The First Snow!

It is an event that I look forward to every year! I feel almost like a child when I know it is coming and so completely in awe when it happens! It is the "First Snow" of the season! WOOHOO! YIPPEE!

This year, it is such a huge blessing! This snow is a big, wet snow! And after the year we have experienced with lack of moisture, it is such a good thing.

The kids had school, but they were dressed super fast and outside playing for a while until I felt it was "ok" for me to try driving them to town for school. 

We were 'teased' with a chance of snow a couple of weeks ago. I felt like my kids, all disappointed because we did not get anything. And I know by April, when spring should be well on its way and we get that (hopefully) last snow, I will complain about the snow and cold.

Until then, enjoy your fall!

Yep, It Looks Like an Outhouse!

The one thing I really wanted when I moved from the city and suburbs was chickens. I love those little, noisy birds and the beautiful eggs they produce. I was so super excited when I was able to have them running freely through my yard.

This past winter, I admit, I got a little lazy and did not button the coop up quite as tightly as I should have. I was lulled into that false sense of "security" and ignoring the fact that one by one, the free-ranging hens were being picked off every other day by some raptor. Some times ignorance is bliss...Until the morning you go out and find that the chicken-loving predator has taken liberty in your chicken coop and destroyed the entire flock.

So, I took a break from the feather friends for a while. I did pick up several guinea hens this spring to help with insect control. I will write more on those "I'm-So-Ugly-I'm-Cute" little boogers another time. However, I refrained from getting chickens.


Now, "settled" into our new home, I immediately started bugging the old cowboy to help me get a place for chickens set up. We went back and forth. Do we build a coop like we had?

 (ok, we did finish it! This was during construction)

Use the ever popular trampoline coop? This one made the Fed-Ex guy pull out his phone and snap a picture to send to his friend "Back East" for a laugh. So, yes, I'm probably in some "You might be a redneck if..." email.

Or do something different?  We opted for "different". This place had an old outhouse which had not been used in quite some time. So, we picked out a spot, moved the heavy beast of a bathroom and added a small pen area and buried the chicken wire about a foot in the ground.

So, yes, that is an outhouse turned chicken coop! And I'm loving my chickens!