His first real word was "cat"

We're discovering that Levi is an animal guy. He loves the chickens, the cat and he share a mutual adoration (this one is named Suckers, loves to ride on the stroller with him and has lasted three months, a record around here) and he's fascinated by the calves.
His favorite being this poor fellow who got his leg broken in the process of coming into the world. I think it's that he doesn't run when Levi comes near. Heidi calls him Gianni (said Johnny). The others are Tyrell, Zachary, River and Treehouse, and the big boys are Robinhood and Little John. I think the only thing more fun than naming things is allowing my children to do it for me.
I'm hoping this means lots of willing help with the farm chores in the future!

The Turkey Fairy

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving from the Turkey Fairy!
If you look closely,you'll see that there are indeed turkeys behind her.
Wild turkeys.
Wild turkeys who hang with my chickens, eat their food, and join them in making a mess of our front steps.
Wild turkeys that we can't eat unless we buy a license that costs more than buying a turkey all ready to eat in the store.
Humph! But I'll move on.
My turkey fairy loved making her own hat, as did her sister,
and I had to agree, it complimented her wings quite well.

The Princesses And The Peeps

More baby chicks! Only this time the purpose is to put their eggs on the table instead of themselves.
Heidi is beside herself with joy, she can't wait to find out which are the girls and have them grow up so she can have the responsibility of collecting the eggs.
What? Isn't this what everyone does with their baby bathtub?
We got an incubator and hatched this batch ourselves, making for some great learning opportunities for us all.
This is probably old news for anyone with any knowledge of chickens, but I didn't realize that the chicks start peeping before they ever come out of their shells.
Or that it takes 24 hours from first little tap tap taps to baby chick.
I'm hoping we have lots of little egg layers in there.

It Must Be Baby Week On The Farm

First chicks, now we're trying again with kittens.
Meet Heidi's "Queen" and Hannah's "Flower" (she says it "wower"). We *think* they're girls.

A Slithery Friend

Our New Arrivals

"They 'lellow eben!" Was Hannah's delighted exclamation when the first chicks came out of the box. Yellow just happens to be Hannah's favorite color. And to have brand new, adorable chicks in that color? Beyond exciting.
And so, with our mail-order chicks, we are now chicken farmers. At least for the next couple months.
I think it'll be a good experience for our girls, but to be perfectly honest, I'm excited too.

Sisters Share

...even the hard-won trophy of a captured frog.

Ice Towers

I wish I could give credit where it was due for this project, but it's been a couple years since I saw it and tucked it away in my memory banks as a fun activity to do with my kids during our long winters. So to whoever thought this up, thank you! First we found lots of containers, filled them with warm water and food dye, then set them on the front porch to freeze overnight. (This is where we hope food dye doesn't kill our kitty who's been hanging around - knowing our luck, it just might!)

Next morning we brought out a bucket of warm water to dip each container in so we could then pop the ice out and make towers with it.

I poured a bit of the water between each "block" of the ice tower and it worked great as glue to stick it all together.

The towers look a little wobbly but are actually quite sturdy and haven't changed a bit in the few days they've been up. With our forecasted temperatures, I'm sure they'll stick around for awhile.

Now I'm having visions of trying it with buckets and building arches and things to walk through, or spelling things with sticks inside the ice. We'll see how ambitious I actually am!

Kitty Confessions

I thought cats were supposed to have nine lives?
It seems the ones who come our way have used eight and a half of them.
Ever since the Great Mouse Invasion of the Winter of 2009/2010, I have desired a feline on the premises who could keep the outdoor rodent population to a minimum in an effort to keep the indoor rodent population at precisely ZERO. We tried bringing a kitten home, but soon determined a more mature cat would be more likely to survive Ruger's (our dog) curiosity. Kitten was given away. In the past three months we have brought home three nearly grown cats. All of whom have survived Ruger and yet, um, have not survived.
Miriam the First walked with us to the mail box and did not return.
Dandelion became a little too closely acquainted with the tire of the truck.
Miriam the Second discovered sleeping under calves' hoofs not conducive to keeping one's internal organs intact.
Is it really so hard to keep a cat alive?

We do have a stray who's been hanging around for a couple of weeks. I waver between hoping she'll stay and telling her to flee for her life.

The kids are really starting to hope for a pet who lasts more than two weeks.
Yesterday I bought them goldfish.

Have you met our calves?

They're destined for the freezer, but for now they live a cushy life in the greenhouse.

The girls love going with Daddy for their twice a day feedings.

When asked how old they are, Heidi will always volunteer that one was born on Sunday - leaving out the fact that the Sunday in question was at the beginning of November.

Meet Dandelion

Since she's lasted for more than a week, I decided it's time to introduce her.
People of Blogland, meet our new kitty Dandelion. Her name was an issue of hot debate around here. Heidi wanted "Miriam" like the last kitty who disappeared after a few days (Miriam, apparently, is the perfect name, as in, "I wish you would have named me Miriam, didn't you even think of it?!") while Hannah was set on "Baby" ("She a baby kitty, Momma" being her very reasonable explanation). One day Heidi suddenly suggested Dandelion and Hannah said "O-tay, Dani-lion", so Dandelion it is.

As much as Heidi likes her, I think it's Hannah who will become our critter girl. Every time she's outside the cat is either following her around...

or she's carrying it.

I'm really hoping she makes a difference in our prolific rodent population.

She Finally Caught Her Frog