chicks and eggs

When the chicks start regularly roosting on the top of their cardboard enclosure, they'll probably do well in the barn. We moved their heat lamp, and set down more litter and a bigger waterer. They were curious about the new place, but seemed to like it fine.

We had another reason for moving the chicks. Due to a mishap in the original order, a second group of chicks was being sent. From this batch, we received three Ameraucanas.

Actually, I have a hard time looking at this picture. On the same day we took it, our terrier killed the beautiful chick in front. S was extremely distraught; I felt horribly guilty over my negligence about locking Maggie up. It was a mournful afternoon.

But life is a mixture of the sad, the sweet, the joyous and the fun. Our neighbor dropped off a box of her eggs for us. She keeps bantams, including banty ameraucanas who produce tiny green eggs. I love the mixture of sizes and color. (Yes, freshly collected eggs from hens sharing nests are sometimes dirty, especially when it's wet outside; we wash all our eggs just before cracking.)

One day I sat and made tissue paper eggs, which I had seen on this show passed along by a friend.

 

The next day C decided to do pysanky eggs, which we had tried when the kids were younger. C does not often ask to do crafts these days, and I was surprised that he even remembered this. When S saw his brother making eggs, he asked to do some of his own. S had no recollection of doing pysanky before.

Pysanky eggs are a fairly long process of alternately drawing with wax and dyeing in successively darker colors (there are special pysanky dyes, but we used regular Easter egg colors from the grocery store), then gradually melting off all the wax with a candle flame. It's very relaxing, even if we are far from expert at the process. I had to laugh when I saw the finished eggs and realized that C, our sports fan, had made one egg into a football.

This is the season that reminds us how life cycles on: from baby chicks to older chicks to hens; from a child decorating eggs to a young man decorating eggs. Being able to share these days with my growing kids has been and still is a blessing, and I am grateful.