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!
Farmer Miles helping with the morning brooder cleaning. We are waiting for an Amazon delivery today and a bigger brooder box! 
Mina w Daisy. 
Mina writing "animals facts" about chicks in her science journal.
Introducing our newest friends/pets/future egg producers! Elmo (far left), Daisy (front, center), Prairie Dawn (middle) and Margo (back). I'll let you guess who named each chick. 
Daisy and Prairie Dawn, our two Ameraucanas! They will lay eggs that are a blue-ish colour.
Picking out our new friends at The Grange. Of note, photo taken at like 8:09 AM! This morning, the kids woke up chanting "Mamma, Chick Day! Mamma, Chick Day!" 
Learning about gentle touches! i've been looking for a smart, plastic-free way for rich to take his lunch to work. take it on his bike without spilling all over his clothes, breaking or weighing the ride down.
enter the tiffin box! a series of stacking compartments that are too cute. now i feel like packing his lunch and making a real gesture out of it...and takes pictures of his lunch. how bizarre.
one of rich's coworkers pointed him to this amazing website,
http://www.mydabbawala.com/index.htm
here's a 2007 article about the business in NY Times
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