Disaster in the incubator

I'm a little behind. Last week, the bator was running a little cool. I decided to turn it up a bit on the morning of co-op. I told myself to check it before we left.

I forgot.

When I got home, it was 111*...104* is fatal.

I tried to cool it down and check for signs of life. There was none. :(

I set 15 more eggs earlier this week. Then I dropped one, so we're down to 14. We checked last night and they are doing well. We saw some heart beats. Hopefully we'll see some chicks this time!

Day 5

I think my flash light needs new batteries, I had to edit these pics to see the progress. #4 still isn't different. I will give it till the morning and if there is no change, I'll throw it out.

#1, edited, look how big! The dark mass in the center is the chick!!

#2, not edited, the dark dot is the eye.

#3, lots of editing, but you can see the chick and the veins!


#4...hmmm, I can't find the pic of #4...oh well, there wasn't much to see.



#5, again, this one is so dark it's hard to see the progress, this is the best I could do.

#6...do you see anything? Oh no! Do we have another quitter?

Day 4! A HEARTBEAT!!

That's right! We saw a heartbeat in #2! It was awesome!!

It's much harder to see what's going on in the brown and green eggs. Numbers 2 and 4 are white and easier to see into. Here's the view in the incubator:



#1 is green, if you look hard you can see spidery veins!!







This is #2, the darker reddish shape in the middle of the veins was where the heartbeat was. I wish I would have videoed it!

#3, green, hard to see

#4, not seeing the veins, think this one quit, I'll give it a little more time.

#5 Dark brown, the hardest to see of all, in real life, I could make out some veins.

#6, I can definitely see a dark spot, this one is light brown

The eggs progress

Days one and two were pretty boring. I turned them and adjusted the temp and humidity levels.


But day 3, oh how day three boosted my confidence!



Here's the eggs, I don't know what exactly is going on but that dark mass is giving me hope!

#1

#2


#3

#4, maybe there is hope???

#5

#6

Meet the eggs

Here are the 6 eggs my friend gave me to hatch. I am really just doing it for the kids to see and to test the incubator we made. (I'm planning on getting some fancy eggs in the spring.) So I'm giving the chicks away. It was either that or have chickens in my house all winter. I'm crazy but not that crazy!

I can't remember what breeds she told me each one was. I asked her on FB and here's what she told me: The brighter green one should be Easter egger. The dull green should be the Easter egger/faverolle mix hens or the buff brahma/easter egger hens. The pink is... from one of my Plymouth rocks or maybe buff orp. The brown one should be a red or black sex link. The white egg could be brown leghorn, polish, spitzhauben, or Andalusian. The fathers are either the Easter egger/marans roo or the cuckoo marans, or by freak luck the little batantam could have fathered one...there's a surprise inside every egg!

So as you can see, it's going to be a fun hatch!

I numbered them and candled them so we would know the starting point. I'll post updates until they hatch later this month.

This is #1 See the air bubble on the right?

#2:

#3, I'm a little worried about how porous the end is.

This is #4, it has a small crack, I don't have a lot of hope for this one.

#5, this one is so dark, I don't think I'll get good pics of it.

#6, this one is huge.

I kept them in order from the carton. It will be so fun to see what happens!!!

Radical by David Platt

Oh this book. I first heard about it something like 4-6 months ago. I read a blog that I love and she mentioned it. It got into my brain and would not let go. I forgot the name of this book and so I emailed the blogger, who I do not know, asking her. She told me and I went to Amazon, read about the book, and decided not to order it right then but the obsession grew.

Then, a couple weeks ago on that same blog, there was a guest post. Guess what it was about? There was another blogger who was having a read along with this book! I was in. I asked Wes if he'd read it with me. He agreed.

So last week was chapter one. I can sum it up in one word for you. Ouch.

It hurt. David Platt, the author of this book takes issue with the way we, as Americans, worship Jesus. How it's not at all biblical. He showed me through scripture what it really means to follow Jesus.

Let me tell you, I am not doing it.

That may seem shocking. I mean, I am a member of a church, I read my bible with irregular regularity, I homeschool, I pray before each meal, my #1 button on the van radio is set to a Christian station…heck so is my #2!!

But, no. I'm still living life according to my agenda. I still do pretty much what I want to do when I want to do it. I may make some small concessions, sure, but really? Have I really put Christ above all other relationships? Nope. Not at all. It's more like I'm living my life with a safety net. I say to God, "I'll just go and do this, and I know You are there if I need you, heck, I'll even give You a shout when I don't just to keep up my rep."

Well, God is not eternal life insurance.

I want to say I trust in God, but I don't really. I worry what will happen to my kids if they are not with me. I don't see them as His and He is taking care of them. I make my own plans and have my own to do list.

So then I started thinking, if I don't really trust God…then what am I doing? This play acting of Christianity is futile. I will be one of the people who say "Lord, Lord , didn't I do all kinds of stuff for you?" And He will say He never knew me. Ahhh…but now I'm getting into chapter 2.

Anyway. I am lukewarm. I do not treat God as the supreme; awe inspiring God that He is. I treat Him like a security blanket and good luck charm. If that is all I'm doing, then I should stop. I should have the decency to at least walk away from His invitation to follow Him like the men in Luke 9. They asked to follow Jesus, He told them how hard it would be and they respectfully declined. They knew they didn't have that kind of devotion so they didn't pretend.

So I either need to step up or walk away.

In order to step up I need to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus is worth it. I need to trust that what He asks me to do is good. I need to love Him more than I love myself. Love Him enough to sing when imprisoned for Him. Love Him enough to gladly give up all I have if He asks. Love Him enough to look at death and physical pain as mere annoyances in this part of my eternal life.

Oh how I want to step up. But saying yes to God is saying no to me. And that is hard. I'm whiney, bratty, little snot who wants what I want when I want it.

I'm praying for the courage to say no to myself. I'm praying I don't read this book and remain unchanged. I'm praying for a hunger to really know God and want Him more then I want anything else.

Oh that scares me.

It scares me more to not to.

The crazy cat…errr chicken lady

Yep, I love my chickens. I love to watch them, I love to feed them, I love gathering eggs, bringing them snacks, filling their water…heck, I even love cleaning out their coop. They are beautiful, funny and oh so soft. So…I got more. J

Five more, actually. I met a fantastic lady a couple weeks ago that also has a back yard flock and has too many chickens. She offered to give me some of her extra chicks! Wow! I made her a diaper. I couldn't just take her chicks! We went last week and picked them up. It was so great. It was great to be in another back yard with chickens. Great to get to know my new friend a little better. Just all around great!

We brought our five babies home and started the long process of integrating them into the flock. Chickens don't like change. They have a pecking order and don't really want to disturb that so they will kill the newbies and eat them without a second thought. Actually, I better go check on them. Provided I don't find cannibalistic carnage, I'll take pictures.

All is well! Here's some pics!

I love their fuzzy butts. That one to the left is Taco, she's our best layer.

I think this one is a roo. Wes named him Casa Nova.

Here's 4 of the 5 babies. The yellow one is Eliya's. She named it Torchick. Isaiah named the gray one Chinese, the other black one is Chick-chick (Silas) and the one with brown wings is Lois…she's mine. Unless she's Louis, then he's dinner.

This is Robot. I put a yellow hair band on her leg to tell her apart from her sisters.

Well, not only do I have 11 chickens, I am trying to hatch 6 eggs. Well, you know, I'm doing it for the kids...really...

I have lots of fun posts planned about that.

Urban Homestead

Okay, so we're not exactly "Urban" and we dont really "Homestead" But it's kinda close. Just know all farm-y type words will be used loosly.

Also, Blogger decided to put these pics in random order and I decided not to fight it. If it seems a little backwards, that's because it is.

Yesterday we discovered our first egg. Then we discovered the girls' hiding place and found 5 more! Here's our pretty greenish blue eggs!

Here's the coop that Wes built that I painted. Silas helped. It was really fun.

Here's our biggest chicken, we can't really tell the red ones apart. Sorry.

Here's some of the girls.

And here's the kids planting our second "crop" of potatoes. Fresh potatoes are so yummy! And apparently one of the only things I can grow in my back yard so grow I will!

I just went out to hand the diapers and decided to chec on the chickens. The Big One was making a lot of noise...I think she's getting ready to lay and Taco was in that hiding place. I should have another egg soon!

4th (3rd) of July

I have a few more JUNE! posts ahead. The pics are on my phone and an the moment I can't get them off. Sorry.

We went downtown for the 4th of July on the 3rd of July. It was fantastic! We even brought our dog. Oh yeah, we got a dog a couple weeks ago! He's great. He's a 2.5 year old pug named Bruce that we got from the Kentuckiana Pug Rescue. I'll tell you what, they are great to work with. If you ever find yourself in KY or IN and need a pug, they are the people for you.
Bruce is great! He's sweet and obedient, not overly needy and I really enjoy him.

Now pugs are not known for their ability to tolerate heat or lots of exercise. We'd taken him to the park and tee ball a couple times, though, and thought he'd love to go downtown with us. He loves to go for rides, walks and meet new friends. (Suddenly this sounds like Bruce's personal ad.)

We did not account for the 6,583 degree ground he'd be walking and laying on.

Oops.

So we got there and walked a block to the inflatables then we realised I didn't put sun block on the baby. So I took Bruce back to the car to get it. We got back and let the kids bounce on some stuff and then decided to find a spot to watch the parade. We got there and everyone was fading. I brought sandwiches but this was no time to mess around. We needed something cold STAT! So I took Eliya and found Snow cones. Perfect. Ice and high fructose Corn Syrup. This will pep everyone up.


Here's Levi hugging a bottle of water to keep himself cool. He did get to drink some and he had his first solid ever...shaved ice. (No flavoring! Just the ice.)

Below is a pic of my boys cooling down. I put Levi in the carrier so Silas jumped in the stroller as we waited for the parade to begin.


Then the parade started. It was hot, boring and we were behind a bunch of people. This was my favorite moment:



Wes and I were ready to go and worried about Bruce. He was drinking lots of water but he just could not cool down. So we decided to bribe the kids with whatever snack they wanted, the promise of swimming at NiNi's and head back to the car.

All Isaiah wanted was cotton candy. There was none to be found. Eliya and Silas chose their very own funnel cakes and we continued to search for cotton candy. Bruce decided he was done with looking for cotton candy so he just laid down.

Wes was walking along and then it was like he dropped anchor.

So we booted Silas out of the stroller and, that's right, loaded Bruce in.



There was a blessed angel from Heaven passing out samples of Kettle Corn and, oh happy day, Isaiah decided he could make do with that. but insisted on the medium bag.

All in all it was a pretty great day.

JUNE! Tee Ball

We homeschoolers like to push all the limits. That why we have tee ball in the summer. Come on, you know we can't handle doing more then one thing a day and tee ball during the school year just might make us have to juggle two things...and cook dinner...all in one day?? Oh the horror!!

The boys are super cute and Silas is really good! Isaiah is, too but it's a bit of a surprise from our little guy!

The boys are on the blue team, they didn't have their shirts ready so they got to wear the shirts I made them for co-op. They are not required to have baseball pants but we already had them so in the last minutes before running out the door we're scurrying around looking for the socks and belts and we got out the door on time...score! After about an hour and a half there, I realise they are wearing each other's pants. No wonder Silas had to hold up his pants while he ran the bases.

Here they are hitting the ball off the tee...you know...what it's all about...

Coach William let Silas be the pitcher in the first inning of the first game. He's still talking about it. He's got quite an arm. In fact, last week, when he was going up to bat the coach of the purple team said, "Watch this one, he's a good hitter." Let's pretend he wasn't talking to kindergartners...in my head he was talking to the fake reporter of the homeschool summer tee ball press.

And here's Isaiah doing the much loved tee ball activity of playing with the dirt. It comes between making daisy chains and team snack in importance.

And, not to be outdone, here's Eliya demonstrating her invisible leg routine.