In Colorado, snow in March is hardly a surprise. Spring break skiing is some of the best, and no one expects green grass and flowers for a good two months yet. But here in Oregon? Well, we love our cheery daffodils and the misty haze of green creeping over the trees, and we are very PUT OUT by snow. Especially days and days of it. After tomorrow a week of sunshine is forecasted, and it can't come any too soon. I have to say I minded the snow much less than my poor mother (I'd rather see white flakes drifting past the window than harsh sheets of rain), but I'm ready to change my muckboots for sneakers--it's just too darn wet out there!
But in other areas it is truly spring. We got baby chicks for Easter and, a week later, a surprise lamb! Though Erin and Tally had a honeymoon back in October, she seemed to want nothing to do with him, and we'd finally given up expecting anything from her (it was not possible to detect pregnancy under six inches of dirty wool). Yesterday my mother went down to the barn and heard little grunting cooing mothering sounds from Erin, and sure enough, there was a little boy lamb just struggling to his feet! So far she seems to be a good mama, which is fortunate because we simply cannot bottle feed an animal that's going to end up in the freezer--and there's nothing else to be done with a wether (except letting him be a lawnmower, and we have plenty of those). So we are all quite pleased, and looking forward to more births in June.
The little chick who hatched out a few weeks ago was joined the following day by another (and another, that died--three chicks out of three eggs! Go roosters!), and then another hen who'd been sporadically warming her two eggs hatched out a couple of chicks as well. I am amazed by the 100% hatching rate, and thrilled to have four chicks that require absolutely no care at all. From now on, we're doing it this way--Henrietta is a fantastic mother, and Moe has at least kept her two alive, with no effort on our part.
The other fifty chicks are also doing well. They arrived, to our surprise, Saturday night (and the post office called at 6:15 on Easter Sunday morning!) instead of the expected Monday or Tuesday, so poor Mommy and Olin had to rush about getting the coop ready before picking them up. One was DOA, and another died the following day, but the rest are perky and cheerful and cute as can be. Unfortunately I can't look at them without thinking of how many more chicken tractors we have to build...
Odious and I have been churning out chicken tractors at a steady rate, and have more than half the chickens corraled within them. It's actually a pretty simple project, and reasonably satisfying, but I'm a little bored now. I'll post more about them, with pictures, and share our design.
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