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

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