Wouldn’t it be awesome if there were such a thing as a “Strawberry Chicken”? It wouldn’t even matter if it were a plant or an animal or a newfangled dessert…I’d take it. Unfortunately, I am not aware of any such awesomeness and so tonight’s post is simply the traditional first strawberries of the season and proof of my unbridled optimism with regards to all things farming.

Mostly the girls and I are on our own for outings and field trips, but every now and then I can work the schedule to include the boy. He still loves coming on outings and field trips and even playing with and hanging out with his little sisters. I have hope that that will never fade even when he leaves for grownup life. My crew gets better at picking every year.
By the way, I love strawberry flowers. So simple and understated, and constantly overshadowed by the end product…They are lovely and should be appreciated more. That is all.

The day after we got home from Ohio, we headed out for some chicks. My girls decided they wanted fancy colored eggs but the feed store we went to didn’t have any fancy egg laying chicks. Oh well, I was fine with the six we got. But then…well…we may have gone to another feed store. And they may have had an olive egger. And maybe I had to go to a different feed store for something completely unrelated and they had an Easter egger. Or two. So perchance we ended up with ten (because I finally forced myself to be the boss, andforgoodnesssake, put my foot down). I’ve never spent so much money on ten chicks (inflation hits everything, my friends). But they will grow into a beautiful flock, and the rainbow of eggs on my counter will make me happy every day.

We took a break from chickens after losing so, so many to predators. However, I was still resistant to the idea of building any sort of dedicated compound. Well, that changed recently. Mom had bought an outdoor awning thing to host gatherings at her house (it was used for one such gathering, last Fourth of July). It needed a home and a new purpose in life. As did the abandoned chain-link fence panels the previous owners had left in her backyard. They all came together to create our new chicken compound and run. The run will be expanded eventually and for now it seems to be a great fit for our little flock of baby birds. The first picture is when they were a few days old. The last pictures are a month later.
Now, just for funsies I’ll tell you some of the names of these ladies that I can remember (they have changed a lot in the last few weeks…don’t judge me): RaceCar (she is Layna’s), Nasuada, Goldilocks, Owl, Treasure, Maple, Princess, and Alabastria.

Farm life with little girls who have ginormous imaginations is magical.