Happy Easter!!!

I hope you all had a wonderful day.  We did.  I cooked a turkey and a ham and took our meal to The Dalles and picked up Steve's Mom and Step-dad and we all, including my Children and Grandchildren had a picnic at Sorosis park.  The weather was nice and sunny.  It was a beautiful day.  I have pictures on my phone so when I figure out how to get them off my phone I will post them.

Mom and Bill with Great Granddaughter Hailey

Grandpa Bill turned 86 last Sunday.  

Charlie is just out of this pic, Dawn, James, Steve, Grandpa, Grandma and miss Hailey. 

Miss Mary reading her comics next to Jordan and Zack.

Charlie, Dawn, James and Miss Hailey

James, Steve taking a pic of me taking a pic of him,  Grandpa, Grandma and Miss Hailey

Grandpa had a cupcake with chocolate frosting and ended up with a mustache, James thinks he looks good with a stache.

Miss Mary showing me her Monkey bar skills

Miss Hailey showing me her Monkey bar skills

She is still going

and going

and going

I wonder if she is related to the Energizer Bunny?

I haven't updated you on the chicks, so here are some pictures.  Last Sunday we put the chicks out in their coop.  They were so funny to watch.  Steve cut holes in the bottom sides of the totes so that they could come out when they want.

it looks like one chick is being pushed out the hole.

The chicks would poke out their heads and then go back in the tote.

Finally one ventures out to see what is going on.

The little black Cochin in the green tote came out and quickly ran into the white box, I guess it was scared of the unknown.

Mary and Hailey had to see how they liked their new house.

Waiting in line were Jordan and Zack.  They all had to see how the chicks liked their new home. 

If you look closely you can see a chick in between the white box and the clear tote.  I think it thought it was stuck there.

 I went out Yesterday to check on them and get more pictures to post an update and this is what I found.  It was 70 degrees out side and about 95 in their house so they were all out running around and having a good ole time.

If you look back to an older post you can see how much they have grown.  They aren't those cute little fluff balls anymore.

Hoppy Easter!!!

Janice

Update on Baby Chicks again

Well, we spent a good portion of today putting the chicks back in their totes.  They aren't flying yet but they can flap enough to get on the edge of the totes and hop back and forth.

This is Ixchell and she has gotten out several times today. All of the Cochin have different markings on their heads so it is easy for us to tell them apart.

 These pictures were taken the other day but as you can see Ixchell wants out of the box or tote.

This is the poor little chick that the others were picking on and she want out too.  I say poor little chick, but she is actually the largest one of all.

Here Miss Mary is showing the neighbors how to hold a baby chick.

Here Miss Mary and Mairen, the Neighbor are holding the chicks. Mairen's Grandma got some baby chicks last weekend and Mairen and her family are going to get some this weekend.  They are so excited about it too.

Here the silly girls are letting the chicks kiss.

Steve finally went to the Dr. and got a z-pak so maybe he will start feeling better soon.  Today he worked on the Chicken coop again and put the door on and some of the wire up.  He asked me to help him staple some of the edges of the wire down while he worked on putting up another section of wire.  Hey that's an improvement from the other day, no nails or screws to sort.  I have helped him on numerous other projects but after I hurt my back i was limited on what and how much I could do.  He is having a hard time adjusting to me being much better and able to do more things, he says he doesn't want me to over do it.

  They need to finish the nesting boxes, but we won't need them right away. They also need to finish the roof. Now if the weather will just cooperate and warm up a little we could put the chicks out in the Coop.


I will keep you posted on the progress and when we get to put the chicks out in the Coop.

Happy Scrapin',

Janice

Baby Chick Update

It has been just over 2 weeks now and still no chicken coop.  The chicks are getting bigger and want out of the tote.  Yesterday Dawn had one get out and run across the living room floor.  Dawn said it was the funniest thing to watch, once the chick was out she looked around and then started squawking, like she was telling the others that they could do it too.  Apparently the others were cheering her on before she actually got out.

If you look at earlier pictures you can see the difference in the sizes.  They are really starting to get bigger and most have lots of feathers instead of fuzz.
We have had to separate some of them because they were pecking on one of the white ones.

It is amazing how fast they can trash their home.  Dawn cleans these tubs twice a day and has to fill the water and food 3 - 4 times a day.  The Cochin have feathers on their feet.  The one with the closest to the camera has tried to get out 7 times in the last 15 minutes.  She jumps up on the edge of the tote and looks around, the first time she jumped back in as soon as she saw me move, but the 4th time she was determined to get out.  I reached down to guide her back in the tote and she jumped on my arm as if she wanted a ride.  

Here is the poor little thing that was getting pecked on.  You can see that she has several feathers.  This one is has gotten on top of the box twice this morning and got on the floor once and then panicked when I reached down to pick her up to put her back in the box.  We diffidently have to put a screen over them today sometime.  

This is the progress so far.  Steve has been sick and still trying to work on it.  Charlie was out of town all weekend and is on his 15th straight day of work without a day off and is still trying to help as much as he can.  I tried to help, but all Steve would let me do was sort nails. Ugh, I hate sorting nails and screws.  That was a job my dad used to give me.  

This is the inside of the coop where the chicks will live in luxury each will have it's own nesting room, Steve made 6 nesting boxes and then the larger area on the right will be open for roosting.  The back side of the nesting boxes will have doors so we can gather the eggs easy without having to crawl inside to get them.

At the end we have a window for light and a door to the left for them to go to the yard it will have a ramp for easy access.  I am taking pictures through the area where we will have a door for cleaning. 

Steve and Charlie have put some extra boards up just to keep the rain off the tools for now.  It is small but we only really need it to house 5 laying hens long term.  I think it will work well for what we want.  All four of us have had a say in how we think it should be and what we have to have.  Dawn is the one who is going to be doing most of the egg gathering so we need the access where she can reach it.  I'm not saying she is short, just that she isn't as tall as the rest of us, and I am not much taller.

This is bringing back more memories than I thought it would.  We had a small farm in Odell, OR. when I was small and we had Cows, pigs, chickens, rabbits, a opossum, goats, sheep, peacocks, geese and ducks.  Not to mention the acre and a half garden we grew every year. I am the youngest of 10 kids so it took a lot to feed all of us.  And that was outside.  Mom made the living room like a small museum with aquariums, we had an ant farm, snakes, lizards and hamsters/gerbils and spiders.  Mom took one of my dolls and made a Christening gown and hung it on the living room wall to show what some of the old time clothing looked like.  She made a papoose board and hung it next to the doll.  My Dad was a Black smith and Farrier and traveled among 5 counties shoeing horses.  So he would display some of his tools and have his forge hot and show how he could bend the hot shoes to fit the horses hooves.  The kids from Hood River Elementary would come out and tour our farm, every year.  They had never seen real chickens or brown eggs, or any other animal as far as that goes.  It was strange to us kids, that anyone would want to come see our home.  We didn't know others didn't live like we did.  We thought everyone had a list of chores to do when they got home.  Sometimes we would stay home (sick) and watch from the upstairs window just to see what they were looking at, and try to figure out why?

I hope you have enjoyed my story today.

Happy Scrapin,'

Janice

Cards for next Saturdays card class in The Dalles.

Here are some of the cards that I am planning on teaching at my next card class.

This set is Birthday Bash - C1436 $18.95.  I used a Colonial White card base, Cranberry, Creme Brulee, Dessert Sand and Crystal Blue card stock, Colonial White ribbon.  I popped the dragon and the banner up on pop dots.  I sanded the Dessert Sand circle and sponged the edges of the banner and the colonial white card stock with the castle on it. 

This is the Little Princess set.  I random stamped the background with Sunny Yellow and Cotton Candy inks and layered the White Card Stock onto the Sunny Yellow card stock.  I hand cut the present, colored it and then put it in the Sunny yellow scallop circle.

I went back to the basics here.  I believe this set is called With Love.  I used Cranberry, Sunny Yellow, Cotton Candy, Lilac Mist and Pear Inks. The lable punch is Cranberry.

This is a Stampin' Up set called Bliss.  I hand cut the Butterfly and added glitter glue to the center.  I stamped the word Bliss in Black and then punched out the label and sponged around the edges.  I used Daisy white, Black and Lagoon card stock and Lagoon and Black ink.  I ran the black through the Texture Boutique in the swirls folder.

Again I used the set I think is called With Love and the Thanks is from For Every Occasion  D1187 $22.95.  I embossed the Sunny Yellow  card stock then layered it all

Here I used Aspiration stamp set and White Ink on New England Ivy card stock.  I punched out the label Outdoor Denim card stock and layered the oval thanks on top of the label.

Thanks for looking at my blog, please let me know what you think.

Happy Scrapin',

Janice Wilson