Easter Weekend

Here are some pictures from over the last few days. Above are our new chicks, three to four weeks old by now. The Cornish Cross and Black Sexlinks were already a week when we got them and  the Rhode Island Reds and Amauracanas were just a couple days old. Once we had twenty four chicks in a tub in the hallway, they outgrew the house quickly. They are much happier in their new home. We are going to switch to organic grower crumbles for a couple months. I've been grinding our all purpose whole grain feed in the spice grinder. Now that we are grinding a five pound bucket every other day it is getting to be a bit of a chore. Last summer we tried feeding the adolescent birds whole grain feed after their first month or so, and they wasted a lot of it. Fortunately it grew into lush nutritious pasture which I've been wanting to write about. If it comes back this spring I'll be sharing some more info and pictures on it, for what can be better than wasted chicken feed that isn't really wasted because it GROWS!!!

Above is what our woods looked like a few days ago. Each morning I step out for chores and am surprised how much more bare ground is exposed.  We are having an early break up and melting. We are enjoying the early spring immensely. In town there are just a few dirty piles left here and there. In the hills we are a little slower to lose all our snow, less pavement to heat the ground up. I started three more trays of seedlings the other day, more herbs both medicinal and culinary, and lots of flowers.

We had a lovely Easter day. We had brunch with friends. The kids dyed eggs, and hunted for plastic eggs in the snow. It was warm enough in the sun that we spent most the afternoon on the deck, visiting and drinking mimosas, champagne for the adults and candy for the kids, treats for all.

Here the kids are digging for some plastic eggs that were inside a snow fort that collapsed while they were hunting for eggs. Zoom in on the picture below and on the right side is a bare leg. This young lady had shorts on and was sock-less all day, a fine Alaskan in the making to be sure.

Here the kids are cleaning the futon for Grannie T's arrival. We had them sweep off all the crumbs and then D took a rug doctor to it. My mother-in-law is flying up tomorrow from the east coast. We are looking forward to her visit, especially the part where we leave her with the kids and head to town for dinner, drinks, entertainment and maybe even a night away.

Two similar dumbfounded expressions.

We've been spending lots of time on the back porch as it is flat, dry and relatively clean. Avery hasn't gone down the slide willingly yet, but she sure does enjoy climbing to the top and surveying her realm.