spring finally found us

Spring finally found it's way to New England. It was a glorious day, and we did our best to take advantage of it!

We started the day with a surprise I brought home from the grain store -- 6 Rhode Island Red chicks. The kids were, of course, thrilled. And Zoo Boy says that our hens were excited too, when he told them about the new babies, although the babies have to live in the house with us for the next couple of months until they are big enough to move to the coop.


After getting our chicks settled into their new digs (the bottom half of a dog crate in the laundry room), we headed outdoors, where Zoo Boy took time to smell the flowers.


The Map Man got himself busy with a couple projects, one of which (pictured here) deserves it's own blog entry, so look for more photos and the story about our "new" paddock fencing in the next day or two. (The fact that it's NOT new is what makes it noteworthy -- in fact, it's older than we are....)


J decided to spend the bulk of the afternoon in a tree, the same way I spend many afternoons myself when I was a child. We're blessed to live in a situation that allows our kids to have the same sorts of freedom to explore that we had when we were kids. I know how rare that sort of thing is these days, and it's certainly not something that we take for granted.

Zoo Boy "pitches" in with the chicken coop cleaning -- he looks pretty good with that pitchfork, don't you think?