{pretty, happy, funny, real} Winter Miscellany

~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~

Brought to you by Like Mother, Like Daughter

There has been quite the flurry of activity here at The Homestead the last week or so! I like to think we are creating a bit of our own "hygge" in the midst of winter dark and cold. (Thanks to my sister over at Chickadee Manor who shared the link!)

{pretty}

Deep winter!

We had near record December snowfalls. It was above our knees in most places! The kids (and Daddy) had fun sledding from the top of our front porch stairs down the hill and halfway to the river!

We had tractor problems, so our snowblower was out of commission for most of the month! Lots of hand-shovelling. We tramped a path down to the chicken shed, but the shed up in the backyard was nearly snowed in!

We also had our Second Biannual Christmas Tree Bonfire! We started the "tradition" two years ago with a Twelfth Night bonfire, a way to finish the Christmas season off with a bang! Last year we were up north and didn't have a tree here, but this year we invited some friends and ended up burning a total of five trees!

We had a mild night for the fire. The kids ran around with sleds, the adults chatted and cheered each tree, and we all ate marshmallows. Ah, nothing like a fire!

Goodbye Christmas!

{happy}

And hello CHICKS!

The new Brinsea incubator arrived just before Christmas, and we put seven eggs in on Christmas Eve. Monday was hatch day!

There were four eggs that had started pipping when we went to bed on Sunday night. When we got up in the morning, we were greeted with these two! (They hatch in the incubator, then we move them into the temperature and humidity controlled aquarium.)

It was an exiting day - by late afternoon, we had five little chicks! (Out of 7 that we incubated, 6 ended up being fertilized. When we candled the eggs last week, we took the unfertilized one out. There were 6 that had chicks growing in them, but the 6th never ended up hatching.) A pretty good hatch rate, all things considered.

Just hatched! Still in the incubator.

We spent all day glued to the incubator and aquarium. We've had lots of friends stop over in the last few days to see them!

They are quite the multicoloured little flock. One is very dark, one very light, and three a mix. They all came from our Rhode Island Red rooster and flock of brown hens (which we assume are also RIRs), so there must be some recessive genes at play here! Anyone know anything about that sort of thing?

These are for our laying flock, so hopefully there are more hens than roosters in the batch!

{funny}

A silly little girl.

{real}

Arden has just learned how to take pictures with the camera. The following selection is from her most recent photo shoot around the house. They are from a three and a half year old's level, and I was surprised by the beauty of a different perspective on things.

Oh the dust!

That's Les Miserables on the table… I'm up to about page 600! On to my third library renewal.

Ah, there's contentment in that.



~lg