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Welcome to My Blog!
Schooling two active boys has never been more... interesting. That's the word I'm looking for!
I love my boys! God has given them the blessing of strong, active bodies and minds. We continually pray the first will remain intact, and the second will remain engaged with Him first, and then the school work. You'll meet my sweet sons, both entirely different, but both loving God to the best of their ability in the way He made them. I lovingly refer to them as my Bell Pepper Boy and my Habanero or Hambone. That should say it all!
This blog is an eclectic mix. The events, conversations, and the thoughts behind it all will be in here.
Every once in a while I'll try to capture something I don't want to forget. I hope you find things you enjoy. Please let me know if you do!
Blessings!
Our Curriculum
- Mystery of History vol. 1
- Saxon 5/4
- Horizons Grade 2
- A Beka Language
- Spelling Power
- Apologia Zoology 1
Books I'm Reading
- The Bible (Isaiah)
- Invitation to the Jesus Life
- Discover Your Child's Learning Style
- The Way They Learn
- Archimedes and the Door of Science
- (all things Trojan at the moment)
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Monday, September 29, 2008 Eggs-ceptional Development!
Posted in School Things
Those of you who are following the development of our quail chicks, I can't even begin to put into words how fast this goes. Remember that they hatched exactly one week ago today. They were tiny, and I managed to get pictures of their first minutes in the brooder, just eight or so hours after hatching and drying.
Well, last night we got pictures again. You might have a hard time believing me, but if you watched some of the specific developments going on now (feathering), you might actually be able to see differences in short periods of time (8 hours even)! This is the crazy-fast developing time.
Right now the chicks are entering what I would call their "gangly teenager" phase. Their adorable chick fluff is giving way to the new feathers that are poking through. They will get pretty odd-looking before they hit their lovely full-fledged adult stage.
You might be able to see that my guesses for the colors of these chicks just might be spot on. I believe one will be slate and the other silver or smoky. We'll see. . .
Here are the latest pics from late last night.
 Remember when they were newly hatched one week ago? That was then . . .
 This is NOW! See the amount of feathering? Just two days before, we could just barely see the first feathers poking through.
 You can see the covering on the feathers. The chicks are occasionally working to get their feathers a little more fluffed. Today, they are trying to FLY! (Hello!?!?! I forgot about this part!)
 Don't they look so different? From this angle, they still look cute and fluffy like we're used to seeing. Days from now, they will look very, very different! ;')
I hope you enjoyed the update! Tomorrow I'll be sharing our new voracious friend in our zoo! :'O
Blessings!
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Tuesday, September 23, 2008 Eggs-citing Pics?
Posted in School Things
Can you tell I'm running out of creativity for subject lines? Sorry, but it's getting harder to do the longer we document the hatching. Here is the entry I promised, though. I managed to get all of my pics uploaded to my Photobucket account, and now you have the fruits of my labor. ;')
Taking pictures in an incubator is pretty tough. I am so grateful that there are photo fixer programs out there, and that Photobucket now has a built-in fixer. Here we go, doctored photos and all!
 This is how I set up the eggs on Day 14. We wanted to be sure the chicks had a good chance at finding "up" when it came to hatching. We know that worked for two of them at least.
 This is the first chick to hatch. It's a little darker in color than the second one. He or she will probably slate in color. Remember the grid is 1/4" mesh under these little guys. ;')
 This is the second chick to hatch. He or she is slightly lighter and may be a slightly lighter slate or gray color.
 Here they are together as they are drying off. Once they are very dry they can be moved to the brooder. We hoped to leave them in a little longer, since their peeps tend to encourage other chicks to hatch if they are going to on that day.
 Remember my neat little line of eggs? Well, this is what two chicks running around like banshees will do to my little Type A egg organization. We moved the chicks to the brooder soon after this so we wouldn't have to worry about about eggs being tossed all over the place.
 Are these not the cutest little banshees you've ever seen?
Our brooder set up, as you can sort of see, has a clip light with a 60-watt bulb for heat. The thermometer is there so we can be sure the temperature is close to 95- or 100-degrees at all times this week. The beauty of this is that there are warmer and colder areas of the brooder. The chicks move to where they are comfortable.
You can't see our water set up, but it's a Tupperware lid with glass "fish bowl rocks" in it. The water has to be refilled often because it will dry out, but we don't want to have the chicks get wet...or worse...drown. So, we keep a close eye on it.
We're off to the store today to get some game bird starter feed. It will be too big for these chicks, so we'll have to crush it a bit more for them to be able to eat. Until now, they have been digesting the yolk from the egg. How do we know this? Well, they've had their first bowel movements today, and it's rather "yolk-y-looking" in general. (Was that TMI?)
That's a quick overview of the last day or so. I hope that gives you a good idea of what we've experienced. We have two chicks running around like crazy in the brooder, and that makes me very happy. We hope for more, but if not, God was gracious to give us these two. We'll cherish and tame whatever He gives us.
Have a great day, friends!
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Tuesday, September 23, 2008 Anyone . . . Anyone?
Posted in School Things
Well, this is Day 18. Day 17 yielded a total of two very cute, healthy, and active chicks. Praise God for that!
The incubator is quiet now. We'll wait the traditional two days to see if any more will hatch. It's possible, and I sure hope we do get some more. I don't hear anything yet this morning that tells me we might be getting more, but you never know. The incubator was very quiet this time yesterday, too.
The numbers for the hatch are a pretty simple breakdown. For those interested in figuring the statistics, feel free. There were 12 eggs shipped. There was 1 egg broken when the box arrived (fairly normal). There are 2 healthy chicks running around in my brooder. There are 9 eggs, obviously, waiting in the incubator.
We are the family that will take the time to open all of the eggs in the end to see what happened. All of our reading to this point will tell us at what point the the development ended. The first time we did that we learned a lot! This time I think we will only understand a lot more.
I'm hoping to get an entry today that gives more detail on the chicks we have. I didn't get any good pictures of hatching because of battery issues, but I definitely have pictures of the two after they were out and my batteries were charged. If one hatches today, that would be great for more pics. ;')
I also took a video last night of the two chicks running around like crazy. (Yes, Button Quail chicks can run all over...and all over each other...in a matter of hours.) I don't know how to put that on my blog, but they sure are cute!
Have a wonderful day, friends. I'll try to get pics up later today.
Blessings!
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Monday, September 22, 2008 Eggs-cruciating Wait!
Posted in School Things
Today is Day 17. This is the first day the eggs could hatch. We knew there might be factors to delay their "eggs-it" from their shells, and it looks like we may have to wait to see if any pip today during the day. (I'm having trouble remembering how long it took from pip to "eggs-it" last time. I didn't write anything down.)
Here's what we know.
- The eggs have been large end up all weekend.
- Today I chirped to see if any chicks responded from inside (a talent you didn't know I had).
- We heard a chirp response, so that's a good sign.
- We'll be waiting.
*sigh*
Anti-ci-pa-a-a-a-a-tion is making me wait. . . . .
Let's all pray that the chicks make a safe "eggs-it" into life. Thanks!
Have a good day! I'll try to get pics soon of what's going on. Nothing to see right now, though.
UPDATE!
* We had our first one hatch a little over an hour ago.
*The second one hatched a little over 30 minutes ago.
*I hear more chirping. . . . .
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