Life's lessons from chickens

Last night I fed our chickens a large pile of brussels sprouts leaves. I didn't just feed them a few; there were plenty to go around. I was interested to see how they would take to this new addition to their diet, so I stuck around to watch.

They were slightly hesitant at first, but pretty soon one chicken grab a leaf. Then another, and then another. However, after the first couple grabbed their leaves, the other chickens began chasing the ones with the leaves--trying to steal the precious treasure. They hadn't even tasted it yet, or really even knew what it was. But, they chased the chickens with the food.

As I watched, I thought about a few things.
1. Why did they chase the one with the food, without even knowing what it is?
2. Why didn't they just get their own? There was a huge pile of it! In fact, some of them were standing right in the middle of the pile when they darted after the one with the food!

As I pondered these questions, it dawned on me that many times we're like chickens!
We always want what the other guy has. Why? Sometimes we even want it when we don't know exactly what they have! It's just that we don't have it, too!
Sometimes we don't take advantage of the opportunities that are right under our feet! We're so busy looking around to see what we're missing out on that we don't see what's right there!
And, sometimes we just follow blindly. There are leaders that get what they want because they lead. And, there are followers that are always missing out and making life difficult for others.

Today, I'm deciding I don't want to grovel with the chickens.

Bits-n-Pieces

'Liza lost her first tooth!

The joys of peanuts!

We got a package and the girls went crazy!

Needless to say, we had peanuts and peanut pieces throughout the house, but it was SO fun!

And, there's nothing like cousins--especially when uncles take everyone for a ride on a Mule!

Life is awesome--especially when you're a kid!

New Additions To The Fam!!!

On Easter Sunday we got ten chicks! Yep! What Easter is complete without chicks? We thought we'd enter the world of "growing our own eggs"! I'll have to post when we get our first one--the $50 egg! Actually, it's been pretty fun--the girls have loved it! They hold 'em every day--even now, and they've gotten a lot bigger! We've kept them in our garage while Lehi's been building a coop. It's getting a little stinky in there--and they're noisy!

And, this is Fluffy! (He's not looking too fluffy in his "newborn" pic, tho.)

He got cuter.

And then he got a lot cuter!

Eliza wanted a dog for her birthday but we just weren't ready for that kind of a commitment, and I had parakeets growing up. I'd been wanting one for a while, so we got the girls a parakeet.

It's been awesome because I found a breeder that hand-fed and parent-fed the birds from the time they hatched. So, when we got Fluffy he had only been away from (fledged) his momma bird for about a week! But he was used to people. We got the "baby pictures" from the breeder. I guess they document every bird they hatch and when you buy from them they send you baby pictures. That made it kinda fun!

The girls have played with/held him quite a bit every day, and he's the best parakeet! He crawls on their shoulders, plays in their hair, crawls down their shirts. He's a crazy bird!

They wanted to take him for show-n-tell last week, so I took him to each of their classrooms, where they each put him on their finger and took him to each kid in the class and let them pet him. Fluffy did awesome! He stayed on their fingers and didn't squawk or bite any of the kids. What a great bird! I think the worst part for him was riding on the 2-mile dirt road from our house to the highway?!

The BIG Move!

So, this was moving day! Can you believe it? We LOVE snow, and get so excited when it comes, but when it comes the day you're supposed to move, well it just . . . doesn't make it easy!?

We had to install our own mailbox, and we had to get it done because I had forwarded all of our mail as of April 1. Well, our mailbox wasn't up and it was a few days after April 1 because Lehi had gotten sick. So, it had to be done, and I think it just happened to be THE windy-est day EVER!

As you can see, I got a little wind-blown! Although I was outside helping Lehi hold up the mailbox so we could have a mailbox that was perpendicular to the ground rather than horizontal to it, it was so freakin' windy that it was all I could do to keep myself perpendicular to the ground! I'm not kidding--I kept getting knocked over! CRAZY!!

And, Lehi after the ordeal! We had never experienced wind like that! Little did we know--it was just the beginning! Since that day, we've experienced many days of 60 mph winds. It's crazy! Everyone told us it was windy here in the spring, but we didn't think they meant 60 mph for 24 hours! I swear, if I lifted both arms at the same time I'm sure I could be in Colorado within 30 minutes! (That's probably partly due to my "wings", too, tho?!)

Yah, do you see that SNAKE?

And, do you notice that is my PORCH?

Here's how our conversation went. . . .

Lehi: "Hey, Darc! Do you want to come and see something?"

Me: "I don't know. Do I"

Lehi: "You might find it interesting."

Darce: "Am I gonna say something like 'hell'?"

Lehi: "Ummm, I said a little more than that."
Then, he lovingly took me out to our front porch and this is what I saw! A freakin' 5 foot long bull snake! YIKES! It was the second one he's found by our house in two weeks! I'm not likin' that!

Actually, the animal situation is rather interesting here.

One morning Lehi saw a rabbit that was so big he thought it was a dog at first!

One night I found a mouse that had fallen into a bucket of water by our back door. We left it overnight. (We figured it was thirsty.) Much to our dismay, it couldn't swim ALL night long so it, well, drowned. Darn!

One day Lehi was chainsawing the trees our builder pulled out so we can have wood this winter, and he found a kangaroo rat with two babies hooked to her teets. He accidentally almost sawed it right in half!

Then, last week he caught a lizard and brought it into the house--to show us all! Yah, that's what I like in my house!?

And, this morning I woke to a "lovely"? sound. It sounded like Lehi had shot a rabbit but hadn't killed it. It kept whining and screaming and crying--for at least ten minutes! A coyote--howling. It's crazy! Such a different life than what we're used to! But, we love it!!!