Meet the Girls

I didn't mention much about Christmas around here after it had happened. In addition to finding out that we're having a girl, Christmas brought one more change to our household... or three.

Nicky has been asking for chickens for a while, and Scotty and I have wanted some as well, so we thought Christmas would be a great time to get some. It's not every year that your kid asks for something somewhat practical. The gift that keeps on giving, and all that! Definitely better than electronics!

The problem was, we didn't have a very good place to put a coop. Most of the perimeter of our yard is used up. Adding a chicken coop to the yard would require us to move sprinklers or transplant a perfectly good raspberry bush, which we didn't want to do. Then Scotty had a great idea. We ended up removing the picnic table and the sandbox from under our playset and turning that area into a run. We borrowed a house temporarily from my dad which we will replace in the spring with one of our own. This made it possible for us to go from zero to chicken coop overnight. 

Boy, was Nicky surprised when he found a note from Santa on Christmas morning saying that he might have left a few gifts outside.

For now, because of being re-located and because it's winter, "the girls," as I call them, aren't laying eggs, but come spring, we will be happy to have their eggs (we've opted to not have a lamp in the coop). Meanwhile, I am begrudgingly buying eggs from the store and looking forward to the day when the chickens start earning their keep (I am also looking forward to the day when we have a lot more vegetable scraps to feed them via the garden. That was always one of my favorite parts of having chickens as a child - preparing them "gourmet meals" from our garden) (Did I mention that I grew up with chickens? And my dad breeds and raises them? And he might have helped Santa with the arrangements for getting Christmas chickens? Cause Santa's workshop doesn't make chickens. It's a supply and demand thing). 

Nicky has done a great job taking care of the chickens so far. In fact, all of the kids are quite fond of them. They all love feeding them and playing outside while the chickens are out wandering. Zoe is especially a fan. When she sees them outside the window each morning, she yells, "Dih-dih!" (which is "chicken" in Zoe-ese), and then she goes and gets her purple boots on so she can go outside and bond with the girls. Zoe climbs right in the coop with them, puts her hands in her pockets, and just watches. She also likes to feed them and ride her bike in circles around them on the patio. Whenever we go anywhere, Zoe has to go in the backyard and say good-bye to the "dih-dih" first.

My only complaint is the poop, but that comes with all living things, so we're used to it.