Spring Chickens

I am having so much fun with my new chicks. There have been updates in the chicken world of late though and I thought I would post.

After talking with one of the ladies in charge of chickens at Murdoch's, she said I would have no trouble selling my Bantam Roo and several of his ladies. So I did the thing that comes natural to any chicken mama in a feed store filled with troughs of peeping beaks.... I bought three more! To be more accurate, I bought 2 more. Mike bought 1. He bought a White Crested Polish pullet with an adoreable little top knot of fluff. (crazy looking hair do when she grows up though). I bought another Buff Orpington like Elsie. She is pictured above on the right. I also purchased a Speckled Hamburg, which lays porcelain white eggs. She is pictured on the left.

The top photo is of the fab brooder box my husband set up. We went to Sears and picked up a couple of range and freezer boxes. Mike flipped one on its side, cut the side (which is now the top) out, and cut ends from the other box. Some packaging tape and wala! Insta brooder!

You will also notice the window. He had a sheet of plexiglass so he cut a window on one side of the box and duct taped the plexi in. Perfect viewing window for Lulu who pleads with me daily to please please just let her kiss one of the babies. Right.

I also bought vegetable seeds at Murdochs! They were running a sale for 9 packages of seeds for .96 cents! Now I just need a grow light and somewhere to put the baby plants.

You know, when I was younger, I didn't care much for spring. Infact I could easily have said (and probably have said on many occasions) that it was my least favorite season. I would generally complain of mud, and that half in half out of winter bit that brings on a never ending restlessness. Part of it could be that I was in my first few months of pregnancy in the spring with my kids, and had morning sickness 24 hours a day. To this day if I hear Sinead O'Connor sing "Since you been gone I can do whatever I waaaaant"... I could literally almost throw up, that being the artist I was "in to" at the time!

But now? Now I realize how much I need spring. I realize how much I long for the promise of respite from the dark cold place of winter. Here in Montana, the line between winter and spring is much more vivid than it was in Florida. There was Spring in Florida, but you had to pay close attention to the natural world around you not to miss it. This winter, with my illness and, has been especially dark. I long to feel the steady heat of the summer sun on my skin. To close my eyes and let the sunlight fill my body with seretonin and vitamin D. Spring promises summer, bless her heart.

Spring holds more than just the promises of Summer. I am a Christian now. It is in springtime that we set aside a day in remembrance of what our Lord did for us on the cross. Giving my life to Christ has been its very own Spring. In Christ, the bible says, I am a new creation.

Wow, this post was just supposed to be about chickens! : )The snow blows crazily outside, winter doesn't want to let go. The days are longer though, and warmer and I am so grateful for all this season brings.

Goldie Locks

This is Goldie. Goldie was one of the chicks that my husband brought home last spring. We would feed them meal worms when they were tiny little balls of fluff, and Goldie would always get the worm.

She is the most photogenic of all the girls, always posing for the camera. Turning her head just so and clucking at me to get her good side.

This morning on our little farm, its crisp, cold and bright. The contrast between the bright blue sky, the glittering ice covered branches and the brilliant white snow is magnificent.

When I come out of my back door, I have to open the latch on the gate to enter the backyard. As soon as I touch the latch, the girls hear the sound and begin calling to me. I imagine it goes something like this "We haven't had food for days! We want bananas! Can I have a drink of water? I want to come out of the coop! What do you have? Do you have something? Do you? Because I want something. How about oatmeal? Did you make oatmeal?"

When I walk into the back yard, if they are free ranging, they lift their wings and run to me. I know, I know.. you have to be a chicken mama to understand, but it is possible to love a silly hen.

I open their coop door and reach down to check the water level. As soon as I touch it, all of the girls gather round to drink as if the water hadn't been there before I touched it. I pick up their feeder and swirl it around with turns of my wrist to evenly distribute the food. They then run to the feeder, pecking at the crumbles as if now they are fit to eat.

I gather the eggs and scold them. One of the girls forgot to jump down from the nest box before relieving herself. Naughty girl.

Reaching into their warm pine scented nest is probably the sweetest part of my day. If I'm wearing an apron I will lift the hem and gather the eggs gently in the fold. Once I placed the eggs in my over large coat pockets and then forgot they were in there...well thats not exactly true. I did forget they were in there, but it wasn't my coat pockets, it was my husbands. Imagine his suprise.

There is just something so yesteryear about gathering eggs. I feel as if I am in line behind a long chain of women, lifting eggs from nests and placing them in aprons or skirt folds. I am standing in the present and living the past.

It's a lovely thing.