This Chicken Loves me!‏

Every once in a while we make a decision spontaneously. For the most part it has worked out well for us without any regrets. One of our spontaneous decisions this year was to get chickens.


Chickens are cheap. Their food is not that expensive. But when Nate builds a chicken coop the cost increases dramatically.

We got seven chickens- they are called Brahmas and We have 4 light brahmas (Flower, Daisy, Helga and Contessa) and 3 dark brahmas (Clementine, Dixie, and Hyacinth).


The girls love them- and it has been a great experience for our family. We are learning a ton.


Gracie was sitting in the run with one the other day- and as she hugged it she told us “This chicken loves me!”


I am glad they are at least reciprocating the love- because they ain’t doin’ nothing else for us so far. Eggs should be due by February. We’ll see how it goes.

Beauty is...

Now that Rori is in school she had her first stab at reflections. The theme this year is Beauty is...

After talking with Rori about the different types of project she could do she decided she wanted to take a picture. I asked her what she wanted to take a picture of and she said, "the chickens."

To tell you the truth I think the chickens are cute, but definitely not the definition of beauty. So I asked Rori how that fit the theme and she said...:because its a new baby chicken and new life is beautiful."

So here you have her entry entitled "Beauty is New Life"

Although she did not do the color adjustment she told me what she wanted. I did not crop the picture or adjust the sharpness for the most part this image was strait out of the camera.

Well today we went to the reflection assembly and Rori's picture is going on to the district level. She won a her first trophy.

We Picked a Name‏

"Oh come, now, you don’t mean to let on that you like it?”

The brush continued to move.

“Like it? Well I don’t see why I oughtn’t to like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?”

That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tom swept his brush daintily back and forth—stepped back to note the effect—added a touch here and there—criticized the effect again—Ben watching every move and getting more and more interested, more and more absorbed. Presently he said:

“Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little.”

- Mark Twain The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

We had absolutely no problem picking out a name for either of the girls. It was so simple, we both immediately agreed on both Rori and Gracie – “boy” has this been a different experience.

We haven’t been able to agree on any of the names for one reason or another. Nate’s supreme test of any name is if it sounds good in the name game song… “banana-fanna-fo- facie….Gracie”. Everything from “I knew someone named that in high school”, “that name sounds too ‘hard’”, “I don’t want his nick-name to be…”, to “that’s a good old man’s name- but not a little boy name” has been presented to disqualify various monikers.

Well I think we have the name.

We talked about this one a few times- and off-handedly disqualified it each time. Nate told me the other day that he had always wanted a little boy named Sawyer- because of Tom Sawyer. Nate is a big Mark Twain fan. I like the name too- and so- simply as that we settled on it.

Sawyer- because we like it- and Nate likes Mark Twain (He says he still gets to call the baby Huckleberry – his other Twainian choice)

GranBarry- Because Nate’s great-grandpa was named “Nathan Granberry”, Nate’s dad is named “Barry” and Nate’s middle name is “Barry”

Pilcher- Because that’s just the way it works.

We are excited. It even works with the name game- it must be right…

“Sawyer, Sawyer bo-boyer, banana-fanna-fo-foyer……”