This old house.....

Well we did it! Our offer was accepted for a charming (if somewhat derelict!) 1920s three season, cottage/house in need of lots of TLC. It is situated on 7.2 beautiful acres of lawn with mature trees (2.2 acres) and another 5 acres of woods and trails. As they say in Italian it will require 'molto lavaro' or much work and certainly 'molto lira'! We have loved the property since we first saw it 30 years ago and it's within walking distance of where we currently live.  I plan to blog about our adventures in restoration and hopefully in a few months we will be living in our beautiful new home.

Flowers from the 2013 garden

Kitchen Potager Garden 2013

Gertie's first egg!!!!!!

They grow so fast!

It's amazing how quickly the chicks are growing!!  They were two day old chicks and in the three days we've had them,  they've begun to develop some wing feathers and a couple have sprouted little pin feathers on their tails.  The Easter Eggers (Charlie, Lulu, Cleo) and  seem to be developing the most quickly, followed by the Barred Plymouth Rocks (Sweet Pea and Etta) and lastly the  Red Stars (Gertie and Ruby).  Charlie and Lulu are the largest and most dominant so far.  I sprinkled a few dried meal worms in along with their starter feed.  When one chick finds a worm, the others chase her all around the brooder until she stops and gobbles it up.  They have some fine parakeet grit sprinkled among with the wood shavings which they love scratching for.  Gretchen, our miniature dachshund is mesmerized by them and can sit for hours watching  CV (Chicken Vision :)   We enjoy watching their high-jinks too.

Chick Pics

Chick Express.......

Picked my chicks up from the post-office at 7:00 AM this morning!   I ordered 7 chicks from My Pet Chicken (2 Barred Plymouth Rocks, 2 Red Stars, and 3 Easter Eggers).  They came in a cardboard carrier and they were cheeping like crazy.  Got them squared away under the brooder lamp and they are settling in well.  Gretchen, our miniature dachshund, is a little out of sorts but hopefully she'll come around soon.