Spring?

With the family’s return and the arrival of warm weather, Rachel and I sat down to my laptop to place our chick order.  Gasp!  Oh no!  The one breed I really wanted, the old-fashioned, excellent, chocolate-brown egg layer Marans, had been sold out for the entire 2011 season!!!  After moments of disbelief on my part, and some quick thinking on mom’s, she called the local feed store and discovered they still had Marans, so off we went before they too were gone.  We returned home with our new brood of five twelve-day-old Marans, and five twenty-one-day-old Red Sex Links.  Unfortunately, the Americanas mom wanted (and has been wanting for a couple years) were sold out locally, so back to the laptop we went and ordered five Americana pullets which should be arriving via post sometime in the next two weeks.  :) 

Chicks first visit outside.

Black chicks, Marans.  Yellow chicks, Red Sex Links.

In addition to expanding our poultry population, the girls and I have filled our greenhouse with seedlings.  Well, actually they are pots of dirt with seeds in them, but they hold all the hope and promise of turning into tomatoes, onions, peppers, and many other delicious things.  So with the chicks warm in their brooder and the seeds snug in their greenhouse, what a perfect time for a little . . . snow!  While the calendar declares spring has arrived, Mother Nature calmly refutes with fluffy white flakes.  Now I wait, and send fervent pleas heavenward for the fruit trees; if the blossoms freeze, we will have another fruitless season.  :( 

For now, I will retrieve the sweaters, read about living in sunny Italy, and pray for spring!!! 

Elizabeth 

Spring?