hatch day!

It's raining, finally.  We got about 3/4" today!  The plants in the ground are looking really pleased.  It might be a while before the rest of the plants get in the ground though... everything being so wet & muddy.  This is the give-and-take of working with the forces of nature.

The weekend was relaxing & sunny, though.  I spent a little more time down at Clermont, at the Sheep & Wool Festival.  I learned how you take the raw fleece after you shear a sheep, "card" it with these hairbrush-thingees into "roving", then you spin it into yarn on a spinning wheel!  Of course you have to get the burs out & wash some of the lanolin out & maybe dye it too.Look at the leaves on this buckeye!  Summer is here already!

I also had a visitor to the farm, who enjoyed chasing chickens & "driving" the big green tractor.

And... the chicks started hatching today!  I felt underneath the mama hen this morning & instead of just the warm eggs, there was a pair of little feet & something fuzzy & moving.  If I stood really still for a while I could hear peeping, and the hen would answer with low clucks.  Later on this afternoon I felt at least 4 chicks, and even felt an egg with cracks on it, in the process of hatching!  More pictures to come, I promise.

Tomorrow I will move mom & babies to a separate section of the henhouse, with chick feed, a chick-safe waterer (so they don't drown).  This will be a big move for them, and a real test to see how protective of a mama she is!