::meet the ladies::

Remember when I said that Phoebe and Benjamin wanted to start an egg business. Well, some friends wanted to tidy up their back yard and so they gave us their hens. These were really more like pets than livestock, and came with cute names, such as "Fluffy, Tweetie and Blackie". They are fitting in just fine and Cogburn is happy with them. Although their names have changed off and on, depending who you ask, you might be told "Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner" or something really cute.

They are all very tame and sweet. The red one started laying eggs the last week of December and "Fluffy" the one with the fluffy head laid her first egg today. The black one should be laying soon. As of right now we have one that lays brown eggs and one that lays off white eggs. The kids tell me that the black one has green earlobes so she should be laying green eggs. Pretty cool!!

Cogburn hanging out with the ladies. He is still tame and nice, and he takes care of the hens. When we put them up at night, he's the last one in the coop and sleeps by the door. (by the way, just so it's said, I had no idea they were making a remake of True Grit when we named him...just thought you might like to know that.)

And this is how the girls go tend to the chickens...in the jeep. By the time they get the battery and load up the jeep which in the front of the house, they could already be at the coop checking for eggs... which is probably why Benjamin usually gets to bring the egg in. But they have fun and it is a highlight of Esther's day to "Ride, ride, ride."

We should be finishing the coop in the next couple of weeks and will be getting about 2 dozen hens for Phoebe and Benjamin. We'll keep you posted.

Christmas Dresses for the girls

We, as in Phoebe and I, decided that the girls needed matching Christmas dresses this year. Because of their age difference, we had a hard time finding matching patterns. So we used several different patterns and altered them... it's good that I have a thing for NOT following instructions.

The rest of the photo shoot:

Here's the low down: for Esther's dress we used McCall's 5791 view E. I adjusted the sleeves a bit and put an overskirt over the satin skirt. For Elizabeth's dress (the doll) we used Simplicity 3547 (bodice is view G and skirt is view C). For Phoebe's we used the bodice of McCall's 6098 and I just added a skirt that was 3x the width of the bodice.

I see more matching dresses in our future!

Bees

Last Friday night a friend called and asked if we wanted to come over and help harvest "a little bit of honey." Do we???? Of course we do!!

Gabriel has been entralled with bees forever and has wanted a hive for several years. Our friends have offered him bees, but until now we really didn't have the space for them and we wanted to make sure that Gabriel understood that there was more to beekeeping than just the bees...there's also the honey and wax. He got the book Backyard Beekeepers for his birthday and has really enjoyed it.



Checking the frames for honey


Gabriel and Benjamin with our friend in front of a hive. Benjamin was the only one to get stung...it was a badge of honor.


Uncapping the honey comb.

We had a great time and it looks like bees are in our future.
Gabriel and I made some lip balm that he is going to sell to help earn the money for his first hive. Hopefully, within the next few months, we will have bees!