Everything was going so well with the 5 hens a friend of ours gave us.  We let our 5 feathery friends out during the day to free range and roam our yard and our woods to find bugs, critters, claw the dirt.  Then in the evening all 5 of them would return to the coop that our friend built. We would lock them safe and sound in the coop until the next morning where the routine would start all over again.

Our kids have enjoyed collecting the eggs during the day and we have enjoyed eating these delicious eggs.  Well, this past Friday, after a short heavy rain, only 3 out of our 5 chickens returned from the woods. After some searching,  my husband found one lying dead at the edge of our woods and another one is still missing :(  So we are left with 3 now.  Who knows what might have happened during the day, maybe our neighbor's dog might have had something to do with it, but we don't know for sure.  So now my husband needs to build some type of enclosure with posts and wire around the coop to make sure we don't lose anymore.  We are sad, but we must keep it all in perspective.  They are just chickens after all. 

Below is a video of a family who is missing their little girl which definitely puts our chicken tragedy in perspective.  This is a video with a special message from an angelic little girl and it is just too good not to share.
Grab a tissue :(



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It's been a busy weekend with trying to adjust to having our new Australian Bearded Dragon Lizard, Leo, and our 5 one-year old hens that we got last week from some friends.  I am grateful that our new pets are fairly low maintenance and the kids are having fun with them.  I  am one of the leaders of our local homeschool group so we had a 2.5 hour meeting last night to plan for our upcoming school year. I am also trying to slowly get back into a homeschool schedule with my children with doing alot of morning work and I will gradually add more subjects throughout August.  So with all that is going on it is getting more and more difficult to post regularly, but since I enjoy updating my blog, I will do what I can to document a slice of Smith life :) 


Our chickens are really fun to watch and we have let them roam outside their coop during the day in our backyard.  When we first let them out of the coop this past Saturday, they were chasing all the crickets (a treat for them) and eating them!  They love our woods and it's amazing how they know when to go back into the coop in the evening then we lock the coop up for the night and let them out again the next day.  They have laid about 7 eggs for us so far and they are pretty and yummy!  Here are some pictures of a slice of chicken life :)


Three of my children and a neighbor friend point to the first egg that was laid.  My children are so excited to look for eggs in the coop each day!  Easter egg hunt everyday! 


Here are our 5 chickens enjoying their first day of freedom outside the coop:


2 of our chickens lay brown eggs...

And we had these delicious, rich eggs for breakfast on Sunday morning before Mass.  Our eggs were served on nice fine paper plates :)

Our 3 smaller hens lay smaller white eggs.



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I hope I will be a good mama to Leo and 5 chickens since having pets (especially these unique creatures) is so out of my comfort zone!  I also wonder if anyone else has such a unique combination of pets like us?????




And here's Leo.......

And here's our 5 chickens that we just got tonight!  We are now the proud owners of 5 one-year old hens.  We have two Buff Orpingtons and three smaller ones are Golden Duckwing Phoenix Bantams.  I took this quick shot of the chickens tonight.  This is where they sleep in their coop.  More pics to come later I'm sure :)   

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