These were questions I posted on Homemaker’s Homestead bulletin board. They will give you an idea of what has been happening chick-wise here.

question about new chicks falling to the ground

April 2, 2007

Hi all! We are blessed to be having new chicks hatch on Thursday, if everything goes according to schedule, but our nesting box is about four feet off the ground and I'm concerned that the chicks will fall. A couple of days after the hen started sitting on the nest full time, I tried moving the box to another area of the chicken coop where she'd be isolated from the other chickens because they kept using her box. Although it was pretty funny, they managed to break two eggs which I was afraid to clean off the other eggs because I read that that would increase the chance of infection for the chick. Anyway, when I moved her, she got so agitated that she actually took an egg out of the box and started rolling it across the floor towards the original spot! So we put her and her box back and now they're pretty high.

Should I move her and her box to a lower location? If so, when?

Do chicks ever go past 21 days before they hatch?

April 6, 2007

I wrote down on the calendar when the mother hen started sitting on the eggs overnight and that would put yesterday at 21 days. We still have no chicks. She is sitting on fourteen eggs and I've often noticed an egg or two outside of her feathers. Is it possible she had so many eggs that they weren't able to stay warm consistantly and they won't hatch? Have you all ever experienced eggs going past 21 days?

April 10, 2007

Jeannie, I tried candling them at 12 days but ended up having to use a flashlight and couldn't tell too much. I thought all but two were good.

Yesterday morning I went out and one chick had hatched but was dead. I don't know if it just wasn't strong or if the mother smothered or smooshed it. At that time there was a live one hatching as I watched (exciting!) and since the other one didn't make it, I brought that one in the house in a box with water, hay, and a heat lamp on. I had to leave for the day and when I left, the temp at floor level was 89 degrees but when I got home, the chick was dead and the temp was 101 degrees. I think I cooked it. It was very sad. 

This morning, however, there was a live, fluffy chick under the mother, peeping away! Needless to say, I left it. Tonight when we went out, there was one breaking through the shell, so maybe we'll end up with at least two.

Joni in KS

April 12, 2007

Jeannie, these are the ones that were off the ground. Yesterday dd13 and I put new bedding in a fenced off area of the coop and I moved the entire wooden nesting box over there onto the ground. I also put out the chick waterer and the chick feeder with some food. The mother hen seemed to have no problem with the move whatsoever. What a relief!

As of 7:00pm tonight there were four live chicks and two more eggs with holes. It will be interesting to see how many more we get and how much longer she will sit on them.

This afternoon, dd10 brought in an egg which she said was a dud. She said it was just liquid inside. When I asked her how she knew, she said she shook it and it sounded like liquid. After the rest of us quit moaning, I calmly asked her if she had done that to all the eggs? She said no, but I have to wonder... We tried to explain that there might actually be a live chick in there and do you really want to be responsible for killing a chick if there was?

Since she was convinced it was a dud, that didn't really move her. Finally I quietly asked if she just wanted to open it because she was curious and when she said yes, I made a deal. I told her that as soon as the mother was off the nest for at least two hours (indicating she was done brooding) she could open every one of the eggs that were unhatched as long as none of them peeped.

Truly, this is a conversation I never would have conceived having!

The question now is, how long til the mother hen lets the babies out to get water? The first one hatched on Tuesday, so I would assume that to be day 1 and today is Thursday which would be day 3, right?

chicken lice

April 12, 2007

First, I am so thankful that I can turn to you all for help. Right now there are some pretty immense changes going on in our lives and this is one more problem I don't need.

The mother hen that I've been posting about has lice, I've concluded. She's a black giant and you can see the little critters moving around on the skin of her eyes and ears. As soon as I realized this last week, I put her in a trash bag with sevin in it with her head sticking out. How am I supposed to kill the lice on her head, though, if the sevin can't be around her eyes and ears? So yesterday, when I put DE on her new bedding, I used what was on my glove and stroked it onto the top and sides of her head. Do you think this is enough or should I be doing something else? I don't want the chicks to get the lice and get sick and die. Help!

Re: Do chicks ever go past 21 days before they hatch?

April 15, 2007

Well, for those of you keeping up with this,  :D here's an update.

We now have six adorable balls of fluff and today, the mother was off the nest. All the chicks have had food and water and seem to be strong and healthy. We had one egg that partially hatched and another with a hole; neither chick made it.

When the mama got off the nest today, we counted and there were 14 eggs still in the nesting box. This is bizarre since I originally left 14 in for her to sit on. If six hatched and I removed the partially hatched one, where did the others come from? I'm mystified.

And last, but not least, tonight she made a big fuss about getting back into the nesting box and arranging the remaining eggs in the right place. Dd10 and I were talking earlier and I had asked her if she thought I should move those eggs out of the box since they had been abandoned several hours earlier but she looked at me and very seriously said, "Mom, are you willing to be responsible for the death of those chickens if they're still alive?" You'll notice that was the conversation we had in the last post with our roles reversed. I guess it did make an impression.

Here's a pic with our very bad camera that we are still grateful to have.

I opened the door to the breezeway yesterday while I was taking out trash and stepped on some dark clothing. Since I'm used to stepping on dogs and cats, I tried to step lightly and hop away. Good thing I did since what I stepped on was this:

I am hoping to identify it from the picture. I took a tool used to hook chicken's legs and pulled the snake out of the breezeway with it then took the pictures while it was on the driveway. It was between four and five feet long. I had considered putting it in the basement since the mice have also started coming in with the cooler weather, but decided the children probably wouldn't like that. Rebecca fetched both the camera and chicken tool. I told Kaetlyn about it today at Robotics since she wasn't here when it happened and she absolutely refused to believe me. I can't wait to show her the pictures.

BTW If you're interested, Injured Chicken (also known as Swan) laid her first egg this week. I don't know why it took her so long to start unless it's that she was still healing internally. A second chicken started laying again and the two consistant layers continued laying. So, out of seven females, four are laying, but only two consistantly. Floppy Comb escaped again and has been living in the tree line by the driveway pretty much since my last post in August. With the cold snap we had last week, I was thinking it was time for her to join the others so the four youngers and I spent almost an hour trying to catch her. Those cedar trees and thick! Alas, our mission was unsuccessful. I don't know quite what to do about that though.

The three older children have been involved in Robotics since the beginning of September. It's a six week program where all competing teams are assigned a task and given a kit of materials. They then spend the next six weeks using the engineering process to build a robot to perform the task. There are two parts to the competition in the sixth week. The first part is the actual robot competition and the second is the BEST (Boosting Engineering, Science, and Technology) award which documents the engineering process and presents that information in a notebook, a presentation, and table display (booth). The team also gets awarded points for Spirit and Sportsmanship. The top two Robot teams and the top two BEST teams get to go to Regionals in Ft. Smith Arkansas extending the season to eight weeks.

Nick is co-booth leader, Kaetlyn is on the electronics team and is a driver spotter, and Jenna is on the claw team and has helped paint the booth.

When we had game day last Saturday, we came in fifth in the Robot competition and first in the BEST award. The BEST award is actually the more prestigous award and coming in first place meant we get to go to Regionals next weekend. This is the fifth year our family has been involved in Robotics (we took last year off) and we have been able to go to Regionals five times now. The team devotes an incredible amount of time and effort to this program and it pays off. We have a large amount of parental involvement and some of the most wonderful, Godly families you'd meet anywhere. To me, the skills they learn through Robotics; how to run a drill press, public speaking, and how to be a leader, for example, are perks What really draws us back year after year are the people; loving familes who live their lives according to Godly principles shown through the leadership and the relationships. Our children are with these kids for hours on end, five days a week for six to eight weeks which gives them plenty of time to see those principles in action.

Here are a few pictures of the children at Robotics:

And here is Nathan cheering on the team on game day:

Rebecca is cheering the team on from the front row so I have no pictures of her, unfortunately.

Although the older three and either Todd or I depending on who takes them, have been spending so much time at Robotics, Nathan and Rebecca have become involved with the Christmas play at church. They have practice every Sunday night. Nathan is the old grandfather and Rebecca is the announcer. I can't wait to see it in December!

Also in December will be the piano recital for Kaetlyn, Jenna, Rebecca, and Nathan. They've all been working hard on their recital pieces and I wish you could hear them.

Between working at the local grocery store, Robotics, and church, Nick has barely had time to breathe let alone clean his room. He has, however, found time to play on his computer and practice his guitar. Considering he's had no formal instruction, he can do some pretty neat stuff and I love listening to him.

Well, it's getting late and I'm going to turn in. To everyone who reads this, thank you, and if you think about it, pray for a little boy named Elijah Atkeson who is currently recovering from brain surgery for seizures at a hospital in Memphis Tennessee. I know his family well and although they have a heavy burden, their faith in the Lord is a light that shines brightly on everyone around them. If you're interested in learning more, you can visit their hospital carepages. Just ask, I'll be happy to show you how.

Joni

7-31-06

Some of you may remember me writing a couple of weeks ago about something attacking our chickens the day before county fair? Two out of 10 were killed, one disappeared, and one was severely injured. We had an additional one for dinner right after the fair because we had one more rooster than hens at that point and he had a bare spot on his neck where the head rooster had gotten him, poor thing. That left three roosters and three hens (although the injured hen won't go anywhere near the others). Anyway, our ratio of roosters to hens was way out of whack at that point so I decided to purchase 5 hens from some fellow county fair showers.

Keep in mind, our hens are due to start laying eggs any time now (but with this heat...who knows?), so getting these older hens means we don't have to start over from day one, they are already laying. Turned out, their hens were the same age as our hens, so they weren't laying either, except for one. The seller knew I really wanted eggs, so she picked one she knew was laying. How exciting! To finally have eggs! I expected a few days for her to adjust, then she'd start laying for us.

Here's where the irony comes in. We get them home, put them in the outside pen while the original bunch free-ranges, put them in a separate area in the coop that night, and the next day, the children are so delighted with them, they play with them, and talk to them, and hold them, and my 6 year old leaves the pen door open just a little too much, and one of them escapes! And wouldn't you know it? The only one that's laying eggs is the wily one who escapes. The children aren't able to catch her and she disappeares into the tree line, to be seen only briefly with our original flock, and then nothing, despite searches with moi and the older children.

Ahhh, the irony...

So now we continue to wait for not three, but seven hens to lay just one egg, just one!

BTW, The chicken who was pretty severely injured is doing so well, she has chosen to hang out with the new chickens and is actually head hen with them.

UPDATE:

8-2-06

Never doubt that God gets involved in the small things.

Later, on Monday, the dog noses into our outside pen and somehow gets the gate open, letting all of the new chickens and injured chicken out. A few minutes later, I look out to call the dog back inside and see the chickens. I groan. Outside I go to round up three of the new chickens and put them back into the outside pen. But where is the last new chicken and injured chicken? Nowhere to be seen. As I walk the perimeter of our 5 acres and the two tree lines, I pray, "Please, God, bring these chickens back. Let us at least have these." I head back towards the pen and guess who the head rooster is chasing? The missing new chicken! I look in the coop and guess who I see? Injured chicken! Hooray! Thank you God.

But that's not all. I pray as I'm walking towards the house, "God, thank you so much for bringing back these chickens, but if it's your will, could you possibly bring back egg-laying chicken?" Then I go inside. A bit later, dd10 who helps me with the chickens is out and she hears squawking behind her. Yep. Head rooster is chasing egg-laying chicken! Thank you, God!

All safe and sound again.

7-9-2006

Our hen that was injured Monday seems to be doing much better, so I let her outside today. I was paying attention to another chicken around the corner when I heard an awful squawking. Our dominant rooster, Feathers, was on top of the hen and she had collapsed. I'm not sure if he was trying to kill her or if he was trying to mate with her or what. I shooed him away and she just layed there, poor thing. I gently picked her up and put her back in the outside pen. She seemed okay.

Feathers came over the the pen and started doing this quick, stomping, kind of dance and she would look away, move a couple of steps away and settle down, and he would dance again. She was right next to the fence where he was and I wondered why she didn't just get up and walk to the other side. Can anyone explain this chicken behavior?

Losing three chickens and having another one injured has sure upset the balance of power in the flock. We effectively have four roosters and two hens left, in addition to the injured hen. Feathers has pecked/bitten raw the neck of one of the Barred Rock roosters. The other one has been at the county fair. Before I took him, though, Feathers had gone after both of them, so I put them in the outside pen and wouldn't you know it? The county fair Barred Rock went after the other one and was nipping/biting it's neck. That's how I determined who to take to the fair. LOL I intend to butcher the two Barred Rocks this week. I don't have enough compartments in the chicken coop to separate each of the Barred Rocks, the injured chicken and the rest of them.

I am wondering if the injured chicken will ever be accepted by the others? Should I just let them be to fight it out? I'd really like to keep the injured hen since we got chickens mainly for the eggs and I'd only have two left if something happened to her.

UPDATE:

I only butchered the pecked Barred Rock because the other one seems to have established himself with the others. Nicholas refused adamantly to eat him at dinner with the rest of the family. I didn't force him, but explained once again that that's one of the two reasons we got chickens in the first place, for the healthier, antibiotic-free meat.

7-6-06

7-4-06

We got home late tonight since we were in town doing fireworks with the grandparents and when I went to close the chicken coop door, I did a head count, and four of our chickens weren't there. My dd9 is heartbroken because two of the missing ones were particularly special to her. We usually let the ten of them free-range all day and as we come in and out, we do a quick count. We've been blessed so far, but these four were gone tonight. As I went with my dd14 to feed the sheep, we came across a half-circle of white feathers which must have belonged to one of our Delawares. That's the only type we have three of and because of that, the only ones my dd9 was going to show in the county fair, which starts tomorrow. Now what do we do?

UPDATE:

We did find three of them. Turns out one was in the coop roosting on top of a gorilla rack with two boxes on the top. He was so close to the rafters, I couldn't possibly see him. In fact, I had no idea any of them could fly that high. LOL We found our beloved Longneck about 15 feet from the coop door, dead. He had a few wounds but was intact. Likewise one of the Delawares that we found 70 or 80 feet away, clear in another part of the property. We never found poor Fluffy. 

In the coop, I found that another Delaware had been injured, so I sectioned off a space for her, went to the feed store to get a product called Blue and some extra pine bedding, put the bedding down, put peroxide on her wounds, put on the Blue, went to the grocery store for apple cider vinegar, put that in her water, put on the heat lamp, and prayed. Today, she's doing well and I will put her in the outside pen for a while today, and see how she does. Dd9 didn't have much time to mourn them since the county fair started the next day.

I asked dd9 how she felt about taking one of the other ones and she said she wanted to. I explained that according to what I had been told, since these were feed store chickens, we really didn't have any chance of winning in this purebred category, so this would really be a learning year. She was okay with that, so we washed the chicken outside in a tub with shampoo. You've never lived til you've tried to wash a chicken! Their feathers are NOT hair.

At the fair, our Barred Rock won first in it's breed in 4-H and first in open class plus Champion in both 4-H and county. We think she only had 5 or 6 birds she was competing against, but for a first year, it was exciting and certainly enough to take her mind off of the lost chickens.

Her sisters did well, too. Dd14 won Second Place with her sheep and dd13 won First Place with her sheep and Reserve Grand Champion in Showmanship. Dd14 sold hers for $275 plus market value and dd13 sold hers for $250 plus market value. That gives them enough money to pay us back for the sheep, food, and cleaning supplies plus have some for buying another animal. They both want to do a sheep and a dairy goat. Actually dd14 would like to do a dairy cow, but I think the price would probably be too high? Surely with the cost of supplies, it would be too high.

This adorable puppy came late Wednesday night. A gigantic "Thank you!" to Todd's brother's family for him. In honor of his black, black coat, the children have named him Shadow. He’s a chunky little thing but we’re all totally hooked. He’s managed to get his head stuck in the space between the gate and fence post at least three or four times. He’s only four months old, though, so we can cut him some slack. He loves attention and will sit and let you stroke him for the longest time. We’re trying to make sure he gets lots of exercise so he can become the trim, energetic puppy we know he can be. So far, he’s not as enthused as we are about that idea. If you throw him a ball, for instance, he’ll perk up a bit then decide to go after it. Sometimes, he’ll get all the way to it and sometimes he’ll get halfway and decide it’s a bit too much trouble. Sometimes, he just won’t even try.

Here's a picture:

Here are the two lambs that Jenna and Kaetlyn are raising for 4-H. They were born in January and are named Titan and Bob. Bob is much more laid back than Titan and hardly gives Kaetlyn any trouble putting the halter on. Titan is still a bit wild and has to be cornered while he’s eating. They’re both getting better the more they’re walked. The black-faced one is Titan and the light-faced is Bob.

And lastly, the chickens are all doing great. We’re letting them free-range most of the day, now, and they haven’t strayed too far. I think they’re the ones responsible for pulling up Kaetlyn’s garlic in the garden (don’t tell her I said so) but otherwise, the free-ranging is working pretty well.

Tuesday:

• Cleaned out shop-The shop had become cluttered with moving boxes we had broken down, storage stuff, the chick box and it all really needed to be swept, so we moved all of the boxes into the chicken coop on the wood racks, moved all the storage stuff from the chicken coop to the shop area, emptied the chick box onto the compost pile, and gave all the shop a good sweep. After lunch we cleaned out the dirt side of the chicken coop and put a layer of hay down from the barn. Finally the chickens have their coop. Yeah! They were really outgrowing their box.

• Around 4:00, Dusty (a young man from our new church) came over with his truck and we emptied out the side of the barn where the sheep were going to be housed, stacking most of the stuff alongside the barn. There was a fair amount of old and even rotting wood, fence posts, the inevitable baling wire, and lots and lots of manure. Dusty worked with a shovel on the hallway and cleared away the manure to the wood floor for a distance of about 4 feet. When Jenna and I tried to reach the floor of the sheep section, the shovel just went down and down and down. After the hole went well below the level of the door jamb, I became a little alarmed and concluded it must be a dirt floor. I gazed over the now pitted floor and told her to fill the hole back up, we’ll just try to level it out today. (In the end, we got the sheep May 2^nd and put them in with the floor leveled off but sloping towards the door.)

Wednesday:

• Dug out the main garden paths
• Joni spent a couple of hours spraying the poison ivy and poison hemlock
• Todd cleaned shower drain with the drill attached to an auger(?) but said it was still draining slowly. It had gotten to the point where I would use as little water pressure as I could stand and turn it off halfway through the shower then back on after it had drained otherwise it would overflow.

Thursday:

• My motivation for getting out of bed was to finish cleaning out the shower drain  with baking soda, vinegar, and hot water. I was dying to know if it would work. Todd had almost used lye Wednesday night, but I asked if I could try this first. How satisfying it was to see the bubbles from the chemical reaction. More satisfying yet to see the water going down the drain no matter how much water I put in it. It’s been lovely to take a shower now without having to worry about flooding but, when Todd tried to exchange the old shower head with the one from the Murdock house, he found out it had been soldered so he couldn’t get it off. He did manage to turn it just enough that now it won’t spray in the center of the shower cubicle. Something for later, I suppose.
• I spent a couple of back-breaking hours digging the smaller paths in the garden. Didn’t get to finish. There’s never enough time in the day.
• We had been talking about getting a dog for months and when we had seen Ken and Laura in January, we had talked about possibly getting one of their puppies. That idea was scratched when Laura explained that she had intended to use the money from the sale of the pups to pay for her college classes. Totally understandable. However, this weekend when we had been at Vic and Elaine’s, Vic had said one of the pups was now available; we needed to call Ken and Laura. The kids were ecstatic. It had been planned that Kaetlyn would go up with Vic and Elaine on their visit to Ken and Laura’s this weekend and now she could bring the puppy back with her. The impending arrival of the puppy meant that we needed to make a home for it. It was determined that we would make a room in the barn it’s new home, but the room had to be cleaned out first. Dusty came to help with that.

It wasn’t as much trouble as I had expected. There were a lot of metal farm pieces that we wheelbarrowed to the metal shed, more pieces of wood which we moved to the other wood pile from the sheep cleanout or into the garden to help make raised beds, the green couch which had been partially suspended from the ceiling which the boys just left outside, a large bag of alfalfa, and the once again inevitable baling wire.

Turned out, Vic and Elaine thought they would be getting back too late from Kansas City to deal with a dog so Ken will be bringing it on the 10^th.

• Mr. Wiemeyer arrived just when the kids and I were leaving to meet up with Todd to look over our set-up for the sheep. I barraged him with questions, he approved the set-up then I rushed to take Dusty home and on to meet Todd.
• A woman at Todd’s work was going through a divorce and needed to sell her trampoline for only $100. When Todd initially told me about it, 3 or 4 other people were already in line for it but turned out no one got over there to get it which left us in the running again. He called her as soon as he heard and we went over at the earliest opportunity, tonight. It only took about an hour for all of us to take it down. That’s one advantage to having your own army!
• The roofer came to inspect the shingles that had blown off. The roof was just done in January. I was pleased that this man was American and actually understood English. He said he wasn’t able to get the top part because the roof was too steep, he would have to have someone with a toe-board come out. (It’s now May 6^th, no one’s been out, and it’s been raining all week. Go figure. Someone did come out to replace the gutter they messed up, though, so that was good.)

Friday:

• Signed up Kaetlyn, Jenna, and Rebecca for 4-H
• Took plastics to recycling, freeing up space in the kitchen and garage
• Took Nick to school
• Rained all day, we really needed it
• Todd and Joni went out to see “Nanny McFee”, first night out alone in weeks

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Woke up later than I wanted to, 9:00am. Got dressed and took a bowl of cereal outside and ate it on the bench at the chicken pen. Rebecca and Jenna must have gotten them out of their box and put them in the pen. The other night when Rebecca put them away after I got home late, I made a point of thanking her. Her reply? Something like, “Of course I put them away. I love the chickens. I begged for them!”

It’s always fascinating to watch the chickens. I especially enjoy the stand-offs when two of them rush towards each other, get about an inch away from each other, puff up and stare each other down.

The wind at the pen was somewhat strong and after picking four leaves out of my cereal, I moved over to the garden bench. It’s much calmer there. After a while, Jenna and Kaetlyn joined me and we worked for a couple of hours. We’ve been clearing the soil of the dead (and not so dead) grass and clumps and planting as we clear. So far, I have broccoli, cauliflower, and onions in my cleared spot. I’m currently working on a large area for the corn, pumpkins, watermelon, cucumbers, and pole beans. I’ve had to clear Kaetlyn’s spot because I foolishly made a deal to clear hers in exchange for her digging the ditch around the whole garden. Unfortunately for me, she got done way faster.

Kaetlyn has a strawberry plant, onions, and flowers planted. Jenna has the same with different flowers. Rebecca has two broccoli plants, one cauliflower, one onion, and some flowers. Nathan has four watermelon seeds planted.

The garden was tilled by Mr. Pearson. That’s another story.

K, J, R went with my sister and niecses to hold min pins (miniature pinchers) at Petsmart out east. The dogs were up for adoption. While they were doing that, I mowed the back of the old house, Nick mowed the front, Nathan cleaned the small bathroom floor and Todd bowled for Big Brothers, Big Sisters at West Acres Bowling Alley. After he got back to the old house, he put most of the tile down in the office area of the kitchen. He got help from me, K, J, and N. Nick cleaned the gutters and his bedroom floor, J cleaned the big bathroom counter and sink, and K cleaned out the lower kitchen cabinets. T was almost done when I rushed the four olders to Goodwill 10 minutes before they closed. R was the only one to find clothes and she got two nice skirts, one shirt, a pair of shorts, and a pair of shoes. She was tremendously excited.

Once out of Goodwill, we headed back to pick T and ND up but before we could leave, we had to jumpstart the blue car and move it to the driveway. While Todd and I were doing that, most of the kids were involved in throwing pinecones at each other and surprisingly, K was the only one to get hurt. That game was just an accident waiting to happen.

It's been what?...3 weeks? T had several days off and we went to the new house almost every one of those days. These are some of the things that have been accomplished:

• T got the two windows in the garage jackhammered out.
• Jo painted the walls in the two upstairs bedrooms. ND, R, and J helped in their rooms.
• T framed about 3/4 of the walls in the garage rooms.
• Jo painted the woodwork in the upstairs bedrooms.
• The kids started moving the hay from the loft into the round (previously) grain shed.
• K, J, and N washed the bedroom closets so they could be painted.
• Jo started painting the upstairs closet.
• We had to tear off the wallpaper from a couple of walls that turned out to be a cement-like plaster or it would have come off or bubbled badly when painted; T & Jo closet and ND & R room.
• One whole wall in the main room downstairs has the wallpaper off. It took about 10-12 hours just on that one wall so I decided to work on something more productive for a while.
• Amost forgot that the roofers finally came and replaced some but not all of the roof.

We've taken several boxes to the new house to clear clutter spots here so that we can show the house and hopefully get a renter in here. I just don't see how we'll be able to move by the 1st of February so that means a double house payment that month. Ouch!

We've been blessed with an abundance of good weather; many cloudless days and temps in the 50's or even 60's. It hit me one day last week that I've been so appreciative of this warm weather and yet it's causing fires all the way from Texas up here to Kansas.

The radiator is working great but we have yet to really test it out since the weather hasn't been near freezing when we've been out.

We've been getting mail at the new place. We are now members of an electric co-op and the water bill has come. There was also a letter from our realtor, reminding us that it had been a month since we'd closed. Hard to believe a month had already gone by.

We have yet to get trash service and have been taking the kitchen trash with us when we go. I really don't even know who to call. I'll have to ask our neighbors. I'd love to have a bonfire and take care of it that way but there's a burn-ban in our county (among others) so it wouldn't be possible even if I knew what I was doing. I was about to say "we" knew what we were doing but I'm sure T does know how to do a bonfire. I'm frequently amazed at what he knows how to do even after 18 yrs of marraige!

We've ended up using the washer and to a more limited extent, the dryer because the drain for our washer here became clogged about New Year's. It's ironic that we've been working so hard on the other house that we've had no time to fix that here. Each time we come out we wash one load or two and bring them home to dry. I cringe each time a load is done because I have no idea what our septic system can handle. I've seen that it can handle two loads of wash about two hours apart but will a 500 gallon tank be able to handle 3 showers/baths, 1 dishwasher load, and a load of laundry or two in one day?

joni

We went out to the new house again tonight. As we were walking towards the barn, K, who was leading the way, stopped abruptly, looked up at the stars and started oohing and aahing. The rest of the children quickly followed suit and we spent several minutes observing all of the stars we don't see in the city and identifying constellations seen in books but overshadowed by the city lights. The children's response was a small confirmation that we were doing the right thing by moving to the country.

The kids and I went to work on the house two days ago, Monday. Todd joined us after he got off of work. On the way home, he picked up dinner from the nearest town, 10 minutes away. He didn't want anything to get cold so he brought a gourmet meal of Quik Trip hot dogs and Lunchables. When I expressed surprise at the fare, he said something like, "Well, there wasn't anywhere else!" We all started chiming in, "There's Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, McDonald's, Sonic, Subway!" Obviously, we pay attention to the important stuff.

As far as work goes, Kaetlyn and I started taking off the wallpaper. It was slow going indeed. After about two hours, we gave it up until Tuesday when we brought back the wallpaper remover chemical. Jenna started cutting the carpet in the upstairs bedrooms into 4 ft. strips and Nicholas took them out to the driveway. He also swept the barn loft stairs and set up the stereo so we'd have some good working music. Rebecca and Nathan started taking nails out of the walls. I was proud of them all, they worked hard.

Tuesday, we came back armed with dinner supplies for bacon, eggs, and blueberry muffins. We got to use the stove that came with the house. It's much newer than ours current one and a pleasure to cook with.

But before we got to eat, we started again on the wallpaper and the carpet. The wallpaper was still difficult to take off. The scorer/scraper tool I got was really just a scraper so the chemical didn't work as well as it could have. By the time Kaetlyn and I had worked for another couple of hours and not even finished one wall, I was ready to help Todd tear down all of the sheetrock and just put up new. I'll buy the additional scorer tool before I give up but I have seen the enemy and the enemy is textured wallpaper!

Jenna shop-vaced(sp?) the first bedroom upstairs and cut up the carpet in the downstairs bedroom. Nicholas put the younger two to work pulling up the padding in the other upstairs bedroom and the downstairs bedroom. He was right, they went to it with gusto and tore up almost all of it. K, J, N, and I bagged it or rolled it all up and took it out side. Now we just have to shop-vac those two rooms and we can start on the walls.

We did discover something troubling Monday night. Todd went to follow pipes to figure out the feasiblity of moving the washer and dryer to the room off of the kitchen when he heard water running. We figured out it wasn't in the house so we grabbed the flashlight and went out to the uncovered septic tank (and when are they going to come back out and cover that up?) but saw no evidence of water. He then headed over to the well in back of the house and sure enough, the ground around the hand pump was sodden. I think Todd was actually a little concerned about the nearby propane tank sinking into the ground. He managed to turn the water off but that meant no water yesterday or until he can get it fixed.

No water meant no toilet usage, so we took a bathroom break at the local library. It was the first time we had been there and though it's small, I'm impressed. They don't seem to be struggling financially and have a pretty good selection. In fact, the woman said they had just gotten an $8,000.00 grant to buy non-fiction children's books with and they should be on the shelf today. Exciting!

One more thing about Tuesday. We had a visitor. The previous owner's youngest daughter came by. We hadn't met her yet. She was telling us stories from when they were children. For instance, apparently the linoleum that was under the carpets upstairs comes from her mother's previous home. When I asked if they pried it up to bring it over, she said they didn't used to glue it down, they just layed it so it was easy enough to bring over.

The best thing about her visit, though, was that as she was coming in, Kaetlyn was scraping wallpaper and Nick was taking carpet out. I think somebody else was working too, overall making a very good impression!

joni

It's been one week since we closed on our house in the country. Beautiful wheat fields surround our five acres. It's like the best lawn anyone could ever have, restful to the eyes and the soul.

Todd and I have wanted to move out to the country for the last ten years or so but we got busy raising a family of five children and it wasn't until a year and a half ago that we got serious. Our house in Wichita, KS wasn't ready to sell and it took this long to get it ready. The Lord made money available in a couple of ways and we were able to make some repairs, paint every room in the house a nice neutral color, get new medium-grade neutral carpeting, and new neutral ceramic tile for the kitchen. 

While we were working on the remodeling, we were diligently searching for houses. We found some, too. We found one right down the street. It was a very large house that used to be a boy's home and needed a lot of work. We were lucky enough to find out about it before it was actually  listed. Unfortunately, we were not the only ones to be lucky enough to find out about it before it was actually listed. Knowing how much much money it was going to need to fix it up, we offered a little less than they were wanting for it. The other family offered exactly what they wanted for it. They got it. We continued searching. We found another house in Caldwell, KS, about an hour from Wichita. Unfortunately, while we  were offering a little less than they were wanting, they, too, sold it to someone else for their asking price. You'd think we'd have learned. We also found one west of Wichita about 45 minutes out. We went to look at it on a Sunday and before we could sneeze, they had it under contract on Monday. Then there was the house in Udall, fifteen acres and 9 outbuildings. We offered on it only to find out it was in forclosure and they couldn't sell it to us unless we had cash. We didn't. Next, there was the one just north of Wellington. The owner had run out of money before he had finished the house but it had 3000 sq. ft., an elevator (admittedly not running), and a bidet (try explaining that to a 6 yr. old!). We offered what we felt we could, more than we had on any other house, but his bank needed $10,000 more. We just couldn't justify it. Then came this house.

Our wonderful realtor, Denise, emailed the listing in Cheney with the attached note that said, "This house probably won't work out but I didn't want to leave any stone unturned." She didn't think it would work out because it was listed with less than an acre and two outbuildings. Turns out the listing was wrong and it came with five acres and five wonderful outbuildings. When Denise and I were looking at it the first time, we were outside trying to figure out which two outbuildings were included. An older gentleman walked over from the only other house on the road and introduced himself as a son of the owner. We asked him about the outbuildings and he said, "Oh, they're all included and there's five acres." Denise and I looked at each other with restrained excitement. As Denise put it, she tried to pick her jaw up off the floor before he noticed.

Anyway, five weeks after that, we got the house. God is good. Now we're dealing with some issues which I'll get into next time.

joni