our normally reclusive selves have been out and about nearly every day over the last week. It has been good no doubt (visiting Grandma, shopping and getting a new rooster, Cheekwood with Nannie...), but I am happy to have a clear calendar for the next week or so.

I have several projects in mind that I am itching to get started on, not the least of which is this blog. I have been thinking about this for months, feeling that I need a space to unload all the thoughts that run through my mind and knowing that poor Wes can only hear so much. I hope to make this at least a weekly thing.

Other than blogging, thoughts of walnuts, pears, acorns, knitting, and sewing have been on my mind. And chickens; always something about chickens.

Our leghorn hen decided to go broody last Thursday and I naturally got excited (doesn't everyone want a broody hen?!). I located a free rooster on Craigslist and scooped him up Saturday morning, only to realize (once my excitement abated enough to think a bit more clearly), that I adopted a young rooster and would get no fertilized eggs anytime soon. I am happy to have him nonetheless, and am actually not even sure he is in fact a 'he', as I have yet to hear a cock a doodle doo; oh well. I went to plan B and got a dozen eggs from the egg lady down the road.  She has roosters with her hens so hopefully these eggs will hatch. I got broody hen off her clutch of golf balls yesterday (my placeholders till I could find fertile eggs) and set her up with 8 eggs and little dishes of food and water. She's now in a position where I can't pick her up without coming dangerously close to her beak, so I hope she will do the right thing and get up every once in a while to poop and eat. We'll see what happens in 3 weeks...