Before I begin, I know that I've been absent from my Quest for a couple months. I think I am going to be stopping or changing my kid kraft posts. We've been homeschooling/mommy-schooling all year, and as we've gotten more into the groove, we've been doing more activities that I find on pinterest. I don't want to steal an idea that I find there, so if I feel up to posting something regarding what we're studying, it won't be a kid kraft, but more like a school day post.
Another reason for the absence of posts, is that I've been fasting from different things since January. My book club read "7:An Experiment in Mutiny Against Excess" by Jen Hatmaker, and we've been doing our own fasting like she modeled. Hence, this month means no social media = no blogging. My family has missed the pictures I took at Easter and a couple of my friends said they miss my Facebook posts (exaggerators!). So, my media fast isn't technically finished yet, but I HAVE TO SHARE our new adventure!!!!! (My 7 fasting friends will absolutely shout with joy that I have broken my fast...go ahead, you can call me a cheater. This is worth it!)
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I peeked in the box and saw our four new “pets.” One black with a speckled yellow chest (Elphaba, an Australorp), one bigger with a little comb already emerging between its yellow fluff with a dark yellow spot on her head (Ursula, a Leghorn), one beautiful reddish-brown chick all curious and calmly keeping her beady eyes on me (Maleficent, a Rhode Island Red), and the last one was all fluffy yellow with feathery feet and was smaller than the rest (Mother Gothel, a Salmon Faverolle), but I could see her feistiness already in how she pecked at the others and shoved her way in.
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Another reason for the absence of posts, is that I've been fasting from different things since January. My book club read "7:An Experiment in Mutiny Against Excess" by Jen Hatmaker, and we've been doing our own fasting like she modeled. Hence, this month means no social media = no blogging. My family has missed the pictures I took at Easter and a couple of my friends said they miss my Facebook posts (exaggerators!). So, my media fast isn't technically finished yet, but I HAVE TO SHARE our new adventure!!!!! (My 7 fasting friends will absolutely shout with joy that I have broken my fast...go ahead, you can call me a cheater. This is worth it!)
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Life with Chicks, Day 1
April 25, 2013
I was as giddy as…well, as giddy as Ladybug and Sugar Bee my nearly 5- and 3.5-year olds…as we drove to the feed store to pick up our four new baby chicks. I seriously might be or still am more excited than the girls. I walked in all confident and chicken-knowledgeable (from my library chicken reading and from our 16-year-old friend who has chickens in our neighborhood), and said, “We’re here for chicks!” He didn't even notice that I was bluffing the confidence as I acted like I knew what I was doing! Then again, maybe he wasn't fooled, because the sweet young man had already boxed them up for us (haha-almost like a KFC bucket) because I had called that morning making sure they had arrived.
I peeked in the box and saw our four new “pets.” One black with a speckled yellow chest (Elphaba, an Australorp), one bigger with a little comb already emerging between its yellow fluff with a dark yellow spot on her head (Ursula, a Leghorn), one beautiful reddish-brown chick all curious and calmly keeping her beady eyes on me (Maleficent, a Rhode Island Red), and the last one was all fluffy yellow with feathery feet and was smaller than the rest (Mother Gothel, a Salmon Faverolle), but I could see her feistiness already in how she pecked at the others and shoved her way in.
My chickens.
Deep breathe of content sigh.
I was filled with joy and excitement. My girls quickly handed the man their hard-earned quarters to pay for their 2-month-long-awaited little puff balls, worth $2.75 each. Their greedy little fingers kept reaching for the KFC box holding its fragile cargo and I had to fight them off like piranhas. “NOT YET!!!” I sedated their hunger by promising they could move them personally into their new box at home. “YEAH!!!!”
Whereas I was probably speeding on the way to the feed store, I drove significantly slower on the way home. I would creep to a halt at stoplights and tenderly press the accelerator to speed up again. All the while they pecked around in their KFC box for the feed the man dropped in there before we left, or they slept between my fits of stopping and starting again. It was easy to see who the loudest bird peeping was…the smallest one: Mother Gothel. The girls kept asking, “What are they saying? Who is asleep? Are you holding one? Where are they?” I kept cooing at the chicks with a “chickchickchickchick” while they peeped their fear and distress at the bumpy motion.
When we got home, my girls were jumping at my waist for me to lower the KFC box within their grasp. It’s a miracle they didn’t squeal with delight and scare the chicks to death…oh wait they did, but it didn’t kill the chicks. Without a word from me, their little hands dove into the KFC box for their trophies. I hardly had time to get my camera out! They raised them up triumphantly, and perilously (in my eye, at least). And for their credit, they gently put them in their new Pampers-diaper-box home without dropping them. Their hands weren’t empty but a second before they dove back into the KFC box for their second victim, I mean, prize. This time I managed to snap a couple triumphant-kid smiling pictures.
The girls watched me impatiently, asking over and over again if they could help me. “NOT YET!!!” I was trying to get the chicks to drink water first thing (because that’s what all the good books said to do). Well, you can lead a chick to water and even dip its beak into it, but you can’t make her drink. First Ursula, the biggest and oldest (maybe by a day, I think the others are 2-3 days old), got the hang of it and then she quickly found the warmest corner in the box and went to sleep…for a long time. Then I handled Maleficent, whose beady black eyes were always watching me, but she didn’t flee from me, and I helped her take a drink. She took to it quickly, too. My chick, Elphaba, didn’t want anything to do with it, but just wanted to sleep in peace for a while. And the loudest, jitteriest, peckingest little fluff didn’t want anything to do with it either. Both of them finally got the hang of it. Well, Elphaba did….Mother Gothel would quickly dump her face in the water and get some in her beak, but mostly she just kept getting herself wet by jabbing nearly her whole face into the water and then she would shake head like crazy to get dry. She didn’t seem to get the hang of going in SLOWLY. She’s a feisty, ADHD little thing...I hope that isn't her demise!
After water, most of them slept, except Mother Gothel, who wanted to pick on the others’ toes and specks and feathers and in the pine shavings. I finally figured out that she hadn’t figured out where the food was, so I sprinkled some on the floor of her box. Bingo! She went to hog heaven pecking it all up. She even ate some from my fingers. This one is going to be fun to watch or a pain to keep fenced in!
All the while, Ursula slept with her cute little comb gently bobbing up and down with her body’s breath. (I kept checking to see if she was alive.) Elphaba liked watching what Maleficent was doing and then tried to get in on her space and eat or drink where she was. I think she might be a cuddler. She’s cautious, and cute, but I may be biased since she’s my special chick. That Maleficent is a beauty and a thinker, I think, and I can’t wait to see what she looks like grown up. They’re all so tiny and beautiful – I can still see their little egg tooth bump on their beaks!
I like my flock. I am going to enjoy watching them grow! Thank you God for baby chicks, especially for the Four witches of Hillary Circle. Please keep me from accidentally killing them!
Did I mention, it’s only been 3 hours???!!!
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SugarBee is supposed to be napping right now so she can pet the chicks when she wakes up. Guess who I hear running through the house trying not to get caught peaking in on the chicks? ;)
Top to bottom (above): Maleficent, Ursula, Elphaba, Mother Gothel - all sleeping, for the moment.