Has spring really sprung??

Well, we are heading into the last week of April in a few days. Easter has come and gone with the spring winds, we are still finding the occasional hidden Easter egg around the house. Time has been going so fast, and I have so much to do that it feels like only yesterday was February. It is cold and lousy weather, we still have piles of snow around the yard, and it snows off and on almost daily lately. But it warms up enough almost every other day to have the fresh stuff melt. What we really need is some sunshine!

We got the hen house reno done, we insulated the floor and painted for all the new chicks. They all arrived on April 11th all 75 of them. 60 are all little fluffy yellow meat bird chicks, and 15 are little black, layer chicks, given free by the fall fair committee, 10 pullets and 5 roo's. One of each to be returned to the fall fair, the rest are ours to keep. They are all so cute, and are growing so fast already.

We have a cold going through the hen house right now. I have no clue where they picked it up, or exactly how severe it is as of yet. I noticed it a week ago now, and I still have some sneezing out there, including Sylvester, my big Polish roo. I am still rather worried about them, when I went and spoke to the lady I buy all my grain from, she just told me to cull the whole flock. She said when one shows symptoms cull it, and burn the carcass, it is the only way to control the spread of the disease. Well, it isn't that I don't think that she knows what she is talking about, but I think that she could be going a little over board. I am not ready for that yet. They are all eating, drinking and enjoying their fresh air. So should they start looking listless, or should one die, then I can think more severely like that. But for now I am going to try to ride it out. I have ordered some antibiotics and they should arrive some time next week, so if they aren't better by then, I will treat the whole flock. A few of the girls have quit laying, and the egg shell colour has faded from a nice brown to a very pale brown. I can't even put into words how much I hope that they recover from this.

My tomato plants are all up, and are about 6-8 inches tall. I started about 100 of them this year, because of being un able to find any last year. I sure hope that we start getting more sun and less cloud, cold, and snow though now because they are getting rather leggy, dispite being right in a South facing window.

The bassets are doing well, Odie is battling yet another ear infection. We just can't seem to get rid of it completely. It doesn't help either that Hoover keeps on licking in his ear. The old guy has an appointment with the doc on the 30th of April and hopefully we can get better meds for his ear and a possible diagnosis for the scabs on his nose. I will be holding my breath that it is not lupus.

The cat managed to sneak outside a few weeks ago, and is being incredibly sly. He refuses to come to us, and if he sees us actually turns around and high tails it as fast as he can in the other direction. Little brat!! We are still feeding him, kid 2 brings fresh food out to the garage every day to make sure that he doesn't starve. Last night however I saw a nice sized black and white cat strutting through the yard, so I think that he might have found a friend out there too!

In other house hold news Pebbles, Luigi, Cledus, and Super frog are all doing great. So is the human family, kid one ended up with the flu the Tuesday after Easter, so I missed work and he spent the day hugging the toilet bowl, poor lad. I slammed my finger in the house door in March and more purple is still growing out from behind the cuticle. I am beginning to wonder if it will ever end. It hurt mighty bad too! Then last weekend kid 1 got his finger stuck in the steering wheel of his go cart, so we had to take the steering wheel off and take the boy with wheel attached to emerge to get it removed! It went well, no wait at all, and no blood or tears involved at the hospital. He was so embarrassed too!

I will try my best to get some pics over the next week or so and do a wordless Wednesday soon. So many new and exciting things going on here every day!

Please don't forget folks, there is NO creature or person that loves YOU more than he loves himself, other than your dog, so PLEASE adopt don't shop!!

Wordless Wednesday I