Just Some Cool Things

I love this lamp we mounted on our front porch.  It's an ocean bouy light that my dad caught in the ocean years ago.  I've never weighed it, but I'm sure it weighs anywhere from 80 to 100 lbs.  It got flooded from a past hurricane sitting in my folks garage.  We brought it home, cleaned it up, painted it, put in a new light fixture, and mounted it on the porch!

This is a cool vase I picked up while serving in Iraq.  I actually shipped it home.  I stuffed it with a couple of pillows and wrapped it in blankets.  I didn't know if it would make the trip in one piece, but it did.  But when Mike went to pull out the pillows a few pieces broke off the top.  We super-glued them and it looks just fine, barely noticeable. 

The Chair.  I don't know what else to call it.  It's a cushioned rocker.  My parents' got it before I was even born.  So it's been around for a while.  It's an ugly 70's green color, and it's not all that comfortable.  And though it's old, it's probably worth nothing.  But it has sentimental value.  If I'm getting rid of anything I prefer to do it quickly.  The longer I have it, the more it tends to have meaning.  I want to replace it with a rocking recliner, but I have no intention of getting rid of it.  But I have no other place for it.  The recliner is on hold.

Chicken Fever

My first blog will be just a little history. Mike and I moved into our first owned home together in November 2008, just before Thanksgiving. There was a dog pen in the back yard we didn't know what to do with. We joked about putting chickens in it. Then, Henry, our neighbor, got some Buff hens and a Buff rooster. So we started talking a little more seriously about it. Of course, neither of of knew a thing about "chickening". We started looking. Then Mike surprised me. One night about 9 p.m. I heard a truck pull up in our back yard. It was Henry. He had found some White Leghorns that were raised for Perdue. They were escapees, so we got a good deal on them. We had 14 hens and a Rhode Island Red rooster that he got the farmer to throw in for us. I started getting frustrated because we initially got them just for the eggs. It took 10 weeks before they started laying. Then Henry got some bitties and raised them. Just recently, we bought all of Henry's chickens from him. He bought his for his kids, but they had little interest in them. He hatched our first 2 in an incubator 5 weeks ago. One died after trying to escape at 2 weeks old. So we have on left, a small speckled rooster. We had 5 more hatch on
Sunday, and there seemed to be one more trying to hatch this morning. Our fingers are crossed. We now have 13 White Leghorn hens, 4 Buff hens, 10 Black Sex Link hens, a Rhode Island Red rooster, a Dominique rooster, a funny looking something (not sure if it's a rooster or hen. Looks like a rooster, but doesn't crow), a mixed bantam rooster and hen, and all our little bitties. It's pretty fun. But this is what I'll be blogging about. Our little chicken farm.