Oko the Duck

Oko is not my duck. She is Providence's duck. She doesn't like the chickens that much. But she likes to be fed, and take a dip in her "pond." (As you can see, her pond is really a kiddy-pool.) I think Oko is happy though. We are building all the chickens, and duck a new home. You can see a bit of it in the upper left-hand side of this picture. They will like that home even better.

Charmed Life

I have been meaning to post about our newest addition. I claimed this post weeks ago - but between trips and redoing my bedroom I've not gotten around to it until now.
We have darling baby chicks. I love babies - and I really love baby chicks. It's totally adorable to see them following their mother around the yard. The babies are a bit nervous of us yet, but we're working on them.
Here are some pictures. (Finally pictures on my blog!)
The story: We had a really wonderful rooster, but his life was ended over the Christmas Holiday. But Mother hen went off to make herself a nest anyway, laid about 9 perfect eggs, and began to sit. A brooder, hurray! I felt badly for her right away, because she wasn't going to actually have babies. Even though she was a chicken and wouldn't really understand. The poor girl was doing what God made her to do! It didn't seem right, so we got some fertilized eggs (4 of them) with our friends from a ranch. Mother hen was only able to hatch one of the eggs. My dad decided Mother hen probably wanted a bigger family. So he went to the feed store, told them our story, and they gave him two newly hatched chicks. Those little chicks joined the family, and they have lived happily since.

Peaches in The Summertime

Imagine the first wonderfully large peach of the year. Grown in your own yard, kissed by the sun so its rosy red on one side. And then eating it while watering your garden. Yummy.
Additionally, imagine trapping your twin sister in a loft while doing this (by accident of course!)
And there you have my afternoon yesterday. (I wish I had a picture for you. That peach was beautiful and delicious!)

Idaho, Sunburns, 4th of July

It's been fun seeing my family here. We've busily passed a week together. Mostly it's been pretty low key. We've visited in the Spence and Idaho Bertsch family homes. We did go to a late night movie (it started at 11:45). I tend to be an early to bed-er, but dusk doesn't happen until just after 10pm. How can it feel like night before this? The sun also rises early - dawn starts around 5:30. We've had lots of sun! I've really done my best not to get sunburned. This is likely a normal aim for most people. It became an aim for me after a friend noticed I was often sporting a burn. A comment was made like "But you always have the worst sun burn." This was said to Ivanna who was rather confused, as she had not been sunburned for about a year. After quickly remembering that I had gotten a new sunburn the last 6 weeks straight I confessed it was really me. That was roughly a month ago. I've been much more careful about being in the sun!
Today is the 4th of July, and right now I can hear (and see if they are close enough) fireworks. Now that's really different from home!