Chickens, Week 1

Today, our chickens turn 1 week old.  I think.  We got them last Wednesday, and Tractor Supply said they had shipped from their breeders on Monday.  So they were likely a day old or less on Monday.  Anyway, one week old chickies!

They VERY quickly outgrew the storage tub brooder.  The one they're in now is slightly larger, and it's the last one I have that's clear.  So their next upgrade (and probably the time they will move to the sunroom) will be a solid storage tub :(

The waterer I made was too easy for them to knock around and it made a watery mess.  So we bought this one, which also made a mess.  So then I had the idea to put the waterer on a plate, which contains most of the wetness.  We also bought the chick feeder to minimize feed mess.

CHICKENS ARE MESSY.  We've been cleaning the brooder roughly twice a day... once a day before they figured out how to tip their water, and three times a day before I tried the plate trick.  Hopefully with the food container and the plate, we will now be able to go back to changing out their papers just once a day. 

They're also pretty rambunctious and are growing really quickly.  They've been experimenting with their lil baby wings once in a while, so I expect our next challenge will be keeping them off the top of the waterer and in the tub.

The sixth one is behind the water jar.

Dobby's obsessed and wants to kill them all and eat their fuzzy little faces.  Emma, as I predicted, is super chill about them, and likes watching them but is very nice and calm.  So it's been an interesting 5 days! 

Chickens!!!!!!

We have started a flock of backyard chickens!  Well, right now they are not "backyard" anything.  They are living room chickens.  When they start to smell and outgrow this brooder, they will become sun room chickens, then about a month after that, they will graduate to the back yard.  Fingers crossed that their coop will be built by then and they will not be homeless chickens!  LOL!

ANYWAY
Here's the current setup, just before adding the babies: Brooder- storage tub, lid- hardware cloth bent at the edges to form a lip, which secures the lid, heat lamp with 100W light bulb and thermometer to make sure it's warm enough, waterer- home made.  It's lined with newspapers and paper towels, which will probably be for the first two weeks or so.  We will just be sprinkling their feed on the ground of the brooder for the first week or so as well, since they are born with the impulse to forage and scratch for food.  The lid is half on (secured with a small weight) to help maintain the temperature.

The waterer was super easy to make.  I tried to make it with a large can (from tomato sauce), but during the testing phase it started to put rust in the water so I switched it out for a plastic cup.  You just make some small holes near the lip of the open end of a container, fill it with water, and put the cap (cool-whip container cut down to about 1.25") on top.  Flip it over and you're all set.

I like that the storage tub is clear, so the dogs can see in and the chicks can see the dogs.  Hopefully this means they will all get used to each other.  The bin is lofted up off the ground by about a foot, though, so the dogs cannot look down in through the top.  We joke that at least one of the chickens will be Emma's pet--I just have a feeling she is going to like them.  

We're Engaged!!!!

Well!  We're engaged! 
My family was visiting because John got Mom and Dad tickets to see Beethoven's Pastoral done by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra on Sunday, January 17.  Susan tagged along just to have a nice visit.  Saturday 1/16/16, we were looking for things to do, and John casually suggested going up to Mt. Washington to a lookout point.  Since the family doesn't get to see the city often, we all agreed it was an excellent idea.  What a sneaky guy.  We went up to the lookout point and he subtly guided us to one of the platforms that he had already scoped out and liked the best, in front of St. Mary's Church.  I was totally clueless.  It was kind of chilly, but we stood up there chatting a little until finally a lull in the conversation gave John his chance.  "There's another reason I wanted to come up here," he said.

Then we celebrated at Hofbrauhaus!!

YAY!

New Year's at Grace's

 

 

December Arizona Trip

Ok, I'm trying to catch up on all the awesome stuff I've been doing since I posted about the house.  In December, the Kellys and John went to Arizona to visit the Spectors!  It was so fun spending time with them!  It was a little weird that Arizona was about the same temperature as Pittsburgh in December.... but AZ had a lot more sun, which we really needed.  Pittsburgh is so cloudy!  So we soaked up the Vitamin D while we were there.  Here's a photo dump!

It was so fun! It's really cute how much the Spector kids love John and vice versa ;)

Sharon and John get a Christmas Tree

New house, new tradition!  For 2015, we got our very own live Christmas tree.  It was beautiful and big and smelled great.  It didn't drink very much water, though, so by the end it was very dry and dropped needles like crazy.  Overall a fabulous experience, though, and we'll get live trees until we have kids, most likely.  Photo dump!

<3

November Germany Trip

Oh, hey, blog reader(s)!  As you might imagine, November and December were super busy, yaknow with the holidays and whatnot.  Here's an overview of the Stuff Sharon has been Doing:

I went to Germany!  It was amazing.  John joined the Kelly gang for a tour of Christmas markets around Thanksgiving.  It was all my absolute favorite people, all together in a wintery wonderland.  We visited Heidelberg, Bamberg, Nürnberg, and Würzburg.  We drank Glühwein and beer all day, ate tasty treats at the markets, saw amazing old German architecture, bridges, adorable houses, some art, and some castles and churches.  It was a blast.  Here's a photo dump!

Heidelberg:

On our way to the Gasthaus (we rented a car), and a view from our window (Susan, John, and I shared a room, which was perfect and so comfy and awesome):

Bamberg:

Nürnberg, where John and I got an angel for the top of our Christmas tree:

And Würzburg, where we got Döner Kebaps!

YAY! Germany is so wonderful.  John loved being back in Bamberg, where he studied, and we talked a lot about moving there.  It was a great town.  It was a little weird being back in Heidelberg after 10 (!!!!) years, but it was also cool how much I remembered how to get around.  The trip was also great for both of us to practice our German.

~S
 

October: We go to the MD Renaissance Festival!

Trying to catch up on blogging! 
Every year, we go to the MD Renfest.  This year, it was just John, Susan, and me.  We dressed up (as always!) got a little drunk (as always!) and had a blast (yep!).

Susan even ate a turkey leg, since she's off vegetarianism right now.

John had been eyeing these wooden mugs for several years and finally bought one, and I got a drinking horn I've been thinking about for a while to go with my costume.  We look super cool.

~S