Eggs

We are having quite the time with eggs, we have been getting 5-6 a day with our current 7 hens. Now that we just added 6 more hens, that I know have been laying, and two ducks, that have been as well, we are sure to have our hands full. I think we are going to need an egg basket after all. 

It's nice that after all this time we are getting eggs like we had hoped. Our flock is getting bigger and we are getting that much closer to being self sufficient. And if we keep up with production we may even get to sell some eggs and make a little money back.

And I'll leave you with a picture of a little chicken shaking her tail feathers.

New Additions

Today is a big day for our little coup. 

We got 7 new Partridge Cochin Bantams. 6 hens and 1 rooster
All fully grown and the girls are supposed to be everyday layers

We also got 2 new Muscovy ducks.
Also layers

All of our chickens are trying to re-figure out the pecking order. Total we have 3 Roosters and 13 Hens, that are all trying to find their place, hopefully they all calm down tonight they have had a stressful day. 

The ducks are very calm and agreeable which is nice, so I'm not too worried about them. There are 3 of them now, I didn't want our one duck to get lonely.

Spring Cleaning

The warm weather has arrived and we are taking advantage of it while we can. We cleaned out the coop, rearranged it a bit and laid down fresh hay in the coop and the run.

We also cut down a couple of trees and put them in the run to give the flock something to play with and we got them a feed block which they LOVE now that they found it.

We also added some new roosts in the coop.

Now here is a video for a little fun :)

Cheep, Cheep, Cheep

It's that time of year again. Our local feed stores got baby chicks in and of course we got some!

We have 12 at the moment and who knows if we will get more.

We have four Ameraucana a Black Sex Link, a Barred Plymouth Rock and a Buff Orpington everything else was just in assorted pens so we are waiting to find out what our surprises turn out to be.

This is there home while I wait for them to be big enough to go in the brooder out in the chicken coop. We re-purposed an old bunny cage and it's working great!

Tom Turkey

Look he's going through puberty. His neck is turning red and he's starting to puff up and show off his stuff. He's also becoming much more vocal.

Cookies

Well since we have the mixer out why not whip up something for dessert?

Cookies are always a hit and this is our go to cookie recipe. It's funny that as you make more you find out what you have been doing wrong all this time, baking truly is an art.

Things like "butter softened" means leave it out a few hours and let it warm up, don't rush it. 

And when you cream it you let the mixer run longer than you feel is necessary because it truly makes a difference. 

You can put just about any chip or candy pieces you want in them, and cocoa is a good idea. 

Oh and in this house that nut line shouldn't even exist.

Now I'm not going to lie to you my husband is way handier in the kitchen than I am so he probably learned more than I did.

They were awesome! Bravo my husband I give you all of the credit.

Pizza

We have been all about the kitchen this weekend, which is awesome. We really need to focus in our lives, it seems it is so easy to get distracted from our goals in life. I was reading the "Meet the Family" page of the blog and realized I had forgotten what we were trying to do. Cooking at home and connecting as a family is one of those goals.

We found this recipe, and Patrick got out the kitchen aid and whipped some up. This was the first time that we got to use to dough hook for the kitchen aid so it was a fun new experience.

The boys got to help with the sauce and toppings. It truly was a beautiful thing and I wish I would have taken a picture of it.

There was extra dough so we made an extra pizza and it is vacuum sealed and in the freezer...homemade frozen pizza...wow!

Goal for next time...homemade pizza sauce