Baby Chicks!!!

Yesterday I officially became a farmers wife! I'm quite excited about this new project that God has guided into our lives. We've been waiting patiently for quite some time now, watching the barn grow from a field of corn to a foundation to walls, and now to a fully functioning barn. We know that we'll never forget the date of our first ever flock of birds. 11/11/11, AND they were delivered at 11 am! I wanted to be a dork and get the guys to dump the first tray of chicks at 11:11 am, but alas, I had to wait an extra 5 minutes, so the first chicks hit the ground at 11:16 am. Such little details you probably don't care about, but I just wanted to put them down. So, 12,240 +/- birds were placed. It was really neat watching the full process of unloading the truck, dumping the trays of birds and seeing how the birds responded. They liked it when you tapped on the wall and would head towards the noise (now they don't at 1 day old). They seemed very disoriented in the fact that they flocked around your feet and you had to shuffle your feet to move anywhere. Sidney was left on her own with the chicks flocking around her yellow boots, but I hurried over and we held hands and felt the chicks pecking at our boots; as Sidney said "that tickows". Today the chicks are much calmer, they scurry away from noise and are getting fast that you have a hard time catching them to hold them. Sidney loves being able to catch them and hold them, one after another that we have to tell her to stop and let them eat. Byron has shown me a FEW thing around the barn, but he's learing too, so he told me not to expect to have him explain things to me too much right now. In time I'll learn! I am telling myself I'm going to learn how to kill a sick chick/bird. If I want to learn all about the whole farming buisness, I have to do the dirty work too! We'll see how soon I feel brave enough to do that though :). So, pictures to go along with what I'm writing about...

Hanging out in the barn before the chicks arrived, and of course the girls having free reign of the barn before they're told to slow down! Love the fact that the girls are holding hands, I think the first time?


This is how the chicks come off the truck:


Us checking out the new chicks after they hit the floor. They flocked to our feet that we really had to walk SLOWLY and shuffle our feet to get out. Sorry for some bad picture quality, the barn right now is a mere 90 degrees F!


AND, the chicks just hanging out, some closeups of how cute they are NOW (won't last long!!)


Day 2 and Sidney was just in LOVE with these chicks! She is so proud of herself that she can go and pick up these chicks all by herself! As they're now getting older, they're harder to catch. I'm quite surprised she's this enthusiastic about them seeing she's my timid one around animals; wouldn't even pet a bunny at the pumpkin patch a month ago!


Love this picture! Just seeing the cute moments that stick in your head.


And I don't really have any pictures of Jodee seeing she's too fast to take a picture of, here is one for you!