Hatching!

Grandma Trudy's Memorial Azalea, above


Oh My! Our little Sharon, the tiny game bird sized chicken has six of the tiniest most adorable chicks, hatched right underneath our front porch! We only discovered them yesterday; see here for a post about our discovery of the nest. I was digging a hole for a lovely dwarf azalea to be planted in honor of Jake's grandma who died, when I heard some tiny peeps...At first I wondered if it was just more bird song, then followed the sound and laid right down on the porch to get a good listen. Sure enough! We don't know when the first one hatched, but we surmise it may have been 3 days ago. Here is Sharon and one little Peep, just to the left of her head:

She hasn't left the nest since Thursday. We began to wonder if she was getting hungry and thirsty, and have utilized the creative minds at this address to contrive a watering set-up: a PlayMobil trough that is lowered to her on an orange piece of yarn, then filled by a turkey baster. (A big concern of mine is chicks who are too new to know not to drown in their water!) Here's a photo that includes a chick, a mama, and the improvised watering trough:

You can see in the pictures that Sharon and family are just visible between the edge of the porch and the side of the house; when it rains, Sharon gets damp but the babies are toasty-warm beneath her. It's hard to get photos because of this unique nest location, but we'll keep trying. Peeps are usually blurry in photos because they don't stay still much! Here is Sharon, fluffed up and a little annoyed with the paparazzi:

While it's hard to get much done with all of this peeping happening, I do want to tell you that we'll be carving our own rubber stamps this week at the Rockport Library on our Wednesday night ATC group! We'll start with a little demo at 6 and everyone will go home with a piece of cardstock with all of each other's stamps on it! This month I will be facilitating, as Robinsunne will be absent (and sorely missed). Come prepared with your ATC supplies and, if you have them, bring carving tools (linoleum carving sets work well, as do fine woodworking tools). Check out what you can do with a simple hand-carved stamp. Below is a background paper, followed by an ATC that I made using it:
"The silver rain, the shining sun, the fields where scarlet poppies run" (above) is a line from a verse used for before-meal Grace. I don't have the author just now.

Interested in some wild pictures of colorful sea slugs? Click here! Thanks, Carrie. My favorite is the white-ish one with black stripes, with a little peplum on his/her bottom!