new arrivals!

we just welcomed 17 baby chicks into our family! because i've waited for this day for over 30 years and, as this quite literally may be the closest to motherhood that i'll ever come, i'm taking my mother hen role seriously. of the brood, 3 are mine. i've made sure to cuddle them often. short of sleeping downstairs in the shop next to their heat lamp, i check on them several times a day. if i listen through my kitchen floor in their more active moments, i can even hear them peeping! it's a quintessential way to welcome in spring for sure. we've mixed several breeds together which doesn't seem to effect pecking order as much as age. 3 black australorps, 4 black sex link hybrids, 2 rhode island reds, (5 cornish for the sole purpose of eating, so i'm not naming those), and my 3: an ameraucana named ginger who has a heart-shaped feather pattern on her head (greenish-blue eggs), a gold sex link hybrid named linden (light brown eggs), and a cuckoo marans hen named etienne or "ettie" for short (dark chocolate brown eggs). whomever wrote the care guide had a sense of humor, too. on temperature and weather: "don't let your chickens roast on the roost!" on accientally getting a rooster (90% chance they are all females but there is that 10%): "contrary to popular belief, roosters do not just crow in the morning, they crow all day long!" and on molting: "just imagine if you suddenly lost all your feathers, you'd probably be uncomfortable too. a vigorless hen is a sorrowful sight!" today there were no sorrowful sights, only joy: the sky was blue and the sun warm on our faces. we planted new flowers and the chicks snuggled each other in contentment.