Uncle Dennis

Watershed Festival

We took Madigan to the Watershed Festival 2 weekends ago. There were tons of activities for kids, many she could already do. We met up with the Gerlach Family and Madigan and Paige had a great time together, as usual.
Here Madigan pans for amethysts and garnets. See that look of determination on her face?


Giving Paige a smooch and hug goodbye:

The catapult-who knew it was such a fun activity for 2 1/2 year olds!!
And the ring toss was a big hit too.

Naughty chickens

Chicken farming is definitely a learning game. The first lesson, of course, was to not leave the dogs unattended with chickens nearby. The chickens have now learned they can fly up to the gate and perch for a second before flying into the yard. It's okay if they get into the yard, but not okay if we don't see them and let the dogs out. So, that's the next thing we need to figure out. Other then that they're all doing great. We get 3 or 4 eggs sometimes, but usually 2 or so.

Milking the Cows (or Dogs)

Ever since we got to watch Jenny Sabo milk her cows, Madigan has been putting her baby cow figurine with the mama cow figurine. Last week, I found her in the backyard milking the cows (ahem, dogs).

The Little Gardener

Kyle built me this raised garden bed for Mother's Day.
Madigan and I got some seeds started last weekend. She likes to do it all. I finally found her a watering can at Ace hardware downtown. It's the perfect size, now if they just made one that refilled itself!

May Random

Playdate with Paige

Balloon funAll the babies play together




Madigan has been dying to wear her babies. I keep telling her I'll make her a sling, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

In Memory of....

my little chickies. Wow, we had a very busy weekend, I feel exhausted. On Saturday, we broke up and did our own thing in the morning; garage sales for me, boat swap for Kyle. Then we convened and began staining the fence and playset. We had no idea how much work that would be! (we still have over 1/2 to do!) Then, Madigan and I headed on foot to the grocery store and Naya seized the opportunity to kill all 5 of our little chickens. They were in their own pen and all, but Naya must have pushed the door open and gotten in. So, that is that. The life of chicken farming. I'm pretty sad still because I loved each of my little pullets and they were developing their own personalities and everything. So, I sent some emails and made some calls, and Jenny Sabo responded. Jenny runs the meat CSA we've been doing and she sold us these four adult birds below, plus gave us 6 eggs to see if we can hatch! One of the Black Astrolops below is an old lady and likes to just set eggs now- hopefully she'll do the same for us!

And of course full grown chickens are so much different from our 6 week old ones. We tightened up security on the whole pen, added a better perch in the coop, and fixed the gate so Naya has no way of breaking in.

Here, Madigan helps:
Meet our 4 new hens:

AND, we already got our first egg!!! How crazy cool is that!?
Hunnybear enjoys the view from the egress window:
Also this weekend, we cleared out 2 rooms in the basement to get the carpet replaced and marmoleum laid in the laundry room. Glad that's over, but now we have to put it all back together...