Fun on the Farm! (In Pictures)

            Hey folks! We had some awesome weather here in southern(ish) Indiana last week. We seized the day(s) and worked and played outside quite a bit. Can't imagine why I've been sleeping better lately finally...Fresh air+manual labor=good night's sleep!

            Since we're kind of in-between big projects/haven't had anything too exciting to “write home about”, I thought I'd share some pictures for this week's homesteading post. (Rest assured we do have some exciting things coming up real soon!) I'll try to keep the commentary to a minimum, but you know how that goes. ;) These are all from one afternoon and while it wasn't a very typical day, I thought it might be fun to give you a more personal look into who we really are via an impromptu chicken and kid photo shoot. ;)

Ripley hasn't been on the grass much since she, unlike her older sister, likes to put anything and everything gross into her mouth, but she didn't seem to mind the new texture after too long!

Myka is still very much the jealous 4 year old, so she likes to do what Ripley is doing quite often. * sigh * In this instance with the crawling around, it made for a cute picture, at least.

Ripley has been cruising along furniture for quite some time now, so she thought she was hot stuff walking along the tree. Just in the past week she has actually been walking by herself for good distances!

As for the pictures with the ball, I just thought they were cute. ;)

Getting up close and personal with the chickens...

Myka loves hanging out with the chickens...so long as there's a fence between her and the rooster. Otherwise she's stuck to me like glue or takes her bubble mower in there and chases him around with it. Don't look at me like that. He deserves it. Myka won't have to worry about him too much longer, though...Chicken pot pie, anyone?

Pretty sure Ripley got pecked by Esmerelda there, the Black Australorp, but she took it like a champ. (If you're not aware, chickens like to peck things to investigate them. It's one of their ways of checking things out. It doesn't necessarily mean they're trying to be mean.)

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure who this is, in hindsight. Ha ha If you didn't know, we have 4 “kittens” and two adult cats that, well, kind of come and go as they please, nowadays. I say “kittens” because they're almost 6 months old now and almost as big as their tiny little mama kitty.

Anyways, two of them are black and gray, but one has a regular tail and one has a bobbed tail like mama. Unless you can either A) See their tails or B) Clearly see the orange-ish colorings the bobtail one has, it's kind of hard to tell them apart! I thought this was Susan, with the normal tail at first, but now I'm leaning towards Marcy. Her paws look rather big like Marcy's. (Sorry. I sound like a total crazy cat lady, don't I? Rambling on about the intricacies of my cats...)

Time to showcase some of the girls! I feel like the chickens have been getting the shift all winter, so I thought I would show them some love. ;)

Starting on the top left and working around clockwise, we have Ivan, our Light Brahma rooster. I love that I got him mid-crow. :D Again, however, he will not be with us much longer. We plan on trying to hatch some eggs ourselves this spring and then he's going bye-bye. One of my aunts * thinks * she wants a rooster, so I told her she could have him, but I highly doubt she can talk my uncle into it! Lol Especially if he knew Ivan is twice the size (literally) of all the rest of the chickens!

Again, to be honest, not really sure who this is. I've always had a hard time telling Margaret and Julie, our Barred Rocks, apart, ever since they reached adulthood. Large Marge used to look fatter than Julie, but now they pretty much look the same. Either way, one of them is a cheeky little minx and likes to stay out, even when all of the others are already in bed for the evening.

This is Bertha, one of our Buff Orpingtons. She's a nosy girl. :)

Here are our two Barred Rocks side by side. See? Hard to tell apart, right? It cracks me up when they walk around side by side like this because it reminds me of the Sanderson sisters on Hocus Pocus. Ha ha

Ah, the elusive Gandalf. She's so hard to get a picture of because she's always on the move! She's one of my faves, even though she's the reason we had to build higher sides on the nesting boxes because she likes to kick all of the straw out. -_- We still have no clue what she is either! Maybe you can help me out? She was labeled as a Star-Spangled Sebright at the store. She clearly is not that going off of pictures!

Not a bad picture of the ridiculous looking Silkie Bantam, eh? She's usually pretty skittish, but she actually let me pet her the other night while she was “sitting on the eggs”. She's been acting a bit broody, but not sure she's broody enough to hatch some eggs, if you know what I mean. We'll see!

Daddy and Myka looking for tadpoles. Because, you know. Tadpoles in FEBRUARY is normal, right?! (And yes, my child had pajama pants on all day. Don't judge.)

Here is a big ole bull frog mamba jamba John accidentally scared out of the water, quite literally. Don't worry. We put him back. I'm sure he was fine.

See that reddish twig in the middle? That is a black raspberry bush! I am SOOO excited about how many black raspberries we'll be able to get to this year. We had access to quite a few all over the place last year, but I swear we've, like, tripled that from clearing away brush. Squee!