From the hen (or should I say duck) house...

We are proud grandparents of many little ducklings that are so cute you just want to squeeze them, except that you can't come any where close to them because the momma is not even playing!!

She laid 13 eggs and 10 hatched!!  A miracle right in my flower beds!

Today, we are down to 7 baby ducklings, but mom seems to be able to handle this many much easier than she could 10.  We are doing everything we can to keep them safe from predators and help them beat the odds of 1 in 12 actually making it to adulthood!!  They are one week old today and are very rowdy and not the greatest listeners I have ever seen, but boy are they cute!!!

And the big white guy is the best "step dad" you have ever seen!!!  He is right there with them all the time and perfectly completes this little family!!!  He just melts my heart!! {do you see his beak in the pic below...precious I tell ya!!}

Here they are out for a swim!  It is so amazing how differently ducks behave when they are raised with their mom in the wild and when they are raised by humans in the garage...this is just so natural and breathtaking!  A miracle right in my front yard!!!

Hope your summer is full of great things!!!

Breaking News from our Hen House...fingers crossed

Spring is definitely in the air over here.  The weather is gorgeous, the grass is turning green and the neighbor's drake mallard is circling our house!!!

About a week ago he began his visits with this little lady right here....

Can you blame him??  I personally think she is the prettiest little duck around!!

He wasted no time at all, and about a week ago, Miss Duck went missing for a few hours and the very next day she surprised us by leaving us a treasure in the coop.  She had built herself a cozy little home and laid one egg!!  She has consistently laid one egg each night and we are up to 6 total!  She should lay a few more (most lay 8-12) before she starts setting.  Then we will begin the 28 day countdown to the birthday festivities!!!

In just a few days we will be able to "candle" the eggs to see if they are fertile or not (keep your fingers crossed).  Candling is when you cup your hand around a flashlight and then place the egg on top of your cupped hand.  The light will shine through the flashlight and let you take a peek into the egg to see there is a little friend inside.  At around 10 days you can see, so we are counting down the days!!!

My girls are so excited about all of the action here on our little farm, we just can't believe!!!  Coincidentally enough, we are using Apologia's Flying Creature's of the 5th Day for science, so our experiments have been amazing!!  From the hundreds of Canada geese that flew into to rest at the pond next door (of course not ours) on their big migration journey to the plentiful bats and owls we have around, to the pair of red tailed hawks that feast in the field behind our house to now the laying, nesting, and hatching of baby ducks...I couldn't have planned it better if I had tried!!!

Lets just hope Momma Duck is tending to her business and getting serious...cause I'm seriously needing me about 5 of them darlings following her to the pond!!!

If nothing happens, well we will all be disappointed, but we still have our faithful bluebirds who raise at least 3 families in their little home in our backyard every year.  They were doing some spring cleaning today!!  We can always count on them!!!  But, I have complete faith is Miss Duck!!!

Here are a few more pictures of our feathered ladies...everyone is just thrilled about the good weather and spending lots of time just cruising the yard!!!

And fighting over graham crackers!!!

You can even see here that while Marigold is about to chomp her beak around her a piece, Little Red has already seen one flying in from the distance that she is sure she can catch and enjoy!!!

I love this gals!!!

Breaking News from the Hen House

Our babies are growing up super fast and we are loving them so much!!

Life on our small little farm of 10 super spoiled chickens consists of daily "treats"

afternoon grazing in the garden

and now......

EGG LAYING!!!

We are so excited!!!

So far only our small little banty chickens are laying, but our big girls should start soon!!

In other news...what do you think of the new resident over here!!!

The girls found him by the pond...ran like wind to show him off...

and put him right back where they found him!!

Im serious...that was the biggest frog EVER!!!

Sweating and shucking...Louisiana summer!

Yesterday I truly believe it was 142 degrees outside.  At 7:00am I went out to feed the chickens and I was seriously wringing wet when I got back inside.  Here in Louisiana we really don't have a spring.  It goes from freezing cold to blazing hot overnight...it really does.  And the humidity here is just unreal.

While we may not have a spring, one thing in Louisiana we do have is CORN and lots of it.  While mine is still not ready to pick, my good friends down the road picked theirs and brought some down yesterday for us.  Yall, living in the country fits me so well because I just love the mentalility of the people out here.  Yesterday morning before church I got a call that they had picked a bunch of corn and wanted to know if we wanted some.  Being my first year to grow corn I jumped all over the generous offer because who knows if I will end up with a single ear in this blistering heat. But the dilema was that on Sundays we spend the majority of the day at church and at my parents house swimming {which by the way is really the only thing you can do here...did I mention 147 degrees}, so I didn't want to take corn that I knew I couldn't tend to.  She assured me that the corn would be fine because it was so hot outside {somehow that preserves the sugar}and that....get this....they would bring it down to me on their way in from church becuase how about they picked the corn before church and put it all in the back of the truck and then went on to church, truck full of corn!!!!  How hilarious is that????  And as promised my good ole friends Garrett and Aline came down and left me a big ole humongous bag of corn on my driveway!!!  When we made it back home I was so excited I shucked corn in my swimsuit on my patio and didnt even care!!!

And you may or may not know, when you shuck corn you better be ready to boil and store it or you have just wasted some corn.  My grandmother boils her water and then goes to pick the corn with a pot of boiling water by her side...that is how critical it is!!!  Well, maybe that is overkill but it sounds so urgent doesn't it???  We boiled our water, and brought in our ears and we boiled corn and ate corn and boiled corn and ate corn.  We put a bunch away and I even froze some cream style just in case my corn doesn't do so well {again...blistering heat yall...blistering}.

And even the chickens think that fresh corn is way better than canned corn and totally worth the work!!

If you are going to be shucking you some corn any time soon, this website is EXACLTY the perfecto directions for storing it.  It is verbatum how my grandmother does it...minus the 10 gallon bucket of boiling water in the corn field.

Moving Day!!

No, not for us (even though that wouldn't surprise me since that seems to be our all time favorite thing to do).  No, its moving day for our baby chicks.  The coop is finished and we were thrilled to get them into their new digs yesterday when the girls got home from school.  Here are a few pics!!

In case you were wondering, the big white thing on the side of the coop is our very fancy, "egg collection center."  All we have to do is lift the lid and get the eggs in the mornings instead of having to actually go in and get everybody in a tizzy.  Very good thinking of my big daddy boy!!

Here are our happy residents...yes that is two ducks and 4 chicks.  Our ducks don't understand that they are ducks and are much happier with their friends the chicks who have no problem including 2 more into their group because they think that the ducks are their mommas.  How bout that???

Even Mr. Mockingbird loves the coop!!

In and out and in and out...oh boy this is so fun!! 

Hope you enjoyed the tour!!  We will have 6 more new residents next week (big time egg layers) and I will introduce you as soon as they arrive!!  I cannot wait!!  We are even getting a rooster...oh boy!!

From the Hen House

Because it is the end of the school year and we have absolutely nothing else to do, we bought chickens!!

I must say though that I have completely 100% fallen in love with them and cannot wait to collect some eggs.  My big daddy boy is also building the taj-mahal of chicken coops at the back of our property that will look very similar to the girls' playhouse.  My chickens will be living it up in their coop de ville!!!

And these are our ducks named "Duck Duck" and "Goose".  

And boy do they grow fast.