The Girls

Aren't these some good lookin' chickens?  They were given to me by my friend Mary when they were just a couple of weeks old.  Her kindergarten class hatched them in an incubator and Mary needed someone to take them.  We volunteered and we're so happy we did.  For their first few weeks in our care they lived in a big cardboard box in my classroom where my students lovingly care for them.  One boy particularly loved the little chicks.  He would put one little chick in the front pocket of his hoodie sweatshirt and keep it warm all day long.  But babies grow up and by the end of the school year the babies were no longer babies.  They were adolescents and not nearly as cute, so it was time to move them outside into their coop.

It wasn't long before we knew we had five hens and three roosters.  Yes.  Three roosters.  We had never raised chickens before so we thought that maybe we could keep them all.  It wasn't long before their aggression towards each other made us realize we were crazy.   One by one the roosters had to go.  I tried dealing with the last guy, but when it got to the point that I needed to arm myself with a snow shovel and hit him across the chicken yard in order to get the eggs we decided he would be supper.  I had never ever had to hit something the way I had to hit him to get him to stay away from me.  It was an awful feeling.  The adrenaline and the violence--I hated it.  So, I really didn't mind when I didn't have to deal with him in the coop any longer.  I cooked him in the slow cooker and he was pretty tasty. We made several meals out of him and I can't explain how satisfying it was to eat him in an enchilada.  
Anyways, now we have six hens.  The sixth hen came from the following year's incubation that I did with my students.  Of the 18 eggs we put in the incubator six hatched.  All of the other chicks went to other broods, but I got one little baby hen.  They are an heirloom breed called Dominiques.  Aren't they pretty?  

Scritch, scratchin' around in the litter, making my garden some great compost!  

This corn is just so tasty...

A good mama getting sitting on her eggs.  If only there were a rooster around.  Sigh.  Maybe next year?  It would be pretty sweet to have some little chicks running around the hen house.  I was thinking that if we incubated more eggs this spring maybe, just maybe I would try the rooster thing again.   I'm probably nuts, but maybe the next one will be docile?   

A sure sign of spring:  Five beautiful eggs!  Thanks, girls!

It's a Roof!

When I went out to visit the house during my prep period today at 2, they were half-way done with the roof (see the photos below).  How pleased I was to see it all wrapped up when I returned to the scene at 5:30 this evening.    We're celebrating with a beer.  :)  Happy St. Patrick's Day!

And.....The Other Half!

It's an extraordinary day out today!  The sun is warm and strong, a few puffy white clouds are floating in the sky and the breeze is blowing sweetly--it's spring!  And that means it's a perfect day for roofing!  Hooray!

In other news, the coldframes are 75 degrees today!  The onions are popping their heads out of the soil and the arugula has just sent up their first leaves.  The chickens have picked up their egg production so that we are now getting four eggs a day.  Sigh.  It's really spring!

Half of a Roof

I've been waiting for the next decent day so that Jason and Jim can finish the roof before posting pictures, but we just haven't been too lucky.  It's been warm and sunny, but it's either too windy or Jason and Jim have other commitments that make it impossible to get the second half of the roof done.  So, here are some photos of the house with half of the roof.  Hopefully I will soon have lots of pictures of the complete roof!