Silkie chicks

Here I promised vacation pictures and just look at me, already breaking from my previously scheduled programming (that I haven't even started yet). Shame on me. But there was some big news around here for us this morning that I must now pass on to you. This message is brought to you by the silkie chicks who say:

"Cock a doodle doo!"

(or at least something kind of like that)

I apologize for being so negligent in the information department about our little silkies because I really did mean to tell you all about them; I just never got around to it. We had eight silkie eggs delivered to our door by our wonderful mail lady who had some fertilized eggs. We swapped her some duck eggs for some silkie eggs. She made a duck egg omelet and we threw ours in Andy's fancy homemade incubator and waited around for 21 days to get several little chicks. Well worth the wait. So cute. That was sometime back in May. May 23rd to be exact.

Since then we have been waiting for these little chicks to grow up, but they are so incredibly tiny it just seemed like they were never going to mature. Of the 5 chicks that hatched only 2 of them have made it so far. Every day we watch their tiny fragile-looking little bodies parade around the yard and wonder if we have 2 hens, 2 roosters, or 1 of each.

This morning I heard a terrible sound coming from our yard. It was awful. It sounded like one of our chicks was being eaten by something. I leapt for the door, jumping over a rocking horse, spearing myself on some piece of wooden train track, sliding across eight overturned toddler puzzle pieces (whose little round wooden handles become remarkably similar to marbles when laying about in just the right way) and then finally, heart racing, made my way out of the front door.

Once I was out of the door I saw Andy running over from the garden because he must have heard the same terrible sound. He and I met at the base of our pines, heads cocked, slightly grinning to find that horrid sound was coming from one of our silkie chicks. There he stood with his little head up and his tiny chest out trying so so hard to make a cock-a-doodle-doo that I swear he was sweating! He must have been embarrassed because he stopped trying just as soon as he saw us. Poor little guy. Right now he sounds like a really angry cat, but I'm sure he will sound like a rooster one day very soon.

Yes my friends (and family) we have a rooster out

there running around our yard and here he is: