Spring is here...

Anyone who knows my husband knows that one passion of his has always been animals. We have gone back and forth on this issue- in his mind we will have an entire array of farm animals (goats, sheep, pigs, a cow, chickens, etc). In my mind, we won't.

Slowly but surely he has been wearing on my resolve, much as he has with many of my earlier aversions, such as: some most vegetables, red meat, um...living in Iowa...

Yesterday he "surprised" me with an entire chicken setup in the garage- complete with hay for bedding and little feeders. The neat part? It was nearly all free, having been salvaged from an old shed on our property (I'm all about thrift!)

The long winter has been wearing on us both, and while he was shopping at the local farm supply store yesterday these little furballs caught his eye. What a way to usher in spring! So, after much of my normal hesitation, I agreed to go with, pick out a few, and try this whole farm animal thing.
The plan (in my mind) was 5 chicks. Phil's was a bit higher, and we settled on 25...but then there was the decision of which kind - colored birds or cute yellow ones. Because they are much prettier when they are grown, Phil naturally gravitated toward the colored ones. I, on the other hand, a product of much successful marketing by Easter retailers, preferred the yellow ones (who's ever eaten a brown peep?). After 22 little colored ones, I was the one asking for 5 of my little guys. (A side note: I also thought they would use the little green grass you get at Target for the Easter baskets.)

So, now we have 28. Look how sweet they are!

Ryan has had a blast feeding and petting them. He will go off and do his own thing for a few minutes (we all know what the attention span of a two-year old is...) and then he will run back yelling "Shicken! Shicken!"

At one point he spent quite a bit of time on the other side of the garage packing wood shavings into his little tractor- something he was quite used to doing while Phil was working out there. Then, we watched him drive his tractor over to the side of the tub and, handful by handful, added the shavings to the chick's bedding.

Looks like Spring is here!