On to 2014

On Monday we shared 5 of our ladies with some friends, bringing the flock down to 12 (from 17). I (Sweetheart) forgot to shut the door to the coop. Lindz, Wendy's friend, and her family came to stay with us Monday and Tuesday nights. They currently live in abroad. It was the first time that Wendy met Lindz's husband and their daughters.

We woke up on Tuesday morning to dead carcasses. 2 ladies survived the carnage. It was heart breaking. I spent the day shoveling dirt and doing tasks to get the trampoline put into the ground and set up. (After putting chicken parts and carcasses in the garbage...) At dusk, Hurricane came into our room, screaming "a chicky, a chicky, a chicky outside..." To our astonishment, a third chicken appeared from nowhere. We got her safely inside the coop. It was sad to loose the ladies, but how grateful we were that the third lady somehow survived. We don't know what attacked them, but we won't let that happen again.

Our neighbors hosted a New Year's Eve get-together.

They had food, fire, and conversation. The boys loved the sparklers that we lit.

We celebrated a New York midnight and went to bed shortly there after.

On New Year's morning, our neighbor hosted a Hot Chocolate Run. Her son wanted to run the 5K race in Phoenix. She put together a 5 year old length course for January 1, and our boys ran it for the hot chocolate. The girls joined us.

We followed the Christensen-Hoggan-Kirkham bowling tradition to bowl on New Year's day. The bowling allies open at noon here.

After the bowling we put together the trampoline and finally got the mat on, so that the boys could jump on it.

On Thursday I got the net up on the trampoline and did a few other odd jobs around the yard. I took the boys to the park and helped them practice with their new bikes. No training wheels. They both fell down a bunch, but by the end of the afternoon, both were feeling very confident.

On Friday we weren't feeling good, so we took it easy. I limited my outdoor activities to collapsing down four of our garden beds (the ones that were displaced by the trampoline.) The nuts had rusted quite a bit and getting them off required bolt cutters. Wendy updated our other family blog. She put up about 10+ posts.

Saturday we got coi fish and garden plants for the aquaponics system. We also got an automatic closer for the door into the chicken coop. I made some changes to the coop to make it easier to clean out. At the end of the day, 5 more ladies joined our group.

Be Well.