Birds, snakes, and more birds!

We are down to 8 hens right now.   Several have just disappeared over the last 6 months.   We could easily eat a dozen eggs a day, so we needed some more chickens!  We had gotten some a couple of months ago, but, a raccoon kept getting them.  So, Chad built this little house for them.   He's really good at finding scraps around our house so he made this for next to nothing.  It's really sturdy, so hopefully nothing will be able to get in this time.

I found a lady that had some neat breeds for sale and she lives right near a mennonite community.  So, we headed down last weekend and got 15 chicks.  The kids were intrigued by the mennonites.  They loved watching the people riding in horse and buggies.  

3 of the chicks have already died.  One was dead the morning after we got them.   I'm not sure what's happening.  They all seem fine and it happens pretty suddenly.  

She had one Delaware hen that is a few months old so I bought her.  We named her Lila.  She is the sweetest chicken I've ever been around.  She hung out right by Chad's side all day.  WHen he got up, she followed him.  She tries to come in the house with us.  She doesn't even flinch when we pick her up...she loves to be held. 

Chad found this guy under our house :(

And then....today was so exciting!   Ethan came in and said that there was a bird imitating our chickens and following them around.  I went out to see and it was this guy.   He couldn't fly.  I could be wrong, but, it looked like he still had some baby feathers and just wasnt' ready to fly.   It would stand right by the kids and let them touch him.  Our hens started picking on him and there are a lot of cats around here, so we decided to put him in a cage until he could fly.  The kids had a blast feeding him.  We found out that he is a Brown Thrasher. 

After a few hours he started trying to fly and eventually flew off.  Pretty cool! :)

Then, I tried to imitate some artsy people I know :)...and had the kids make their names out of things they found around the house.   Then we all made a picture together....a tree, cabin, and grape vine on a hill.  

Just some pics of our cute little chicks.   I think this top hat is hilarious.