After a couple of rainy (off and on) weeks, it was nice to have a couple of sunny afternoons.  We got spoiled with such a mild January.  February in these parts is prone, some years, to a few drizzly days.  We got the garden mostly roto-tilled prior to the rains, still a couple of months away from being able to plant.  But, baseball tryouts are this weekend, so it's not far from nicer weather!  Only one son playing this season, so baseball won't be as harsh on our schedule, I hope.  Soccer season will probably be a much different story.  Yikes.

I think I'm having a technology meltdown.  Bouncing between too many devices, not very focussed on any!  LOL.  Really, I'm getting stuff organized on my laptop, and working on a project that has been sitting on the backburner.  An attempt at fiction for kids?  Crazy.  I have way too many ideas and not enough time to put it all together.  But I'm trying a little bit.

The animals are all well.  We lost a rooster a week or so ago.  Funny thing, our incubating eggs last summer.  Two hatched in July...both roosters.  The younger barred rock killed the older (prettier) roo.  The next two, hatched end of August...one barred rock roo.  The other appears to be a hen, breed unknown.   The last batch, hatched end of Sept...2 from our eggs and 4 from some extra dark eggs I got online...one barred rock (ours) roo...and one, might be a hen.  Of the 4 dark egg chicks, at least 2 are behaving like roosters.  I was hoping for a nice supply of pretty, dark eggs.  Oh, well.  Of course, our little flock of auracaunas (4 hens and 1 very cute roo) produce a nice supply of cute, small, blue eggs.  The 4 ducklings that survived our November hatch are doing well.  They live with the auracanas, but are good sized now, and will probably move to the duck pen soon.

The geese now live with the goats, as we suspected they killed one of the ducks.  They have weathered the winter quite well, and are funny when they peck at a goat who competes for their feed.  The geese are great alarmists, as they pipe up when someone is near.  Hubby gets home from work, they get noisy.  They let you know when someone is around. 

Guess that's it from the ranch these days.  That breath of spring is in the air, dancing with the cool of winter.  Soon enough, both will take a seat and let madame summer do her solo. 

Blessings!