Sharon and Susan Doing Stuff Together!

John and I visited Susan in D.C. the weekend after my birthday.  It was so nice!  We were hoping to be there for peak cherry blossom time, but ended up missing it by about a week.

First, I chopped off Susan's hair.  We saved it so she could send it to Locks of Love.

Then we went down to the Washington Monument and Tidal Basin area.  Before we left Susan's neighborhood we went to her co-op to get sandwich materials.  We ate a picnic lunch of the AMAZING sandwiches on a bank near the obelisk and watched the kite festival.  It was my favorite part of the day.  We all picked our favorite kites and admired the ones that went really high.  It was delightful.

Then John and I got ice cream, because of course we did.

Then we all had a nice stroll around the Tidal Basin before going out to a BBQ place for dinner.

<3
~S

Meanwhile, my engagement ring!

I got my engagement ring back from Henne's in Pittsburgh.  Highly recommend them--they did amazing work with my own ideas and it turns out I had such specific designs in mind they copied a sketch of mine almost exactly--so, truly a custom piece and one I designed myself.  It's gorgeous and I'm completely in love with it.

Hooray! Now I actually have a ring to wear also :)

Chickens Week 6!!

Holy Chickens, Batman!  These little girls grow SO FAST.  I know I mentioned it in my last post... but... seriously.  I don't think I was methodical about documenting their growth, but let's see what I have:

Pretty quickly after my last post, I built this Frankenstein brooder from three cardboard boxes.  They're still in it, though they've certainly outgrown it.  Mostly we're just close enough to being finished their coop that we're being stubborn about building them another larger brooder.  They started in the cardboard in the living room but after two weeks moved to the sun room.

3/28

3/28

 Here they are happy in their new cardboard brooder! When we switched to cardboard we also switched to pine shaving bedding.  Much better! We were able to go a week without changing the bedding. 

4/1, Sharon for scale

4/6.  I think this is Joyce.

4/13.  This is either Buffy or The Mayor.  It was hard to tell them apart at the time.

4/16, their first time outside!

We brought them outside while we worked on their new coop.  They LOVE being outside!  It may have something to do with the fact that their brooder is too small.... but.... also who doesn't love being outside? 

4/17

Here you can see the wild Dobby hunting from the position on the right.  He still REALLY wants to eat the chickens.  (Also pictured: a bandaid on his butt because his anal sac ruptured.  That's another whole story I will spare you.)

4/26

4/26

You can see they have grown a lot!  I'll make a separate post about the coop construction, which has been arduous. 
~S