Busy busy busy...

"Spring is here, spring is here. Life is skittles and life is beer." - Tom Lehrer

Springtime brings all of the thoughts of the new garden, the upcoming summer projects, the summer chores, and of course, the new baby birds at the house. A week ago last Friday, the family had to stop at Tractor Supply Co. because we were not going to be able to stop at the actual feed shop the next day. Do you know what TSC has in the store come springtime? That's right, baby chicks. So of course, we had to pick up 6 of those little boogers. This doesn't count the order that had been placed with McMurray Hatchery the week before.

Since Peanut is participating in 4-H, she had decided that she wanted to do the duck project, so we had to order her the ducks she wanted to raise. We ordered her 10 Cayuga ducks. That's right 10 of those little buggers was cheaper than just buying 5 or 6 because of shipping costs. She will raise them for a bit and then pick out a few for her project. The rest will either go into the general population or be sold on craiglist/at auction.

Then for the family we got the Homsteaders Delight. This package is 16 birds total: 10 brown egg laying hens, 2 ducks, 2 turkeys, and 2 geese. We get no say in the breeds of any of these birds. Surprise! Unfortunately, we also get no say in the genders of the turkeys, ducks, or geese. Boy do I hope that we don't get Muscovy or Cayuga ducks. We already have the Muscovy and the Cayuga are the second part of that order.

These new birdies would overfill the current coop. I think I mentioned that a local company has what they call the "Backyard Barn". Well, that will hopefully be going up soon (Ok, within the next three weeks or so), and that will house all of these birds plus the birds in the current coop. I just have to get the Health Department out first so that they can verify that we are putting this up farther than 20 feet from the septic tank, there goes another 60 bucks. Woo...

This is all on top of the seedlings in the basement, and trying to wait till the ground gets dry enough to work, and getting a spot ready so the onions can go in ASAP, and and and... well, you get the idea. Hopefully I will be able to get some pictures up of the new birds when they arrive this week, plus a picture or two of the chickies already in the basement.

Well, I think that's enough for right now.