June's Calendar

These irises are from my backyard :) Makes me happy!


Already, the calendar is filling up.

We are doing a field trip blitz, it feels like, to end the school year. We've been to see the local Fiddling group (awesome!), gone to the youth theater for a production of Mulan, taken a family out to see our new baby chicks, collect eggs, and feed the big chickens, we're going to a 100 year old operational mill where they grow their own grains and mill them and sell them (all organic - yum), the summer reading program starts at the library, we have three local science center classes: one about birds and nests, one about sketching wildlife, and one about butterflies, strawberry picking and jam making, and we have VBS at the end of the month. Whew!

We are also trying to finish their Math workbooks and a lapbook each -- Mattie's will be about Judy Blume and the Fudge series (she's reading it right now), and Jonah's will be about Tadpoles and Frogs (we have a tank of them we are observing right now!) The bullfrog tadpoles and the smaller spring peepers are starting to grow legs...it's a little creepy actually.


And we have their Iowa tests coming in the middle of the month that I will have to administer and send back for evaluation. I am totally looking forward to getting those results.

In July, we are going to the cottage for about 9 days (BLISS!) and probably spending a lot of time at the pool soaking up rays and swimming.

The garden is chugging along, with the lettuce coming up, snap peas growing like crazy, and the tomatoes flowering. Only one bean plant though...hmmm, I'm wondering if I planted them too deep? I'm going to give thema few more days and then plant something else there if they don't sprout up.

Ahhh, summer. Busy but blissful.

A Near Death Experience...

This is how she looked all day yesterday...


We got our new set of chicks...25 of them. The first day they were all settled into their box, heat lamp blazing, water filled, and feeder ready to feed, we watched to make sure they were all eating and drinking and away we went. The second day, we made sure their feeder was full, lifted up the waterer to change it and to my horror and dismay, we had set the waterer ON TOP of one of the little chickies. I felt extremely guilty and responsible -- I thought I had swept my hand underneath the waterer thoroughly. This poor chick was literally smooshed flat. There was a slight indentation under the waterer, so it hadn't been crushed, just trapped there all night long without food and water. Its legs were splayed out, and it was breathing shallowly. Baby chicks are notoriously fragile anyway, and we had a feeling it would die, but it was still breathing. The other chicks were going nuts, already pecking at it and walking right over it. Tim said he would take it and bury it, saying, "It will probably die, and that's part of being a "farmer"." But it was still alive, so I decided we would take it home. It literally laid silent in my hands on the way home, eyes shut, no chirping. We set it up on the kitchen table with a lightbulb over it, a heating pad under it, and some water and food in the box. The chick lay still most of the day, no chirping, rarely standing up -- and when she did, she was very wobbly. It seemed like something was injured on her legs/feet. I force watered her, sticking her beak in the water until she swallowed -- I tried getting my finger wet and then sticking it in the food so that it would stick to my finger and then putting that against her beak. She took very little nourishment that way. When we went to bed last night I thought she would probably die that night and then we would go ahead and bury her.

This morning to our utter surprise, she was up and about. Little chicky chirps came from the box and she was eating and drinking for herself. She was even standing! Even though she wobbled a bit when she walked, she was still trying to do things on her own. She was responding to us when we put our hands in the box, curiously looking up at us and pecking our fingers.

Whew!

...and then today, she perked up!

She is such a champ! It really is a miracle that she has survived this long! Now I'm trying to convince Tim that this one needs to stay in our yard as our special pet. :) (We keep all of our other chickens at my MIL's).