2 out, 7 to go

My chicks were officially due today, and I came home from a wonderful, relaxing day at the spa to find our first hatchling, Scout still wet and wobbly on her feet.


Scout, about an hour and a half after hatching, hanging out next to her brother/sister.

About 2 hours after Scout came Daisy.





Five of the remaining 7 eggs have pipped, but no one is super close to hatching at the moment. I'm so excited/worried though, that I don't know if I'll be able to sleep tonight. I guess that this must be what an expectant dad must feel like - excited, anxious, worried and totally powerless to help. Uhg!

Anyway, I thought I'd share the chicky cuteness before going back to stare intently at my babies and their siblings-to-be, willing them to hurry up and bust on out to join the nutty lot that is our family. ;)

More pics tomorrow for sure!

WE HAVE A WIGGLER!

Hatch day will soon be upon us, and I am CRAZY EXCITED. My life is chock full of chaos right now, and these babies on the way are one of the things that give me a feeling of nothing but happiness and hope, therefore I am obsessed with them.

I had to turn the egg turner off 2 days ago, as is reccommended so that the chicks don't get stuck to the membrane inside their shells. So now the eggs are laying on their sides on a screen in the incubator. Because it isn't a good idea to handle the eggs too much at this stage, I haven't been able to candle them for a few days. However, just this morning I noticed one of the eggs bumping and shaking slightly. I reached in and touched the egg and could feel the chicky moving inside. He/she is getting ready to pip! :)


The wiggler!

I had been trying to think of good names for the babies, especially the first hatchling. I googled "names that mean first/leader" and was not too thrilled with most of the names that I found. Not to mention that fewer still are gender-neutral. The best that I've come up with so far is "Scout". I'm open to any suggestions for chicken names, the more creative and/or fancy, the better. ;)

But one little rooster (should there be at least one) will have his name chosen by someone other than me. My blog friend, Tehlia, has recently suffered the loss of a pet who was very dear to her heart. Spunky little Jeffrey the dog passed away just this past weekend, and I'd therefore like to give T the naming rights to our rooster, in memory of her sweet pup. Hard endings can sometimes make for beautiful beginnings, and I hope that the life of this little fluff ball, living and experiencing the world in its own right, will bring some comfort to a friend who is missing her little man dearly, and help her feel like the spirit of her little buddy lives on.

And just in case you were worried, fear not for the fate of this rooster, he'll be the one we keep.

Here we go!

Well, it's about as official as anything ever is in our life, we're moving. It has been almost 8 years since we bought our current house, so the idea of packing it up and leaving fills me with more dread, anxiety and excitement than any move previous. I am a bundle of freaked-out energy right now!

Lest I jinx myself, I won't say too much about the place that we have our eye on, except to say that it has 3.5 acres (that's 14 times more property than we have now), and that it is just up the road a piece. Oh, what the heck here's a pic of our hopefully house-



Isn't it cute? :)

Even loving the hopefully-new-place as much as I do. I'm going to have a really hard time giving up our house. It is a gorgeous old 1920's craftsman on a double lot in one of the best neighborhoods in the state capitol. It's is exactly what we wanted at the time that we bought it, a farm house in the city. We made wonderful friends with our neighbors, our family grew here, Scarlet was born here. I love every creaky floorboard and wonky-old door. If I could pick this place up and move it to a 5-acre piece of farmland, I'd do it in a heartbeat. In fact, that's been Scarlet's plan all along. She wants to fill the house with balloons (Up style) and float it down the road to a plot of land with orchards and horses and rose gardens all ready to go. If only...

So anyway, if you see a little less of me, it's because I'm busy packing/painting/cleaning/rocking-back-and-forth-by-myself-in-a-corner-somewhere. I just have to keep reminding myself that just on the other side of all of the packing and change and goodbyes lie my green pastures, turkey poults and big old apple trees.