Early April, their first walk outside.
Getting bigger and hanging with their “Mother Hen”
The coop in stages…
Temporary chicken house on a sunny afternoon
Painter Mina
The vacation house
We took some time off from coop building to make a tractor (aka. their vacation house). Making this now gets the chicks out of the way to finish up the coop. I’m hoping to use the tractor to rotate the chickens around the yard and gardens.
Today was about putting on the door and the hardware.
I just had a birthday! Yippee. The weather was so nice that we had dinner on the deck. Dessert too!
My Dad sent me this picture that i had never seen before. This is me, sitting with my paternal Grandmother. I’m wearing a very special sweater that waited a long time for a granddaughter. Mina has also worn that sweater!
Best ever concert and birthday present! He played for three hours. His energy level was incredible. His voice was perfect.
During D&D’s visit, the cousins came down to play and celebrate a flurry of birthdays!
Age is a state of mind!
Some pictures from fun with Grandpa and Grandma D!
We went with friends to see the Silence of the Bees- a movie investigating colony collapse disorder. The movie was shown as part of the family programming at the Mercer Slough. I love that place.
Miles and Grandpa with their watering pigs.
Grandma checking out the worm bin!
Showing Grandpa the flock and in-progress coop!
Grandma and Mina taking all five chickens for a walk!
Down at the lake
M&M with the “Ester Bunne” at the swim club.
She has a competitive gene, especially when it involves eggs and floating rabbits.
Baking the Good Housekeeping Easter Bunnies – bellies filled with yummy chocolate.
The new watering can.
The new loom. She spent the day in pjs, working on the loom. She called herself a “loomer”!
Mina recently took a cool shelter building class. Mina, dressed fully in pink, joined several boy scouts for this lecture. The idea was to build a shelter with materials found only in the woods, assuming that you have no backpack or supplies. The class focused on building a debris shelter which, if properly made, could allow a child lost in the Pacific Northwest to survive overnight.
Mina learning to quickly gather large bunches of leaves with her feet. A good shelter takes over two hours to make.
The end result. Well, it could use a little work but you get the idea. So did Mina. She LOVED the class. One cool fact that we learned – kids should wear white underwear while camping. Out of all the clothing on your body, underwear can be spared and would act as a perfect flag on your debris shelter.
Another year quickly passes. Here is Mina with her tree blooming again. I love spring. 
HelleborusThese CUTE little critters are GROWING! WOW! The chicks have outgrown several boxes and are eagerly awaiting their coop. Rich bought a coop plan on-line and has been busy building it. At week one, they started to try to fly out of their box. As soon as one saw another do that, the other had to copy the attempt. Yesterday, Mina and i made them a mini-roost as i was starting to find them up on top of their watering container.
I should give a chick update though, as we did lose Mina's Daisy around week one. There were a couple frantic calls to my chicken farmer Dad. It was rather SAD. As a result, we went out and came home with two more chicks. So we now have Elmo, Prairie Dawn, Margo as well as Rose and "Daisy", full name Daisy Blue Green Egg Pretty, aka Daisy #2. We'll be planting a brush/tree by the coop in memory of Daisy#1.
Miles with his Elmo, Mina with her Daisy (Daisy #2 to be true). Notice the size difference. They are A WEEK apart in age. The chicks, not the children.
Coop builders!
