Eggs

It's happened. The chickens have started laying eggs. This is a little earlier then we expected but there is a little story behind that. About a month ago we had six chickens eaten in the middle of the night. It was a very sad experience for some of us. Of course, this did not include any of the three full size roosters. So that put us down to about six laying hens. For some of you, you might think this would be plenty for us. But it's not! So Adam went and bought six adolescent hens. So no one needs to fret we will still have about twelve layers. Anyway, last Saturday we had our first four eggs. They are still small (eggs will get bigger in the next month as the hens finish growing) so I also made some of the store bought eggs so that we could have a little taste test. And let me tell you, they are better. Really, our fresh eggs did taste really good. So for those of you that are planning on buying eggs from us get ready.
Micah loves going to collect the eggs with daddy. He carries them back in his hands and so far he has only dropped one. When they come inside we always count them. For some reason he likes the number six but we haven't collect six eggs yet. Six is always somewhere in there when we are counting though.

San Diego Part 2

Well being in San Diego we had to head to the beach a couple of times. I like a nice warm beach where you actually want to go a bit into the water. Well this was not the case. The days that we went were cold and gloomy. Oh well, we had fun anyways. You may know that my brother Jay runs a camp for Hume in San Diego for a month during the summer. So Jay, Jen and Tanner joined us for a few of our adventures. They joined us for some fun in the not so much sun. Here is Micah and Tanner getting ready to build a huge sandcastle.

Actually the adults did most of the building. But Tanner and Micah were really good at destroying the castle.

Their favorite thing to do was to water the sandcastle. This caused Adam to make many trips into the cold water to get more buckets of water.

Micah did actually venture into the ocean a couple of times.

San Diego

This year we decided to go to San Diego for our vacation. It has so many fun things for kids. Our first stop was the Wild Animal Park. This park is great if you haven't been. So many animals to see, lots of shade, and not overcrowded at all. Here's my two wild animals at the beginning of the day.

Here's Micah and I taking a break. It is lots of walking. If you know anything about Micah right now he is not so into walking when you have to get from one place to the next. I mean, why would you when your parents love carrying you everywhere. Actually, he did a great job and did a lot of walking that day.

Micah's favorite were the ducks. He did get to feed them but even if he hadn't he would have still loved them the most. He just likes ducks.

My favorite was the gorillas. At the Wild Animal park you get a great view of them.

This might be a shocker. Adam's favorite was the bighorn sheep. I mean really, we live in the country, we can see goats or sheep every day. I think he just actually liked this picture and how it turned out. (Adam's favorite was actually the elephants)

We had a blast. Stayed tuned for more of our adventures in San Diego.

1st week of Summer vacation

We just finished up the first week of summer for Jill. She got to spend some time in Bakersfield with Micah visiting with Grammie and Grandpa. Then this past weekend we got to go to one of Jill's favorite places in the world ... Hume Lake/ Hume Lake Christian Camp. Three of Adam's five roomates from college were all able to visit together on Saturday and Sunday. The families of Dave and Jon live farther away and rented cabins for a whole week of vacation (lucky them!), while Adam and Chad live so close by with the easy drive from Fresno. It was great to spend time with college roomates now that we all have kids.

Here are some of us braving the sunken log in the lake to see some of the huge tadpoles that they have at Hume from what I am guessing are some really big bullfrogs. This was on our Sunday morning walk along part of the lake.

Boating on Saturday before lunch. Who doesn't have fun in a row boat (aka "slow boat'").

Playing in the mud at the lake. Most of the kids are lined up in the background and are busy playing. Everyone also loved the ducks that liked to roam around on the grass. The little kids would all go after the ducks to pet them while the rest of us watched.

Jill got to make her Smore's on Sunday before heading home. This was a must do item and when camp staff was too busy to start the firepit for us, a quick walk over to the general store for some lighter sticks and scrounging up some kindling solved the problem. Micah loved his first smore's and made Jill proud with how well he kept clean of melted marshmellow (the rest of the weekend we were not as lucky with lots of sand and dirt to deal with).

The Monday was a quick day trip up to Modesto to hang out at Nana and Pappa's house along with a bunch of his cousin's. Jill said that he was nonstop playing in the water and loved the whole time he got to play with everyone else.

Cooped Up? Its time to get outside

Micah's chickens (Adam's really) spent the week following Memorial Day in their new home "The Chicken Palace" before this past weekend being let out to roam in their run. Two reasons for this. One, I did not have to finish fixing up the existing fence as quickly and two, just like dogs and cats when you move houses, chickens also transition better when kept "inside" for a few days to get used to where they need to sleep/eat before being let out.

Quick over: Our coop is ?? years old. It first was a school bus stop shelter and was moved by tractor back and forth 1/4 mile each winter. It then got "fixed" up by the last owner and turned into the chicken palace. Next had atleast a half decade to fall into disrepair before getting a new roof, door and chicken wire wall. *see fencing needed to the right.

Ammenities: Two roosting bars set apart to avoid pooping on each other. Water and food feeders. Next up this summer will be fixing or making new nesting boxes for eggs starting this fall. It is also good to have a closable pop door to close at night and keep out things that like to eat chickens. Since Jill's two silkies are so small and do not like to fly/jump a ramp-door was needed. Here is one of the Buff Orpingtons demonstrating. Yes they do wait in the morning for it to be opened and then try to squeeeze through all at once.

The little black fuzzball to the lower right in the photo below is one of Jill's silkies. The other chicken were this size at about 3 weeks old and now all are over two months old. Micah loves to bring them out a snack after dinner (so far avocado and rice are winners while cooked carrots and baked beans were not recieved with much enthusiasm).

Only one chicken is "slow" enough to easily be caught for Micah to pet (the golden one below). The other chickens are pretty quick to move out of arms reach and we do not run near them so that they won't become afraid of us or get stepped on.

Preview of next month's chicken update: "Am I a rooster?" and "Names"

Work + Play = Laughter

Do you like to work all the time or play all the time? Tired of tiring to figure it out. The solution is easy, just think like a two year old!


It is difficult at such a young age to decide if it is better to go swimming or to take the wheelbarrow for a spin down the street. Micah has got it covered. After a quick break in front of the neighbors house he is up and ready to head down the street.

"Bumps" are a big favorite. Pushing toys, riding in cars, on bikes or by scooter Micah wants to go over the bumps. Even wagon rides require detours to the edge of the road or over the potholes and patches.

I am sure that the neighbors are amused by some or our evening walks and outings. Sometimes we don't get that far and end up throwing rocks into weeds or following a clown beetle (stink bug) as it crawls across the road. One of the best ways to motivate Micah is to tell him he will get to go outside and look for bugs.

Gotta get those bumps!

Micah playing with bubbles that he got for his birthday. After a rocky start with soap in the eyes from a bubble he got the hang of things and loved to chase and the bubbles.

Nanna and Poppa stopped by on their way home to the Modest area. Nanna taught Micah how to try and eat the bubbles!

Cluck, Cluck, Moo, Moo ... Micah has just turned 2!

Micah had his party about two weeks ago. Jill went with a farm them and came up with fun games for the kids to play. Game #1 is the barnyard animal search where the kids had to find the little plastic animals hidden in the hay. Here is Micah and some of the other kids looking for their animals.
Adam's favorite was giving tractor rides up and down the street with the neighbors tractor, trailer and hay (hey we provided the gas atleast). This was lots of fun and a little interesting too with the trailer attached to the scraper blade that could move up and down (low-rider country style).
Micah loved the rides and went almost every single time plus the evening before and the evening after with the neighbors. We didn't think about it but they hay can be scratchy on little legs. Micah got his share of scratches but didn't care becuase of having so much fun.
Game #2 was herding the "cows". The kids had a blast chasing around the balloons. It was a bit on the windy side that day so some of the adults had fun chasing balloons too and getting them out of trees and under cars.

Micah's petting zoo was open for awhile with most of the bigger chickens out in a makeshift pen on the lawn. Here is Micah's cousin holding one of the baby chicks. Everyone had fun and all the chickens survived all of the kids.
Tractor cake. Jill made a fantastic tractor cake and also had chicken scratch (chex mix), Micah's garden (veggie tray) and pigs-in-a-blanket among other things to eat.
Here is a close up of the cake.
Micah has really enjoyed being two. Besides saying "no" all the time, he likes to say "mine", "up" (wants to be carried even if only 20 feet to the car for example) and of course on his b-day why get your own hand dirty when you can eat out of someone else's hand.