The Chicks Plot Their Escape . . . And So Do We

I feel like I've been slacking a bit on posting lately, but to be honest with you, I don't know how any of you have time to read my posts anyway! Spring is in full force here with the garden, yard work, Tball, school programs, field trips, someone needs a lunch packed, someone else needs clothes washed for tomorrow, and they all want to eat 3 times a day on top of it all (imagine that!). But seriously, I have at least 3 posts drafted and two in my head and on my camera, and one more requested, so it's just getting them written that is causing the trouble! ;-) Whew, enough about me, now on to your regularly scheduled reading.

Our cute little chickies aren't so little anymore. They are growing like the weeds in the garden. No wait, even faster than the weeds in the garden--I'm actually keeping up on those pretty well. We spent most of today making slow progress on a yard area for them and planning on building a coop. Some friends have offered to loan us their coop, it just won't be big enough when they're grown up so we'll be making our own at some point anyway.

So they are still in the chick box which is quickly becoming too small. Every morning I go in to change food and water (and usually a couple more times during the day--I'm working on a better food/water system as soon as we get them out of the little box!). And these crazy chickies have filled their feeder with straw (there's perfectly good food under the straw) and they all stare at me until I open the lid. As soon as the lid is open, one or more of them try to fly out of the box (see the wing on the right side of the picture?) Now, this takes some wrangling, as I still have one hand on the lid and now need to push chicks back into the box with the other hand!

It works best if I can bring a little helper with me! Fortunately for us, they haven't figured out they could just fly up and over the edge yet--they just fly up to the edge and stop there long enough to get pushed back in.Crazy birds! They're loving the worm and bug deliveries from the kids also! Hopefully some time this week we'll be able to get the outside coop/run finished and they can get out and get some exercise . . . and my husband can have his tool box back! :)