Friends, Chicks and Chompers

They've arrived!! At just over 5 months, Hailey's first tooth appeared on the scene, followed by a second a few days later. She's been pretty happy about it, no "teething" so I think she's pretty lucky and hoping it goes that way for the rest.

Hailey's first friend! Brian and I made some excellent friends in our parents group and these girls came 3 weeks apart even though they were due in the same week! Stella and Hailey love hanging out, holding hands and tugging on each others ears. Lizzie and I get outside with the girls often and have a great time together.  She and John are awesome to have as friends- Brian and I feel really lucky to have met them!

The chicks are a month old! And grow so fast. In a couple weeks all their feathers should be in and they'll be ready to move outside. Hails and I take them outside on sunny days to explore in the yard.

2 weeks old and still fluffed out

3 weeks old - wings have really come in! Here's Hailey with the two hens (pullets) Bette Davis and Kashmir.

 4 weeks - Starting to get really awkward. Kashmir and the 3 roosters (cockerels) - Pip, Dash and Delta T Bird

It's so fun seeing the colours come out- they're cross-breeds so it's hard to tell what they'll look like in the end. Bette Davis is one pretty red head with a fiery personality to match and Kashmir is all blonde despite a purely redheaded mother! A daddy's girl I guess. She's definitely the most calm of the bunch. The boys look really similar so far-I tell them apart by the markings around their eyes.

Free Rangin'

We are loving the country life! It definitely keeps you on your toes with extra chores and wildlife to manage in and out of the house. This guy has been keeping us company in the kitchen lately. You can tell he was watching me when I took this picture from the reflection of his wee beady eye. That's about 4-5 inches across for scale. He's not poisonous though so we let him be.

Some of the more welcome visitors are the family of roos that like to bask in the sunny yard.

The weather is getting cooler so I'll need to refine my fire-building skills again. I also had a near catastrophe a couple days ago when we had some power failure. We live at the end of the electric line so I guess it isn't uncommon to have trouble. Normally it would have been fine, but I've been incubating chicken eggs and the outage came just as the fourth chick was breaking out of its egg!

We've got a big barn with a few coops sitting empty, a laying hen and a studly rooster and I thought it would be nice to build up the flock a bit. And what a great chance to learn to hatch chicks! When I get onto something I really go for it and so I learned everything I could about raising chickens, incubation and chick growth. I had to restrain myself to one in ten comments about chicken development when Brian got home at the end of each day. It really is a miracle though- 21 days from egg to chick. I collected eggs from our hen to incubate. She lays one a day. It's a little later each day until after a month or so she skips a day and starts over early the next day. I thought it was very thoughtful of her to rest from laying on Good Friday. Here is the Easter egg! Hailey and I had a little hunt for it.

We started out with 7 eggs incubating and added one more the next morning that I watched our hen lay and quickly popped it in with the others. Luckily because the other 3 eggs of hers in there ended up not being fertilized! I had 4 eggs from the woman who I rented the incubator from. All 4 of hers were fertilized. Guess our rooster is a bit lazy! Here are the proud parents of one beautiful chick:

You can check the eggs as they develop through a process called candling- using a bright light in the dark to see through the shells. Here's a fuzzy photo where you can see a beak or tail, not sure, but it was moving, so that's good.

 Just under 21 days later and all 5 of our chicks hatched! The power luckily came back on an hour later and they were fine. I was frantic though- boiling water and putting hot water bottles around the incubator wrapped in blankets to keep them warm. Our little flock:

Pip - first to hatch, tall and confident. Seems to be the ring leader. We think he's probably a rooster.

Kashmir - baby of our chickens, shy and sweet, fluffy

Bette Davis - if it's a boy, just Davis with beautiful eyes

No name yet

No name yet

The best chick of all!

Easter Angel

Three years ago Brian and I drove down a dirt road in the late afternoon. Kangaroos were gathered in the fields as we passed; the air was bright with a light that came from inside and filled up the sky. Standing together by the ocean I felt clearly the beauty we could create together.
This Easter I held the reality of that in my arms, a bundle of smiles, wiggles and sleepy eyes. I remembered from a talk that heaven is more than a place we're headed toward, but something we can experience here and now. We hold heaven in our arms and call her Hailey.
Brian read the words of an author and agreed completely when he said (basically) "You wait for a great and wise teacher to come along in your life and it turns out to be a baby." And a little child shall lead them... so true. We teach her to crawl, talk and run and she teaches us who we want to be. I am filled up and pouring over with the light from this day and the miracle of the Savior's love for each of us.

March Moments

I thought this looked more like "I'd like to see you try".

This month we moved a little ways out of town to housesit for the next 4 1/2 months at our friends' farm. They'll be off in Europe while we get friendly with the horses, chickens, cat and all the other wildlife we find in and out of the house! It's beautiful here and so peaceful. The stars are so bright in the dark sky, the yard is filled with bunnies and often kangaroos, and all kinds of parrots. There's a group of Willy Wagtails that spends lots of time in front of the living room windows.   I chased off a fox the other day. And of course spiders, mice, frogs and lizards... It's just a very magical place and I feel so blessed to be here to spend time with Hailey in such a beautiful setting. She seems to like it a lot, especially watching the chickens. There are flowers blooming- so nice to have fresh flowers in the house- a veggie/herb garden, and lots of bright studio space to draw, paint, or even carve glass.

Hailey has learned so much lately. She's now a pro at removing bibs, talks and sings and giggles and makes motor boat noises. She gets excited seeing herself in the mirror or a photo or video. She is getting pretty good and grabbing and holding onto things and loves wrestling lion and monkey. She can sleep all on her own at night next to me too!! She is a pretty happy and patient girl, makes us laugh a lot and brings so much joy and light into our lives.

A recent development. She'll randomly make this face at the funniest times!

January Photos

It's been a great month of birthdays, a wedding and a baby that grows by the minute and melts us with her smiles! We love her so much!

True Australian Initiation

This morning at about 5:30 I woke up with the sensation of water slowly leaking from my left ear. I haven't been swimming in a really long time, so was pretty sure it wasn't that. When my no longer half awake self realized what else it could be I summoned my inner calm to not completely lose it and rubbed my ear frantically (with silent screams- Hailey was asleep on my chest, and I didn't want to wake her or Brian). I didn't feel anything for a while after that, but then this very slight itch started up a couple hours later. Brian had a look in there and nothin. I had checked online where it said to put olive oil in and then flush with water. I figured I'd wait a minute- maybe it was nothing- and enjoyed some family morning cuddles when  the water leaking sensation started up and I knew something was on its way out. I had to muster up every ounce of whatever it is that allows you to not run in circles and jam your finger in your ear long enough to let the shameless squatter come out! I turned my ear towards the bed and sure enough, out fell a not so tiny spider. Man...

True Love

At work you meet all sorts of people with all sorts of stories to tell, and in Australia they especially love going for the shock factor. So you can imagine the kinds of stories I was told in an office full of mostly women who were present 8 hours a day for 9 months of my pregnancy. Some days I dreaded lunch breaks and the ladies certain to be there armed with low-fat salads and colourful insights into pregnancy, labour and motherhood in general. There were 4 of us pregnant upstairs and 3 downstairs. (I guess we took our human resources seriously).

I was lucky enough to spend my pregnant months at work sitting across from my friend Mika- a mother of 3 and originally from Japan where apparently they aren't so hell-bent on creating complete paranoia. Her stories of motherhood were so beautiful and heart-felt. She made me feel confident and secure that I could be the kind of mother I wanted to be and do whatever I needed to without fear. She spoke of her children with so much love it made me cry. One day she told me about what it was like seeing her babies for the first time, and watching them grow up and thinking no child is more beautiful than your own. And let me tell you, her kids are so dang cute! But I completely understand now because I cannot imagine a child more beautiful than Hailey. Each time I try, my love and her beauty completely surpass any ability to be described. Every day is more.

Love hurts. Today Brian and I took Hailey for a checkup and her first immunizations. I have never heard her give a cry of pain before and it broke my heart completely. I know it will protect her from things I would never want her to catch, but somehow it hurt so much knowing not only was it painful, but I allowed a little bit of something not so nice to be put inside her perfect little body. Like being a bad parent to be a good one. My little angel. She did make huge smiles at me this afternoon so maybe she's forgiven me, and I hope isn't feeling too uncomfortable from it all.