Famous First: Cock-A-Doodle-Doo!

As I stepped outside this morning to kiss my husband goodbye we heard a funny sound coming from the young chickens' coop. We looked at each other, puzzled. There it was again, louder and clearer- 

it was a genuine Rooster crow! 

Granted it sounded like a warbly, adolescent version... it was so stinkin' cute. 

I tried to take a video but apparently he's a bit shy.

Our full grown hens are separate from our chicks and I felt curious about how our big girls were reacting to this revelation that a young rooster lives close by...

apparently they couldn't care less.
However, I bet they will notice when the other six cockerels start crowing!

Famous First: Sparkler

That first sparkler is a pretty big deal... 

one really must be prepared!

Famous First: lost tooth

For him, today couldn't be more exciting!

For me, a little bitter sweet- my baby boy is growing so fast.

When it came out he said "This is rich!"

A Girl, a Camera & a Bunch of Balloons!

My smallest niece is turning one year old tomorrow so I met up with her mom at 7:30AM yesterday morning armed with a chair and a camera. She brought her baby girl and some balloons 

(and breakfast for everybody).

We headed out to the obliging field next to my house and before we knew it my cf card was full!

We had such success and little girl was/is so adorable 

that it was really difficult to narrow the images down to a decent number.

Here are just a few:

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Ah, now that's the way to start the morning!

Miss Me?

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder... 

Did it work? I bet you are glad you don't have to see that sad bunny any more!

The past few weeks have been busy in the best way! 

I bought a kiddie pool, which has been the best $25 we ever spent!

 Then, we bought a membership at a local pool 

(the kids call it Club Pool) 

and I don't have any photos of him but my biggest boy learned to swim over night! I'm sort of a nervous wreck when he swims without his floaties but it's thrilling to watch him grow!

 Right after a big storm, one of our chicks was killed by a boa constrictor ok, so it wasn't actually a boa constrictor. Maybe it was just a regular old rat snake but it was just as creepy.
(I don't have a picture of that either but you really wouldn't want to see it anyway)
 thankfully, while I was freaking out, my husband killed the bugger.

The other babies were fine but the next day one of our little pullets (young female chicken) got sick, probably from stress, so I put her in the empty rabbit hutch with a light for warmth, fed her some hard boiled egg and gave her water with electrolytes from a syringe and she actually got better! This is my first success with nursing a chicken back to health and I'm pretty happy about it. 

Two more chickens have become seriously ill and both have recovered! 

I know I can't take the credit.
But I really want to :)

 On June 9th we got a sister-in-law! She is so lovely and we are thrilled that she's part of our family.
Here are a few pics of the rehearsal:

and here's my baby, the flower girl at the wedding- you can see the Photographer's whole blog post {here}

Now we are off to the Club Pool, thanks for stopping by!