Welcome!

I'm Tonia and this is my family. There's Hubs, my wonderful partner; Bug, my darling daughter; and Boo, my charming son. We are the Collins clan. We are a homeschooling family who try our best to live out God's will for our lives every day. There are lots of stumbles along the way, but we love each other and this little life we're carving out for ourselves. Recently we found ourselves called to make some big changes in our lives so we're packing up the McMansion and moving out to a little farm in need of a lot of TLC. We have tons to learn and tons to do and we invite you to share the journey as we turn our not-so-new heap into a home.

Friday, November 1, 2013

Meet the Ladies (and Gent)

They're finally here! We are so excited to have our chickens home and we can't wait to introduce them to you. So, without further ado......here they are..... (oh, and let me apologize for some of the fuzzy pictures-chickens are harder to photograph than you might expect)


 
There's Betty- the "queen". She arrived first and quickly established her dominance. It was a little sad and a little funny to watch her boss everyone else around that first day they were all home.
 

 
There's Shirley, who's fairly quiet and minds her own business.
 

There's Thelma. I don't think we've heard her make a peep yet. She is often seen off and away from the rest of the flock...anti-social, I guess.


There's Dottie, who makes up for the quiet ones with her incessant cawing.....no sweet little coos and clucks for this girl, she's got complaints and she needs you to hear them!

 
There's Maude, another pretty unassuming gal.
 



There's Edith, who is in constant motion. She's the first one to grab any treat being offered and she's fast enough to get away from Betty when she starts trying to harass her.

 
There's Louise. We can tell her apart from Thelma for two reasons: one, she's thinner and two, she squeaks- it is the craziest thing to hear, but it's the only sound we've heard her make...very funny.
 

And last, but not least, is Henry the rooster. He is some serious comic relief, this guy. He sounds like an old smoker with his hoarse cockle doodle doo and although he's the smallest of the flock he struts around like the "king" that he is.

We are having so much fun watching these girls and guy! And, of course, it is super fantastic that we are getting eggs everyday straight away. We will bring in chicks in the spring so we can stagger the flock and keep active layers coming in, but for now it's nice to be getting to know how to care for chickens with already grown ladies. The kids are absolutely fascinated and truthfully, so am I. Chickens have been a dream for awhile and now that it's true I'm just in heaven. I can't wait to show you the wonderful coop and run the Hubs built for them, but that's another post for another day!


Tonia