In the Spring

We had to say goodbye to our chickens this spring.  From what we understand, someone complained which lead our borough to send us  letter that we were in violation of ordinances and told us we had 10 days to get rid of them.  I spent the days leading up to day 10 gathering info and ordinances, but at the end of the day we hadn't read as well as we thought in the first place and it totally stinks.  The hardest part for me, beyond the strangeness of standing in the kitchen window and not looking out to see my girls and missing their eggs and sweetness, is that I really want to take the time to work on trying to do what I can to try to change the ordinances to at least allow us a few chickens.  But we're prepping our house to get it on the market in the next few weeks, so between house hunting and house prep and end of the school year activities and getting ready for baby #3 while I'm still sick 24/7, I just don't have the energy right now. 

Everything else is normal.  Good weather, windows open, kids happy outside (thank goodness!), yard work, grilling, lots of end-of-year school events, getting excited for the pool to open, lots of holidays and birthdays, getting excited about the baby.  That's all I have right now! 

From the Weekend

Grilled Pizza The trick is to oil both sides like crazy and grill one side of the crust, flip it over, then add toppings.  We did one with tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella and basil and another (my favorite) with olives, artichokes, red onion, oregano, mozzarella and feta. 

Limeade.

Flowers. Weeding. Watering.  Repeat.
Her own bouquet.

Mini Golf with Grandparents.

Fireworks and a 4th of July party with friends on the most beautiful summer night.

Backyard wild shenanigans.

Escaped chickens (the little ones are like Houdini!) 

More grilling.

Sprinklers and Baby Pools.

Bike washing in pajamas.

Water Balloons that take forever to blow up and 2 seconds to use.

Cartwheels.
Kids who look like they grew at least 5 inches overnight and dresses and shorts that seem to shrinking in length by the day.

It's crazy to think that the ice and fallen tree and longest winter ever were only 4.5 months ago and this is the same yard.  

Spring Chickens

Even though it just snowed again for the millionth time last night, we brought home a little bit of spring yesterday in the form of new chicks:

We promised Mia that we would replace her chicken who died last week and chickens love having buddies, so we couldn't just get one and when we went to get them there were only 3 of this kind left and we surely couldn't leave one little girl all by her lonesome! 

Mia, Nick and I each got to name one and I'm still working on naming mine.  One is named Kiki (by Mia), one is named Squeaky (by Nick) and one is still in the air for me to name. 

We already have (or have had and they're gone): Clementine, 

Stella, Penelope, Beatrice, Nicholas and Henrietta

On the list of potential names: Gracie, Violet, Ruby*, Lucy, 

Matilda, Delilah, June, Alice, Jane, Cecelia, Pollyanna, Annabel, Rosie, Flora, Scarlett*

*The current front runners.  They'll be mostly red/rust colors when they're fully grown. I'm also thinking of recycling Clementine because SHE turned out to be a HE, so the name was never technically used... 

Any other ideas to share?? Want to vote?? Come join the discussion on Facebook, it would be so fun to have you! 

::More on the coop from September

::Last year when we brought the big girls home

p.s. Thinking of getting chickens? This post is so great: 16 Things to Know Before You Have Urban Chickens

"While I am well aware that there are plenty of super thorough websites all about raising chickens, the problem with the Internet is that I often want Regular People Opinion. Not self-proclaimed Chicken Enthusiasts who have poultry inspired bumper stickers, or people who live off the grid and do All Things Natural and wear hemp clothes…but like, basic, everyday, woefully imperfect Suburbanites who want chickens and a veggie garden, but also drive a gas guzzling Suburban. "