Spring: Everything is growing!

On this cloudy, grey, rainy, snow-ish spring day, it's hard to not just curl up by the fire and dream of the bright, sunny days of summer. But then you remember-it's Chicks Days! Yup, it's that time of year again. I was hoping that we could incubate our own eggs this year, but with our little rooster still being slightly smaller than our pretty large hens, it seems he is not getting his job done! Oh well, maybe next year. At least that gives us a chance to add some new super cute chicks to our brood.


This year to add to our Bovan and Australorp chickens, we got three Barred Rocks and three Ameraucanas. The Barred Rocks are nothing unusual. They'll be large black and white hens that lay brown eggs. If they had the Ameraucanas last year, I would have gotten them! Each chicken is going to look a little different. Right now they are light, medium and dark colored, and I have no idea how they are going to end up looking. But the really cool thing is that they are going to lay blue or green eggs! I can't wait until they start laying!


I forgot how little day old chicks are! It will be fun to watch how much these little ladies change so quickly. At least they aren't living in the house like last year! This is one of the days I love having a garage.



And every day the lambs are getting bigger. They are almost as big as BJ now and he does NOT like that! At least that means that pretty soon he'll be completely ignoring them. I actually have to go feed them soon-16 ounces of delicious formula! Ok, I'm back! There is not much cuter than feeding adorable lambs with 22 ounce Arrogant Bastard beer bottles! For the first week or so the lambs were living in the shop in the garage, but they have advanced to living out in the barn with the chickens, who they seem to happily coexist with.


Everything is growing in the greenhouse! We have finally have had a salad with delicious radishes from the greenhouse! Along with yummy greens growing bigger in the greenhouse, so are the weeds, so I seem to spend every moment out there pulling more and more weeds. I keep telling myself that it was only since November that it hasn't been pasture and that this isn't a battle I have to win this weekend, but it doesn't mean I don't want to win!


All of this is great, but still I can't wait for summer!

Ellen has a little lamb...actually 2 little lambs!

Ellen had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb, Ellen had a little lamb, whose fleece was black as coal!

Their names are Blanket and Baab (like Bob but with a little extra Baa!) and they are so freaking adorable!


So what are we doing with a couple lambs? Well, last Tuesday I got an unexpected email from Keith saying 'Do you want a couple bummer lambs?'. After I googled what bummer lambs meant (lambs orphaned by their mama's), I said of course we do! Why not right!? Sure, we don't know anything about lambs, we are totally unprepared for getting more animals, and they need to be fed frequently and we both are pretty busy during the day, but sure why not! One of the lambs mama's had triplets and she couldn't support all three and the other one, well we don't really know the story, but he needed a mama. And I'm the mama.


Being the mama is kind of fun and kind of demanding. The first few days (we got the lambs when they were 4 and 6 days old), we were feeding them every four hours. Now I'm feeding them 4 times a day and in just a few days it'll be down to 3 times a day. They are being bottle fed with a lamb milk replacer and sometimes there's a little fresh cow's milk thrown in for extra richness (we got a gallon of milk from a friend's milk cow that just has a calf) and have a little lamb chow grain mix available.

They are so adorable and cuddly! We take pretty much every opportunity to cuddle with them!



Yes, they are cute. Yes, they are cuddly. Yes, we are going to eat them. While they are living a posh life on our little farm, we will be fattening them up for dinner. They won't be cute little lambs forever! In a few months they will look more like big sheep than sweet lambs and I don't think it'll be to difficult. Of course I say that, but I know that I don't want to be around when it all goes down.

Today they are 9 and 11 days old. Everyday they are a little bigger, a little steadier on their feet. More pictures will follow!