Jen's Happy Hen Hutch: Who'da thunk SPRING would be hiding in the bathroom?!

I love winter! I love the snow and the cold. In fact around mid-October I am so ready for the snow to come that I start to look forward to it. (I'm also so ready to be done harvesting and canning that winter seems a welcome break.) By the end of February, I can think of nothing but the coming of spring. Spring breathes new life into my weary soul. This has been a particularly bleak winter, so I started watching for signs of spring much earlier than I usually do. It seems to be taking so much longer to get here this year.

There have been exciting little glimpses of spring throughout the month of March. The garlic the Man of My Dreams and My Little Warrior planted for me last fall poked it's little green heads through the top of the mulch and the crocuses started to bloom. The symptoms of spring have been around, but the actual event has seemed to elude me. Last week as we packed up "Bubba" to head for St. George to a dance competition, huge snowflakes started to fall. In November or December, snowflakes of this magnitude would have put me in a wonderful mood for the whole day. On this cold morning at the end of March, the falling blanket of white, did nothing to improve the temperament of this already frustrated mother. St. George was not warm and sunny, it was cold and rainy. We returned to find winter trying to grab a final choking hold on our world. However, when I went into the downstairs bathroom that night, I discovered the irrefutable sign that spring has arrived -- ANTS! Never in my life have I been so happy to see ants crawling around in my house! I almost cried. If the ants are awake, it is spring. Spring must have crept in and forgot to send winter on it's way, but it has definitely come. So today, I thank Heavenly Father for ants in my bathroom. (Of course, I swept them up and sent them outside, but they were there.)

Yesterday, as I was working with My Little Warrior and My Swimmer (A.K.A. My Silly Girl) on their school work and getting more and more discouraged by the second, I got a text from The Man of My Dreams. It read, "If you are out & about, you should get chicks today."

To this, I replied, "Why?"

He said, "Idk. I just had that thought go through my mind & it feels right."

I said, "Ok. I'm not out, but I can go get some if you want."

So I sent My Swimmer off to her water polo game and My Little Warrior and I jumped into Bubba and headed to IFA. I was not ready for chicks yet. I wanted to wait until they had lots of older chicks to choose from. I did not want brand new chicks. I didn't want to get chicks until late April or early May. My Little Warrior, on the other hand, has been begging to get chicks since February 16. That is the day that this year's first chicks arrived at IFA. He was sooooooooo excited when I told him where we were going and for what purpose. As we walked through the door of the store he said, "Do you want me to get someone to help us?" I told him that I needed to decide what I wanted first. So we looked at all of the older chicks. They looked a little haggard -- probably just because their down was changing to feathers, but I wasn't very encouraged by the selection or their appearance. I finally decided that we would get four of the older ones and four little ones. I decided that we would get two white and two brown striped from the older chicks. Yet somehow when the girl was getting the chicks out we ended up getting two white, one brown striped, and one black chick. (My Little Warrior just couldn't let me pick them all.) Of the brand new baby chicks, we got two Ameraucana (Easter egg layers), one White Leg Horn (I can't help picturing Foghorn Leghorn from Looney Tunes when I hear this breed's name), and one barred Plymouth Rock. They are absolutely darling. They are fun to watch, but I'm not feeling the excitement that I felt over last year's chicks. My Little Warrior is terribly excited and loves them. I have to keep telling him to stay out of the brooder box. I know his intentions are good, but it is just too cold for the chicks to have the door to the brooder box opened unnecessarily. (I had to sneak out there to get some pictures because I didn't want him to know I was opening it "unnecessarily", too.)

Here is our original flock:

Bertie & Alice

Alice (who likes the camera), Lucy, & Ethel

Beauty

Here are some pictures of our new little ones:

These are the brand new chicks -- left to right: Plymouth Rock, Ameraucana, White Leghorn (yellow), Ameraucana

These are the older ones.

This chick -- the one standing up tall -- was the one I wanted the most. (I think it fits into our flock well.) If you look right below the white chick's beak you'll see that the tall chick is missing half it's toe. For some reason that made me love it.