Blessed are you, Lord God,
maker of all living creatures.
On the fifth and sixth days of creation,
you called forth fish in the sea,
birds in the air and animals on the land.
You inspired St. Francis to call all animals
his brothers and sisters.
We ask you to bless this animal.
By the power of your love,
enable it to live according to your plan.
May we always praise you
for all your beauty in creation.
Blessed are you, Lord our God, in all your creatures! Amen.

Is finally here! The boys (Morgan and Elliot) will hopefully be home this weekend.

Preparing the site:

The girls are supervising the progress:

The Barn arrives:

And is gingerly placed on it’s pad of crushed stone:

Voila! The barn is leveled and safely shored up underneath:

Next tasks are to cut a chicken door, construct the inside pen for the wethers, and paint the exterior to match the house (which is corn silk yellow).

The banties are hatching! We’re so excited! I opened the incubator to turn the eggs and discovered a broken shell. Just as I was about to chastise the children for carelessly bumping the table and breaking an egg, I heard a faint “peep” and it quickly dawned on me that our little chickies are arriving!

How joyful to watch the birth of one (or in this case 17) of God’s creatures. He has indeed done a wonderflu job in making every living thing.

All things bright and beautiful
All creatures great and small
All things wise and wonderful
The Lord God made them all.

My neighbor Lyman just brought us 18 banty eggs to hatch! They are nestled in around the goose eggs and should all hatch at the same time. It looks like we need plans for a bigger coop. That brings our total to 43 chickens (!!!) and 4 geese.

Looks encouraging. Nice pink glow all over and all four eggs have a dark shadow nearer the tip of the egg. We’re at three days incubation. We will candle again on Friday to see how we’re coming along. 26 days ’til hatch… Ugh, the waiting is awful.

My little eggs have arrived! Jack is, at this very moment, setting up the incubator in our library, safe from drafts. Later this evening, we’ll unwrap the eggs and place them ever-so-gently into the incubator and wait.

For. Four. Weeks.

Oh, it’s a terribly long wait. I feel like an expectant mother. I’ve never been a goose Mama before! I’ll post a picture of the eggs later on…

Sebastopol Geese, that is. We picked up an incubator yesterday at the local farm supply. I won a clutch of 4 eggs on EggBid, yesterday afternoon. Aren’t they beautiful? I love their mad, curly feathers!

I decided a few years ago that I wanted geese because I am an egg artist (as a hobby). Getting eggs from a supplier is easy enough, but I wanted to have an ample supply to teach classes with and such. I also love the idea of having goose feathers handy for art supplies.

When looking at breeds of geese, I fell in love with these crazy-looking birds and was just about sold. I also love Toulouse geese - classic. However, when I read that Sebs are extremely gentle and friendly, I was completely sold. Can’t have a big bird nipping at my babes.

So, we wait for the eggs to arrive… Hopefully they’ll be here in a day or so from tomorrow.

Won’t they look lovely wandering through the lavender patch?