Moving Day for the Chicks

Today the chicks are three weeks old, and dad says they stink too much in the house. So yesterday, we prepared their shelter and fenced in an area for them to live. Today they moved in. There is a heat lamp in the playhouse to keep them warm when it's chilly or rainy out.

They LOVE their new home! It was so much fun watching them scratch for bugs the way a chicken is supposed to! They have seven more weeks to enjoy themselves (and entertain us in the meantime).

Summer science project

We just received five baby chicks from a friend, and we are raising them as meat birds. This is somewhat difficult when you live in town, but we have a spot all figured out for them in the yard.

They will live indoors with us until they are three weeks old, and then they will be moving to their chicken yard, which is tucked into a corner where the house and deck meet. We are getting a Little Tikes playhouse which will shelter them at night.

Their names are:

KFC

Extra Crispy

FLG (Finger Lickin' Good)

Fricasee

Cacciatore

You get the picture. This is so we don't get too attatched to them!

First Violin Lesson

It appears that Natalie wants to follow in mom's footsteps; she has been begging for violin lessons ever since a friend gave us a half-sized violin. It needed a minor repair, which I finally took care of last week. She had her first lesson this morning, and hopefully she will advance far beyond her teacher (aka mom).

The kids' current favorite movie/CD is Fiddler on the Roof, which probably served to inspire her. I was in a drama at church where a Yiddish accent was required, so we got the DVD from the library. Then I discovered the Fiddler CD in my collection, and it has become a major hit in this house!

I never did figure out how to speak with a convincing Yiddish accent.

Art Day with Auntie!

These past few weeks have been crazily busy at our house, which is why April has a grand total of one post until today.

This week, we went to visit Auntie J at her art studio in Green Bay. The first day, the kids (and mom) got to work with natural clay. Here are some of our creations:

Auntie J will fire them in her kiln for us, and we will go back on May 8 to glaze them and give them a final bake. (May 8 happens to coincide with the annual Green Bay Public Library book sale. Grin!)

We slept overnight and went back to the studio the next day to work with polymer clay. We made magnets, spoons, critters and adorable bottle openers.

We sure enjoyed our two days in the studio, and our overnight at Auntie's. What a treat!!