Berlin's Whimsy

Chicken Chronicles: The Circus.

Our chickens are fairly tame because of all the handling they receive----and training. They each have a turn on a step stool where my kids "train them." They train them to be tame and to sit still and enjoy it. I doubt they actually enjoy their training sessions for they'd much prefer another watermelon rind or some leftover rice----eating, that's what they really enjoy.

And eating is what our newest member of the flock enjoys, too. A squirrel took up residence under our chicken's coop. The coop is probably a squirrel's idea of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon in its oasis-like perfection: a fence to keep the predators away, a continuous supply of food (a smorgasbord, really), and fine shelter. To see the squirrel's plump cheeks and swinging belly, I suspect he's eating more than his fair share of our chicken's feed, too.

Ah, but the story becomes diabolical...Right around the time this sneaky squirrel showed up, we discovered someone at the end of our driveway removing something from the trunk of his car. A cage. Upon further inquiry, we learned that this person had been catching squirrels in his own garden and releasing them at the end of our driveway! In fact, he had already released three squirrels. We told this man that we were already suffering headaches from his relocation project and that we had had enough of his squirrels. He was apologetic, but we still wondered at his choice of our driveway for his squirrels. Is there some sort of regulation on "excessive squirreling?!"

Alas, we now have a fat squirrel living under the chicken coop. The chickens don't seem to mind the squirrel but our cats lay in waiting around the perimeter of the fence----licking their chops...

It's turning into a circus around here!

Chicken Chronicles: Milestones

It was a couple weeks ago that we realized Macho was in fact a boy. A rooster. After settling into this new reality for a bit, we all wondered how in the world we had thought he was a hen for this long? Look at him! Does he look like a hen to you?

Well, I guess we were looking at him through glasses of firm belief in the poultry industry's 95% guarantee that the chicks from which Macho was pulled were females. The others----the more exotic chickens we have, four of them----were "straight run" which means they could be either sex. Well, with the fact that our only rooster comes from the sexed lot of chickens and that we don't have any roosters in the straight run mix leads me to wonder about the accuracy of sexing chicks!

Some of our chickens are more pet-like than others. This one is Pi. I wish you could feel her because she's so soft and fluffy-----kind of like petting one of those feather dusters! The kids have a particular affinity for Pi. She really is as sweet as a chicken can be! 

Both Pi and our Silky, Fancy Feet, cannot fly very well. Their feathers and their wing shape are not conducive to flying upwards. That's to our advantage but not to theirs because they cannot reach their roosts to nestle in with the rest of their flock for the night. My kids decided to make Pi and Fancy Feet handicap ramps in the chicken coop. Now they can climb up to the upper roosts with the rest of the flock using those ramps. As you can see in this photo, Pi and Fancy Feet are resting on the middle roost----my kids were gone this evening but I documented their chicken's achievement so they could see the success of their ramps! 

We're still waiting for a couple chicken milestones: Macho's first crow and our first egg. Macho could crow anytime now and surely it will be a surprise when he does! We don't expect eggs until the end of July. We're very anxious for that chicken milestone---not so sure about the crowing! To be continued...

Staycation Kids Summer Ideas & Activities...

Note: I used this list and your wonderful comments to compile a list of kids' activities. They can be found HERE, as well as by clicking on the link under Resources in my sidebar.

While sewing, I listen to the radio----usually not music but rather NPR, news, podcasts of some of my favorite programs, etc. Yesterday, after a very long stint of sewing and listening, I found myself contemplating flinging, or possibly flailing myself from the nearest high cliff. The news was full of escalating gas prices, increasing food costs, higher unemployment, personal strife, hunger, and generally bad news. This, on top of my own mounting economic problems led me to a very downward spiral... After a bit, I just couldn't take it anymore.

I thought about the upcoming summer for my smaller family of three. 

One of the topics thrown around in the news was the gas price's effects on traveling. You've probably heard the newest vacation term: staycation.

All of the talk about gas prices led me to this: how to make staying at home fun for my kids & I. Basically, I don't want to hear "I'm BORED" all summer long. And though I plan on fully utilizing Crafty Crow as a resource for craft projects, I don't have the resources to purchase lots of craft supplies for the entire summer. I want to supplement my craft projects with activities such as back-yard games, make-believe, camping out, picnics, all without draining my limited resources.   

And this is what I came up with...

OUR STAYCATION SUMMER of FUN!

1. Picnic Around the World. Oh yeah, having picnics in the backyard could quickly become routine but what if you aren't just picnicing in your own yard? What if you are a family of world travelers (give your family a world traveler name) that just happened to find yourself in another location for the day? For example, your world traveling family is currently visiting the Pyramids in Egypt... What are you eating for lunch? And while sitting out on your picnic blanket, what do you see? What do you smell? What kind of language are those around you speaking? What else do you hear? Write it all down and afterwards have your children go look your location up on the computer. Ask them to compare their assumptions to what they learn.  
2. Spoil your pets. There they are, your pets, craving your attention. My kids love our pets but sometimes they don't always pay enough attention to them. No more! We'll spend a whole day lavishing ONE of our pets with attention: What do they do all day? Where do they go? What do they eat? It will be each pet's DAY complete with homemade treats. 
3. Thoreau's thorough Study. My kids don't have the patience to spend a whole day watching a square grid on the ground like Henry David Thoreau, but we will spend 15 minutes per day for a week, noticing a piece of square earth. We'll measure it, we'll come home and sketch it from memory, we'll make notes at the location. Some of our questions will be: who walked across our square? Have the plants changed? Is the ground temperature different? Are the shadows changing as the days pass?
4. Do You Hear What I Hear? My kids & I spend time each summer laying on our backs and watching the clouds----that's always fun---- but what if we closed our eyes. What would we hear? In a typical day, we so seldom take the time to actually listen...
5. Digging for worms. Need I say more? And no, I won't be touching any worms, but my kids will. ;-)
6. Way Out Back in the Outback: No cheating. Camping in the backyard. But be prepared, once you're out camping in the Outback you can no longer return to the house! 
7. Stars' Stories. We have yet to fully experience the stars-----to understand the constellations, etc. This summer we will. We will each adopt a constellation and study both the astronomical information about the constellation as well as any mythological information about it.
8. Spelling Etymology. "What?" I can hear my kids already. No, not just spelling but etymology: the study of words and their explanations. We'll choose some unusual words each week and ask these questions: How did these words come to be? Where do they fall in our current language as compared to their origins? After we learn about some old/weird words, we'll attempt to use them in a story. That should be interesting!
9. Turn Over the Rock. We'll spend a day turning over rocks and documenting what we find. What are those strange creatures that make their homes under our rocks? I'm sure we'll find a good amount of scorpions, as well as a few Jerusalem Crickets.
10. Hide the Flaming Red Rock. I'm going to paint a rock (the size of a softball) a bright red and hide it somewhere within a certain radius of our house. When the rock is found, that person chooses a baked treat of their choice (we'll make the treats for each other). That person also hides the rock for the next person.
11. In the life of... What do you want to be when you grow up? My kids have their answers and they've only changed a bit since we first began asking them. My son started out with Paleontologist but has slowly evolved into Paleontologist and Writer. My daughter is still holding firm to Vet. But what do people do in these careers? We'll pretend for a day that we are working in that field...
12. The Currency Converter Game. Imagine that our country has implemented a new currency. Our new currency is worth 3-cents in our old currency. One player gathers and makes items to sell in the old currency and the second (and subsequent) players must convert the price to the new currency (which is the only currency they can use).
13. Shade Hopscotch. Sure, my brother & I did this as children out of necessity but what if it's a game? We'll see who can travel the farthest by only jumping from shade to shade.
14. Grind it Up Mystery Mash. My kids love to grind up natural things in an old mortar & pestle. You can often find old mortar & pestles in the thriftstores. Though my kids love to do it all on their own, if you want to make it a game, you can write up "recipes" beforehand and then send them out on a "treasure hunt" for the ingredients (ie, 3 parts berries, 2 parts grass, 1 part yellow flower petals...etc). Safety Warning: Be sure to tell your kids that their mash is not safe to eat!! This might not be a good one for younger kids)...

What about you? Do you have any games & activities for your kids to do at home? I'd love to compile a LOOONG list of ideas to refer back to. I will add the list to the Resources on my sidebar----I'll probably think of more ideas myself and I'll add them to that list as I do... Be sure to check back and if you think of any ideas later on, please email me! It's a LOOOONG summer!   

I'm leaving this blog post up for a couple days so as to gather ideas (hint, hint)! I hope to add my list of summer activities to the sidebar this weekend...

Our Weekend arrivals.

We went shopping this weekend. And came home with a new endeavor----our own little backyard chicken farm. We're big egg eaters around here and both my Mom and I grew up in and around my Great Aunt's egg farm (I wrote about it here).

We found it difficult to find a feedstore with chicks in stock. It seems everyone is going into the chicken business around here----or so it seems. Chicks were sold out at all but one of the feedstores.

At the last feedstore we visited, we found quite an assortment. The woman working at the store rattled off their breeds, sexes, and ages... With two overly excited children underfoot, it was difficult to decide!

In the end, I think we took home four New Hampshires, four Leghorns, 2 Phoenix, 1 Silky, and 1 Sumatra. I think.

What we DO know is that they are very cute, they can play dead (!), they like to peck each other, and they poop a lot. At least that's what my kids tell me. It's an adventure...

Spring.

Ah, the unpredictability of spring with its fragile nature and changeable sights. The fertile ground, the emergence of life, the expectations of summer all combining to create spring's heady arrival.

For our family, spring so often means a visit to the newborns of the hoofed variety. Their hooves kick up into the air as they jump for no reason, energy bursting from every limb. Going to nourish themselves from their mamas requires a few hard butts to their mama's udders--ouch! The mamas continue chomping their hay, content even with the butting.

A nearby goat farm provides heart fluttering and sighs as we watch these new goats play in the spring sunshine. The little goat's bleats are enough to make our hearts soar with the possibilities of owning our own farm one day.

Spring is full of possibility, like daffodil's first blooms in spite of snow, or bare little lambs curled up by their mamas to ward off the frigid spring temperatures, or the first whiff of soil so alive after the sterile smells of winter. They all seem so improbable yet they are life's living proof of time beating on.