Half acre homeschool

Today I became a "chicks roaming in my kitchen" kind of person. And I'm ok with that. Maybe I'll eventually train one of them to perch on my shoulder, and complete the pandemic look I've been cultivating over the last year.  Hubby taught us how to make a stretcher using sticks and rope, and the kids took turns getting rides around the goat pen.    Myself and the little ones checked on the orchard while feeding the ducks, and A got a kick out of one of my cherry trees being a "Sweetheart" variety. So I had to take a picture of my Sweetheart with my other sweetheart.  Another five hours for our 1000 hours outside challenge today, and a happy, tired mama here!

 The title definitely doesn't refer to me, but we'll get to introductions later. I thought showing off our first clutch of chicks as they're hatching would be a nice place to start. Exactly a year ago we got our latest batch of hens, and a rooster. We lost two, but the remaining girls have given us a steady supply of eggs. We've sold some, eaten a few, and even traded a couple for a bale of hay for bedding.  We bought a small incubator a while back, and tried it, unsuccessfully. I nearly lost heart, but decided to get a better incubator and try again. Yesterday, after 21 days on the spot, we saw little cracks in three of the 11 eggs. We kept watch throughout the day, and finally one little guy made an appearance! This morning two more had joined the crew, and yesterday's arrival had gotten nice and fluffy. One more egg has a definite crack, but we're not giving up on the others yet either! As you can guess, our learning topic