Fab Friday

Well if I think positively it'll be that way, right?

On the agenda today is finding the baseball uniform missing pieces for the boy's new teams. Fun times. And buy jock straps. Oh the stuff I didn't consider with having boys.

In other news we have only 50-something girls scout cookies left to sell in the next 2 weeks. This sounds like a ton, of course but we've sold almost 800, so 50 doesn't seem insurmountable. The light is at at the end of the tunnel.

The quail project isn't going quite as well as planned. Yesterday we got zero eggs and we're starting to think we have 4 boys and 2 girls instead of the other way around. Of course I'm reading about quail and you're supposed to be able to pick them up, flip them over and inspect the anatomy and tell what gender they are. Unfortunately for me, I can't seem to figure this out. Good thing I didn't pick veterinary school. If it wasn't for my rabbit humping things like an adolescent dog, I wouldn't be sure he was a boy, either.

Of course this is prompting the dilemma of  'at what point do the kids need to know the birds and the bees?'   Because they saw the quail mating. And thought it was hysterical. And then started yelling  "they're mating!!" all the time. yeah. great. They think the bunny is just "attacking" things particularly the stuffed animal we gave him so he's leave the kid's legs and arms alone. I'm a little afraid they'll go into school and decide to educate everyone on it. Kayla announced to her teacher and class about the quail the first day of school after getting them. Nothing secretive here. Our teacher knows our neighborhood and asked "you have all this at your house?! in your neighborhood?!" and I admit "yeah" I'm going to have to invite her over some day. She's house and babysat for a neighbor so she's familiar with the neighborhood. AND the neighbor she house/babysat for isn't really the sort to live near someone with chickens and quail and composting and livestock. So it probably adds to the surprise.  When Larry was working on the cages for the rabbit and quail in the drive way, he did get a few neighbors stopping to ask what he was doing. Specifically was he getting chickens and/ or a rooster.  Especially not a rooster. He assured them no rooster and it was going to be quail and rabbit. And they walked away relieved.

And as we're trying to hatch eggs here, I realize... what if they do hatch? There's a chance we will have a rooster here. At least until we find it a new home. I'm not 100% at what point they start crowing. I'm guessing that when the chicks go from peeping to clucking is when the rooster would start crowing. Stay tuned. I'll let you know.

We're using an incubator which looks like a big styrofoam box with a heating element at the top that appears to be the kind from an electic skillet. We were hoping that our chickens would get broody, meaning they want to sit and hatch eggs but since they haven't and since Larry bought the incubator for the quail eggs and since the feed store offered us fresh eggs from the hens with a rooster in the pen with them.... We candled them and decided to try to hatch the ones that looked like there was potential. 6 of them I think. Maybe 8? I could get up and go peek in the box, but I'm already wasting time here instead of getting in the car and going to the bank for the girlscout deposit or baseball uniform accessories.

Alright. I really do need to get moving here. Back to life where the kids are loud, the adults are a little crazy, and the homestead is a work in progress...